The iPhone Mom

The Infant Arcade apps are a series of apps that have been developed for babies 6 months and older. I tried out three of them.

Peek-a-Boo: This is a simple app where a character on the screen hides behind one of five objects. For example, a jellyfish will be hiding behind one of five clamshells. The idea is to have your baby touch the object in front of the character. If they get it right it will appear and then hide again. After a few times the scene will switch to a new character and new objects. Since this app was designed for infants the characters aren’t completely hidden. Enough of them will be visible that we older folks can easily tell where they are. There’s a nice musical soundtrack that plays and when you touch the screen there are funny noises and sound effects. My one suggestion for the app is to have the character say “Peek-a-Boo” when you find it.

Numbers: The Numbers app asks your child to catch things as they bounce around the screen. For example it might tell you to “Catch the lions”. Your child would then need to tap on all the lions until they were lined up at the bottom of the screen. Each time they tap on one the app counts a number out loud. When everything has been counted they’ll hear “You did it!” and then something new to catch will appear. There is also another game mixed in with this one. This game displays objects on the screen and asks your child to tap on the number that applies. So they would see three monkeys and then have to choose whether to tap on a 5, 3 or 1. I don’t know if I’m explaining that very well. It’s one of those things that’s easy to grasp when you look at it but hard to put into written words. Numbers also features a pleasant soundtrack.

Alphabet Creatures: There are a few different activities within the Alphabet Creatures app.  One will show you a screen with several letter blocks bouncing around. Here you’ll tap all the blocks and hear the names of the letters. Another screen shows you one letter. When you tap on that you’ll hear it’s name, what it “says” and you’ll see a picture of something that starts see with this letter.  Other screens show you letter blocks and when you tap on them you’ll hear and see the name of something that starts with them. Yet another screen has animals on it. Choose an animal to tap then see and hear it’s name and watch it bounce off the screen. The other part of this app is the “ABC Song”. When you play this you’ll hear the alphabet song and letter blocks will appear on the screen in time with the music. You can tap these blocks as they appear or at any other time during the song. When you do this the app says the name of the letter, while the song still plays. Here there are also animals that bounce along the bottom of the screen during the song. Tap on them and they will spin and say their name. So by tapping on the letters and animals you can add some spice to the ABC song.

Out of the three apps that I tried I think that Peek-a-Boo is the one most suited to the 6 month age range, although you’re probably going to want to play with your baby instead of handing over your iPhone. I know that I’d be the one doing the tapping too because my daughter is a drooling, sticky mess and her fingers are never dry. The Numbers and Alphabet Creatures apps are more suited to older “babies”, I’d say around 12-18 months.

Infant Arcade: Peek-a-Boo

Price when Reviewed: $.99 (Free version also available)

Infant Arcade: Numbers

Price when Reviewed: $.99 (Free version also available)

Infant Arcade: Alphabet Creatures

Price when Reviewed: $1.99 (Free version also available)

Seller: Iskandar, Inc.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.