The iPhone Mom

I bought Gello Doodle last week based on the sheer absurdity of it’s concept. How could I not be intrigued by an app that’s built around Jell-O? Actually the app is called Gello and I’m sure that’s because there would be legal trouble if they called it Jell-O. But Gello is like Jell-O and it all wiggles and jiggles, which is part of the fun of this quirky app.

Gello Doodle is for everyone who’s ever wanted to play with their food. Seriously. That includes me. You begin by choosing a Gello mold. Right now there are 22 molds to choose from. Molds include a monkey, a basic oval and even a kangaroo. Now you make your Gello by tapping on the Gello box at the top of the screen. The app gives you color levels that you slide and adjust until your Gello is the perfect color. The next step is to pour it into the mold. I’ll admit that it took me a few tries to figure out how to do this. You have to pick up your iPhone and pretend to pour in the Gello. When your phone goes through the pouring motion it will slide out of the beaker, off the screen and into your mold. Make sure you pour it all in so your mold fills completely. You can also fill it part of the way, then change the Gello color and finish off the mold with a new color. When your mold is full  you can add in some doodads. That is the actual Gello Doodle word for it. Doodads are the things that you add into your Gello. In real life it’d be things like pineapple, pears or marshmallows. Here you have fruits, nuts, gummy things (frogs, worms, bears), cookies, candies and crackers. Then you’ve also got wacky things like flowers, bolts and shoes. You can even take a picture from your camera roll, select part of the image and add that to your Gello. Choose which doodad you like and then tap on the Gello mold to add it. You can add as many different doodads as you like.

When you’ve made your Gello you’ll tap on “Demold” and set that Gello free. Your Gello will wiggle around the screen as you move your iPhone. The next step is to play with your food. You can pump the Gello full of air until it explodes or slurp it up with a straw. You can also adjust the gravity and elasticity of the Gello.  If you put your finger on the Gello and move it around the screen it will twist and turn and follow your finger.  What’s included now is fun but I’d like to see a few more things included for playing with the Gello.

Gello Doodle is pure, mindless fun. My kids are getting a big kick out of their molds. As for me, I quite enjoy slurping the Gello off the screen. I’m not sure if it’s the noise or the fact that I get a clean screen when I’m done. Clean counts for a lot right now because thanks to my sweet refluxing baby nothing in my house is clean for long. Whatever the reason, I’m finding Gello Doodle pretty darn  entertaining.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Shoe the Goose

I saw the Wee Mee Avatar Creator in the “What’s Hot” section of the App Store this week and had to give it a trial run. I use the Wee Mee creator to create my Windows Live Messenger avatar. Alright, actually my kids are the ones doing the creating. They love to get on and change up my Mee’s hair and clothes. Not to mention all the accessories that can be added on. Right now she’s wearing a pink cowgirl hat, sparkly shoes and standing by a windmill and daschund.  Random, I know but somehow it works. There is a website for the Wee Mees called Wee World but we don’t use it. It’s more of a social networking type site  so we stick with the Messenger Wee Mees and everyone is happy.

I got off on a bit of a tangent didn’t I?  Back to the Wee Mee iPhone app. You choose a body (and yes, they do wear undies, albeit skimpyish ones) and head shape. You can customize your skin color and then it’s on to facial expressions and hair. That is my daughter’s favorite thing to choose for me. My own brown locks are so boring that having the endless possibilities of long, colorful, beautiful hair is irresistible to her. The app lets you pick clothes, accessories and backgrounds. There aren’t as many choices as you’ve got online but I’m hopeful more will come in updates. (Online there are oodles of choices, so just because I say there aren’t as many in the app doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty. Make sense?) Go through all the avatar options and it’s just a matter of tapping and swiping until you get THE perfect look.

So having the Wee Mee Avatar Creator can be fun, like elaborate paper dolls on your iPhone, but what can you DO with them? Well, once you’ve finished an avatar you can save it to a Wee Mee gallery. And then you can email it out or save it as a photo for one of your contacts. The next time my kids tell me that they are bored I’m going to let them loose with this app and have them create a Wee Mee for every one of my contacts that needs a photo. Can’t wait to see what they come up with!

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: WeeWorld

I’ve seen coloring book apps that are good and coloring books that are, well, bad. Ones that are so complicated you’d need to be a rocket scientist to color a picture of a rocket (ok, exaggeration) and some that are so simple your kids will be bored from the get go. 123 Color is different. Here, different is good. Very good. It’s filled with fun pictures to color but it also teaches number and letter recognition at the same time. Your children will be learning while they are coloring.

The concept behind 123 Color is to match letters/numbers in the picture with letters/numbers that correspond to different colors. It’s like the color by numbers that I used to do when I was in school.  Just to be clear that’s Elementary school, not college. You can choose to color in uppercase letters, lowercase letters or numbers. There is also a “creative expression” option. Each of these options is assigned a button on the main screen. Tap a button and you’ll have a coloring page that has letters/numbers scattered around it. Now, at the bottom of the screen you’ll see a painter’s palette. Tap here to see your colors. This is important – swipe to the left and the colors will scroll along the bottom. There are more available colors than the ones which show up on the screen. (Unless you’ve selected 7 colors, more about that in a minute.) Now you tap on a color and then tap it’s matching letter/number on the page. If you need some help, tap on the coloring page first and the colors at the bottom will adjust to show you the set that contains the letter/number you’re looking for.  As a grand finale when your picture is fully colored you’ll hear a familiar children’s song.

123 Color was developed by Steve Glinberg who is behind KidCalc. Like KidCalc, this app has some great customization abilities. Within each activity you can adjust the settings. There is no need to visit a separate settings section. You can change the learning activity (lowercase letters, numbers, etc.) no matter what button you selected in the beginning. You can choose to hear things said aloud in English by a man or woman or Spanish. Or you can opt for silence from the app. One of the features that I really like is the ability to adjust the complexity of the coloring pages. This means you can choose between 7 and 30 different colors. If you choose 7 then you will only work with 7 letters/numbers which is great for the younger kids. The last adjustment that I appreciated involved the songs. I’m all for a song but not necessarily every time my child finishes a coloring page. So for those days when there’s just not room for music in my heart I can turn off the songs. Or if I’m having a day where “The Muffin Man” is just right but “Yankee Doodle” is all wrong I can turn on or off certain songs.

Very briefly, here are a few other things to note about the app. You can save finished pictures to the camera roll or email them out. There is a “do over” button. The main page has a link to a demo video that can walk you through using the app. Finally, “creative expression” lets you color the pictures however you want. You don’t do this by coloring with your finger on the screen. Tap a color and then tap on an area on the page. The colors are filled in by blocks. This is my favorite way to do it for the younger kids because who can stay in the lines when you’re coloring with a finger anyway? I know that I can’t.

123 Color is a fantastic coloring app. My only suggestion concerns how you change to a new coloring page. Right now when you want a new picture you tap a frame icon at the bottom of the screen. My first instinct was to shake my iPhone and it took me a minute to realize what I was supposed to do. Kids might get it right away but I’m not sure. That is my only quibble with the app and it’s so very small and it certainly doesn’t affect how much I like it.  Currently there are 32 different coloring pages. Based on what I’ve seen Steve do with KidCalc I think it’s a good guess that he’ll add more in the future.

If you are looking for a coloring app and you want it to have a purpose (in addition to entertainment) then you really need to grab this one. It’s very well executed, runs smoothly, is fun for the kids and you’ll know that they’ll be practicing key preschool skills.

**I just got word that I’ve got two promo codes for 123 Color to give away. This app is absolutely worth you leaving a comment.  But that’s not all, I’ve got three codes for KidCalc. Again, another app that’s worth a comment. So here’s how we’ll do it. Leave me a comment that says “123Color” or “KidCalc”. (You can write more if you want but don’t have to.) If you want to enter for both then please leave two comments, that way I don’t have to go through and separate things out. I’ll leave it open through Monday and then randomly choose some lucky winners that evening. Good luck!

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Steve Glinberg

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

Emily’s Girl Talk is a collection of games, some of which I played when I was (much) younger. It includes MASH, The Lemon Game, Cootie Catcher and Love. Back in the day I played them with paper and pencil but things have come a long way. Since my girls are the perfect age for this app I asked my 7 year old do the review. She gave me a great run down and what follows are her words. I put my comments in blue. Take it away Miss S!

Emily’s Girl Talk has four games that are girly. The first game is MASH. There are different categories that you have to fill out. (crushes, cars, cities, jobs, wedding dress colors and numbers) If you press the plus sign you can pick one of the words that are already there. If you tap on the line you can type in your own. (The app comes with a list of preset things you can choose from to fill in the categories. These are seen when you tap the plus sign. If you want to enter in your own tap on the line next to the plus and you’ll get the keyboard.) If you tap “Emily’s Pick” the app fills in the things for you. At the end you pick a number and it does something with that number and then makes a prediction. The prediction is of one thing from each category. It tells you who you’re going to marry and where you work and what car you have and your city and number of kids.

The Lemon Game – You type in girl names, boy names, body parts, cities and things you can do with a lemon. (Again, plus sign brings up preset list, tap on line to type.) Or click on “Emily Picks” and she picks things for you. Touch a lucky number. Like MASH it uses your number too but it takes your things to make a silly sentence. It’s kind of like Mad Libs. My sentence when I showed my mom was “Victoria will suck Kevin’s ear in Lima”. (I’m not so sure about that sentence!)

Cootie Catcher – Type in a question that you want a yes or no answer to. (There are no preset questions.) Then tap on a number on the cootie catcher, then on a color, another color and then you get an answer to your question. The answer is not always true. I like this version of Cootie Catcher. My girls can play it and now I don’t feel guilt because I threw away all the paper versions that were lying around the house. Plus there are no mean results.

Love – Enter your name and the name of your crush. I did my sister and Obi Wan Kenobi. It does some sort of calculation and comes up with your chance of love, like 23%, 38% or even 100%.

The Journal – The journal keeps track of everything (your results) for the games you’ve played.

Emily’s Sticker Album – When you finish a game it gives you a new sticker for that game.

Email Emily – You can email Emily by clicking on “Email Emily” on the front page.

Options – Has background music, sound effects, something called Twitter settings and a clear button for your journal.

Emily’s Girl Talk has been a big hit with my girls! I think it’s perfect for tween aged girls. I’ve been given two promo codes to give away, if you’d like one leave me a comment. The codes will only work in the US app store.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Broken Thumbs Apps

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

Noteworthy Places is an app that I could really use. When you are out and about and you discover a place that you’d like to remember you use this app to mark it down. The app notes the location’s address and it’s place on a map. You can add in comments, a phone number, a rating, or even a voice memo to the location’s information. You can also snap a picture and add that too. Now you have the location noted down and it shows up on your personalized list. Once you’ve added in entries the list can be searched, viewed by categories and sorted by name, distance, rating and date. Find the location, tap on it and all the information you entered is right there.

Noteworthy Places doesn’t come with any preloaded applications and I think that’s fantastic! Instead of having to wade through locations that other’s think are important I keep the list limited to what I know I need. It’s my own personal list that I’ve created. I also think this app would be a great one to take on vacation. As you’re out and about exploring you could keep track of your favorite spots. Then if you ever happened back that way you’d know exactly where to go.

Noteworthy Places is currently free for a limited time. I’d suggest grabbing it and giving it a try.

Price when Reviewed: FREE (limited time)

Seller: Oblik Systems

This post is more than a little overdue but here goes. For Christmas Santa Claus brought me a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. What I had asked for was Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred DVD. That made it under the tree too but when I opened up the ice cream maker I decided that Santa has a wicked sense of humor.

The ice cream maker is fantastic and it couldn’t be easier to use. It comes with a freezer bowl that you store in your freezer. Then when you want homemade ice cream you pull out the bowl, mix up the ingredients and set the bowl down onto the ice cream maker’s base. There is a paddle that you set down inside the bowl and a cover that goes over all of it. After you’ve done all that it’s just a matter of turning the machine on. There’s no rock salt and ice to mess with and the machine is noisy but not so much that you want to chuck it outside. The best part for me? Homemade ice cream doesn’t come in a container that’s covered in nutritional information so  I can eat it without guilt. We’ve also used it to make more than just ice cream. I’ve put soda in the freezer bowl and turned it into a yummy slushie. Last week I made homemade cherry slurpees that were pretty darn tasty.

Santa also included Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book. The recipes are easy to follow and yummy and they’ve included their most popular flavors along with some extra treats. Our favorite recipes so far? Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Chocolate Fudge Brownie. The homemade versions taste great and it costs a lot less to make up a homemade quart than to buy a pint in the store.

My seven year old daughter uses the word “stinking” when she wants to give a phrase some extra oomph. It might be “stinking mad” or “stinking funny” or “stinking cute”. The last one makes no sense (because can something be stinking and cute?) but when it comes from her you know exactly what she means and that it’s the highest of praise. Now that I’ve explained let me tell you that “stinking cute” is the phrase that came to mind when I saw the animals in Jumble Zoo. I promise, it’s a good thing!

Jumble Zoo features flashcards of zoo animals. Each one is divided up into three body parts – head, middle and bottom. You can swipe your finger across the screen to change the different parts and make some pretty silly animals. When you’ve matched up the correct parts the animal is shown in it’s “habitat”. Now you can tap on the pull string (that doesn’t sound right but I can’t think of a better word) at the top left of the screen to see the animal on a plain white flashcard background. Here you’ll also see a microphone icon on the bottom right. If you tap that you can record yourself saying the animal’s name. From then on you’ll hear the animals name when you match up the body parts.

Right now Jumble Zoo features 9 different flashcards,  7 animals, 1 zoo keeper and 1 zoo visitor. I absolutely adored the graphics in this app. The app costs $1.99 and I’m hoping more animals are added in future updates. Because the world could always use more stinking cute zoo animals.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Stuart Eaton

Last year Oceanhouse Media brought Dr. Seuss’s Grinch to the iPhone. Just last week they released an iPhone version of “The Cat in the Hat” and “Dr. Suess’s ABC”. This weekend I tried out the Dr. Suess’s ABC app because that is one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books. It’s a fun twist on an alphabet book and as far as Dr. Seuss books go, the words are easy enough to pronounce. The book’s illustrations translate well to the iPhone and I like the way Oceanhouse has kept the story’s text in different sizes, just like it is in the book. You can read the story to yourself or listen to a narration. The narrator does a great job and there are fun sound effects that add to the story.  The app itself is simple to navigate. Swipe the screen to turn pages. Tap on words to hear them said and tap on pictures to learn words from the page. I love having this classic on my phone. Well done Oceanhouse!

Price when Reviewed: $3.99

Seller: Oceanhouse Media

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

Preschool Connect the Dots is a HUGE collection of connect the dot puzzles for your preschooler. The app has more than 200 puzzles to complete and features a ton of customization. This app is perfect for preschoolers and it’s easy to connect the dots. Tap on the beginning dot and then draw a line with your finger to the next one and so on. As you touch the dots the number or letter on it is said out loud. When the dots are all connected the outline turns into a picture. The graphics are very well done.

In the settings you can really make this app your own. You can decide if you want to see connect the dots with numbers, upper or lower case letters. You can also turn on or off the ability to draw your own line from dot to dot. There is an autoplay feature that will start a new puzzle right after you finish one. Turn this off and you’ll need to tap an arrow to advance through the puzzles. The puzzles are grouped into five categories. In the settings you can turn off the categories that you don’t want to see in puzzles. Finally the app features three hint modes. Easy mode will automatically show you the next dot that needs to be tapped. Normal mode doesn’t show the next dot until you’ve tapped the wrong dot. Hard mode shows no hints at all.

Preschool Connect the Dots is very polished and put together. This app will provide plenty of entertainment for preschoolers and peace for mom. 

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Darren Murtha Design

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

I found Playscape Matching to be an absolutely adorable matching game. The screen is covered with rows of clouds. Hiding behind the clouds are numbers, colors, shapes or letters. To play you tap on the different clouds, looking for matches. When you find a match a little bear named Ben will pop up and say “Yay!” or “Wow!” or something else encouraging. I don’t know why but the way he talks cracked us all up.

If you tap the small “i” in the bottom left of the screen you’re taken to the “Play Settings” screen. This is where you can choose the game’s difficulty level. The names of these levels made me smile. Here is what you choose from -  some clouds, cloudy or overcast. The names refer to the number of clouds you’ll be trying to match. Some clouds is the easiest level and overcast will fill your screen with them. Clever names and just like real weather. This play settings screen is where you choose what you want to match – colors, shapes, letters or numbers. You’re also able to choose the background that appears behind the clouds. Choose from sunny, rainbow, night or surprise. Lastly, you can see your high scores here too.

As I mentioned earlier I think Playscape Matching is adorable. It’s graphics are simple, colorful and appealing. Ben Bear provides just the right amount of humor and I really like having several choices of what to match. This is a great matching game for preschoolers!

Price when Reviewed: $.99

 Seller: Steven Romej

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