The iPhone Mom

I’ve had an unusual app brought to my attention and I wanted to get the word out about it in case any of my readers are searching for this type of help. The app is called LifeForce Team Fertility and it’s designed to help those who are dealing with fertility issues. The App Store description says it provides information about the medical side to fertility as well as information about the spiritual side too. I’m constantly amazed at the variety of apps that are available and how they’re being used in all areas of life.

LifeForce Team Fertility costs $6.99 and I have not seen what the app actually does. If anyone out there has tried this app please post a comment and let us know what you thought. Is it helpful? Worth the money?

Price when Reviewed: $6.99

Seller: Back Door Productions & Management

We have four children and we have gone through a baby monitor with each child. I’m not sure why they fail on us every time but it probably has something to do with our buying cheap baby monitors. Inevitably the cord gets a short and you never know when it’s working or not. There’ve been many times when I’ve walked by the monitor and discovered it’s not on, so I go to check on the baby (because I’m worried it’s not been on for awhile) and by opening the door I wake her up. Oops!

I’ve read about iPhone apps that turn your iPhone into a baby monitor but I’ve never tried one out until now. The app that I tested is BabyPhone Deluxe (Baby Monitor). It’s easy to use, you configure the microphone’s sensitivity, enter in the phone number of another phone, turn the phone to silent and leave the room. The microphone sensitivity lets the iPhone detect more or less noise. I like less noise because I want to make sure she’s really awake and not just moving around in bed. I would suggest testing the app out before you actually use it to make sure you get the noise sensitivity set to the right level. The phone number is important because the app will call that number when it registers noise. And I probably don’t even need to explain why turning your phone to silent is critical. You wouldn’t want a phone call coming through and waking the baby up! Another nice feature is the ability to set a time delay between when the app registers the sound and when it actually calls you. I’ve got a decent delay on mine because I want to make sure my baby is actually awake before I barge in that room. You can also set the app to reactivate itself after it’s triggered. When you answer the phone you can talk to your baby over the iPhone’s speaker. This would probably calm many babies down but mine would only get more upset and wonder where in the world I was. Plus I’ve got to keep that feature hidden from my older kids or my iPhone is going to become a very expensive walkie talkie.

BabyPhone Deluxe also has a recorder that will record the noises and “talking” your baby makes. You’re able to adjust it’s sensitivity to sound and you can email out the sound clips. The app has an event log that tracks and displays everything that has gone on. You can see when the monitor was triggered and when things were recorded.

This app is $2.99 and when I add up the total amount of money I’ve spent on baby monitors it seems like a steal to me! Plus, there are no cords to mess with and no worrying about the monitors range.  Now here’s the catch for me. We don’t have a home phone so during the day I’ve got no additional phone number for the app to call. Drat! But if you’ve got access to another phone during the day and you’re looking for an alternative to a traditional baby monitor then definitely give BabyPhone a try!

Price when Reviewed: $2.99

Seller: Bluefields BVBA

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

My Baby Enstein is an app from the actual Baby Einstein people. Confession time, I never watched a Baby Einstein video with my three oldest children. Maybe I will have to play catch up with my youngest. I do know what it’s all about though and we’ve got a couple of Baby Einstein toys, one is a music player that Baby J absolutely loves. Back to the app, it’s divided into four sections and I’ll give a brief overview and some thoughts on each.

Video – Here you can see three clips from the Baby Neptune or Baby Beethoven videos. Each clip is around three minutes long. If  you’d like to add more videos to the app you can purchase additional sets of clips (featuring different Baby Einstein characters) for $.99 each. The clips are nice but with a $3.99 app it would be nice to at least get one more set.

Discovery Cards – These are flash cards for your baby. You are given  a pack of color flashcards and I liked these. They show you a color and then a series of things that are that color. With the tap of a button you can hear different facts about what’s on the flashcards. This section also has “My Discovery Cards. This is where you can create your own, personalized flashcards for baby. You pick a background and a name for the card and then add in a picture from your camera or photo library. It took me a few taps to realize that what I thought was the first flashcard I’d created really wasn’t a card at all. It was more of a button to display on the screen. When I tapped on that then I could choose “Edit Pack” and create the actual flashcards. Here I could name them and add in pictures. I could also record audio to go with the pictures. If you’d like to buy additional Discovery Cards then can be purchased for $1.99.  I don’t like having to buy more content,  but the “My Discovery Cards” and the potential that comes with that feature made up for it in this section.

Memory Book – Here you create a button like you did when you made your personal Discover Cards. When you tap on it you can choose “Edit Book”. Add in pictures and text, change layouts and add in Baby Einstein characters. You can add in multiple pages and have a nice way to make a portable photo book for your baby to look at. My kids loved their photo books when they were babies but they also liked to gnaw on them too. That wouldn’t be a good idea here!

Music – This section is basically an opportunity to listen to a sampling of Baby Einstein songs and then purchase a CD. It wasn’t my favorite section of the app.

On the positive side My  Baby Einstein is polished looking, will appeal to babies and I didn’t have a hard time navigating through it. On the negative side, I did experience a few crashes and the screen tended to go black on me as I was navigating through the app, but then it would come back up. I like this app but I’m not so keen on having to purchase additional content. I’d probably be okay with it if the initial cost of the app was lower. Just my two cents. My favorite parts of the app were the abilities to create personalized flashcards and a memory book.

Price when Reviewed: $3.99

Seller: Disney

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

BusyBaby is meant to be used as entertainment for your baby or toddler. I have a 9 1/2 month old baby in my house so I tried this one out on her. I’ll give you a run down of the four sections in the app and let you know what Baby J thought.

Smiley – The “Smiley” screen has three things on it- a puppy’s face in the background, a sunshine in the corner and a smiley face. The smiley face moves around the screen while you move your iPhone. If you tap it then you’ll hear a baby laughing. If you tap on the puppy it will bark at you. The sunshine in the corner fades in and out and if you touch it you’ll hear a sparkly sound. On this page the only thing that seemed to hold Baby J’s interest was the puppy. When he barked she paid attention.

Rattle – In this section you can scroll between five different rattles. They appear on the screen and when you shake your iPhone they rattle, each one with a different sound. Baby J wasn’t really interested in this section. She’s used to being able to put her rattles in her mouth and when I wouldn’t let her do that with the phone she was peeved.

Letter Safari – This section has soothing background music. The alphabet scrolls across the screen, pausing with each letter to tell you what it is and something that starts with it. “F is for Frog, G is for Goose…” This was Baby J’s favorite part of the app.

Sing Along – Here you can listen to nine classic children’s songs. The music plays and you are supposed to sing along. The lyrics are provided for you on the bottom of the screen but in my opinion they need to be a bit larger and easier to read. Also, the musical accompaniment is nice but I think I’d rather hear the son sung in case I didn’t feel like doing the singing myself. Baby J really wasn’t into this part of the app but I did learn there is more than one verse to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. How did I not know this before???

I’ll probably try using this app out again when my daughter is a little older. It did distract her for a bit but I think she’s still a bit too young and her teething instincts are just too strong. She’s almost 100% focused on getting the phone in her mouth rather than what’s on the screen.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Tango Down Studios

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

I reviewed the baby Calm app awhile back and they’ve recently released a new version so it’s time for an update. See my original review here.

The new version has added four new sounds – faucet, mixer, hair dryer and ambient music. There is also a virtual rattle, shake your iPhone and you’ll hear a rattle noise. My nine month old wasn’t too interested in those features but she really liked “The Closer”. This addition is a black screen with four circles on it. The circles are red, yellow, green and blue and they turn colors one at a time while music plays. I’m not sure if it was the music, the colors or the combination of both but she really wanted to get her hands on my phone once I turned it on.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Synthetic Bits

50,000 Baby Names is a free baby naming app. You can browse through their list of names or search for a specific one. When you’re looking at names you can filter them by gender and sort by alphabetical order or popularity. Tap a name to read about it’s meaning. Here you’ll also be given a list of similar names.  The app uses something called “Sound Print technology” to create the list of names that sound like the one you’re viewing. I thought this was a great feature. You can also view “obscure” baby names and these can be sorted by their ethnic origin. Names that you like and want to remember can be easily placed on a favorites list . I was impressed with the amount of content in this free app and especially with the lists of similar names. If you’re hunting for THE perfect baby name try this one out, you can’t beat the price.

Price when Reviewed: FREE

Seller: Total Ecommerce LLC

Name Shake is a baby-name-finding app. It has over 19,000 different names and gives you plenty of ways to search for the perfect one. The app features a wheel with three parts – gender, ethnicity and alphabet letter. If you’re looking for some random inspiration then shake your iPhone and see what pops up. Or you can spin the wheel yourself and select the gender, ethnicity and letter. You’ll be given a single name or you can tap “list” and see an alphabetical list beginning with the same letter. Names are shown with their pronunciation and meaning. If you find one that you like you can save it to a favorites list. The app also features an advice screen that can give you some help on picking just the right name. You can add in your last name and it will be displayed with the names that come up during your search. This way you can look at them together and see how they fit. Or don’t fit.

I like the look of Name Shake and it’s got great usability. Everything is easily accessed and the app moves quickly. I think it beats a big dusty baby name book any day.

Price when Reviewed: $2.99

Seller: NameSakeLLC

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

Nursing Notes is a very straightforward app for tracking your baby’s feedings.  You begin by entering baby’s name (you can track more than one if you’ve got twins, triplets…). Then it’s just a matter of tapping the plus sign to add a feeding, spinning a time wheel to set the time and then tapping left or right. It’s really just a matter of a few taps and swipes to record the feeding. If you like you can add in the minutes that it takes for your baby to eat.  The feedings show up in a list as you add them in. You can’t enter in bottle feedings and amounts, the app only tracks breastfeeding.  My favorite feature from the app is the push notification system. You can set them up and receive a notice when it’s time for your next feeding.

There are no extra bells and whistles to Nursing Notes, it’s meant to only keep track of breastfeeding. Personally, I’m okay with that. I don’t need to analyze and track everything else my baby does. But I’ve got four kids and my attitude became more lax with each one. If you’re looking for an app to track every baby detail this isn’t the one for you. But if you only need to track your breastfeeding then it does a fine job.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: J.D. Was Here

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

A few weeks ago I reviewed the Build A BragBook Story app. Scott Singer has just released another app – Build A Baby BragBook that takes it up a notch and allows you to record yourself reading your own story. You can write your own story. The app provides the illustrations but you’re still able to add in your own photos. I think this is a great concept and I really like having the ability to record your own narration.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Scott Singer

Baby Photos is a cute app for dressing up your baby’s (or bigger kids) photos. It allows you to add frames, stamps and text to the photographs. There are traditional frames as well as some that are more like backgrounds. My favorite are the cutouts, cute figures with the face’s cut out where your baby’s smiling face can go. They’ve got a butterfly, bumble bee, sheep, flower and tiger. The stamps are divided into categories – hats, items, accessories and labels. You can resize your original photo and the things you add to it. The add-ons can also be rotated but I found this feature to be really sensitive. When I would try to resize something (with the pinch and zoom motion) I always ended up rotating it as well. If there was a way to make rotate a separate function it might be easier to use. Finally, you can add on text. You can type something in, choosing from several text and color options. Or you can write free hand. Here you choose the line’s thickness and color, then write directly on the screen. Text can be moved, rotated and resized once it’s on the screen. When you’re all done the photos can be saved in your photo album and emailed out from there.

When you’re looking at the stamps make sure you scroll up and down. I didn’t realize that there are more things that can’t be seen on the screen. If you swipe your finger towards the top of the screen they’ll scroll up. My suggestion for the app was to add more accessories, etc. but they were there all along. I found Baby Photo’s hats and accessories to be very cute. My girls got a kick out of playing around with it and jazzing up their dolls.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Dream Cortex