The iPhone Mom

Reward charts can be a parent’s best friend. We’ve used them to reward potty training, chores, saying prayers and much more. I even use them with myself from time to time. I’ve got various cupboards, mirrors and walls in my house that are covered with charts. I’ve come to accept it as part of my decor and when I was asked to take a look at the app iRewardChart and the thought of consolidating all our various charts seemed appealing.

The app is very easy to use. You begin by setting up accounts for your children. You add their name and a picture and then edit the tasks you want them to work on. Tasks are grouped into different categories: behavior, chores, responsibility and other. There is a well rounded list of preset tasks but if you don’t find one that fits your situation you can add it on. Some of my favorite tasks on the list are take bath (my son could have an entire chore chart dedicated to this task), no interrupting, no whining and eat fruit. All worthy things to work on. You can choose different tasks for each child. Once you’ve chosen the tasks they will show up on your child’s main page with empty stars next to them. The stars correspond with a day of the week and the idea is to tap a star when the task is completed for the day. The star will fill in and be added to a balance total shown at the top right of the screen. After your child has earned a few stars you’ll want to tap the “Balance” button to see a balance sheet. This shows the total number of stars earned and also breaks them down by weeks.  You’ll also see a big yellow button that says “Payout”. Tap this and your child can redeem the stars for rewards. You are able to set these rewards and when your child chooses one the number of stars it “costs” will be deducted from their balance. Again, iRewardChart comes with a preset list of rewards but you can create your own. You do this back on your child’s main page by tapping a small button that reads “Setup”. This screen allows you to add new rewards and also adjust the star amounts for preset rewards. From what I can tell any custom tasks that you add will show up as a choice for every child but custom rewards only show up on the list of the child you originally added them for.

I found iRewardChart to be extremely useful and easy to work with. I especially appreciated all the customization that it provides. The developers have done a nice job combining the chart and rewards into one app and I think the idea of a star payout is clever. We’ll be using this app but unfortunately, I don’t think it will work with all my kids. This is not due to the app (it’s terrific!) but the fact that some of my kiddos need a constant visual reminder of what they’re working on. If it’s in an app on mom’s iPhone they’ll forget. If it’s hanging on the bathroom mirror they just might remember. For those that don’t need a paper to mark off iRewardChart is a great way to go.

Price: $4.99

Seller: GotClues Inc.

*There is a lite version of iRewardChart that is available. However, it will only keep track of one child and three tasks per week.

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

Family Matters is not an app that you use to distract your kids or keep them occupied. It’s meant to help you connect with each other through actual face to face interaction.  The app features questions and activities that are designed to help you communicate with your children more effectively, learning more about them as you go.

Family Matters features questions/activities that are designed for four situations where you might find yourself sitting around with time to talk. They are: Restaurant, Road Trip, Dr. Office and a General category. The different categories have questions that relate to these situations.  The idea is to go through the app and use it to begin discussions with  your child. For example – the Restaurant category might ask you to “name your favorite food that is your favorite color” or “what is your favorite meal that your parents make you?” Some questions are lighthearted, some will foster deeper conversations. As you are going through them all you can mark activities/questions as favorites or even delete them. You can also add your own to the lists. Family Matters also features advice on how to best use the application and ideas to get you started.  I found this section be be very helpful. I’ve been told that an update featuring the category of “Airports” has been submitted to Apple and they are working on “Waiting in Line” for early 2010.

If you’re finding it difficult to really talk with your children and you don’t know how to get beyond the “How was your day? It was okay.” routine this app will get you going.  I think it’s a fantastic idea and a great way to use the iPhone as a positive tool for families. The only thing that I didn’t really care for were the graphics. I found them a little distracting and not really necessary given the nature of the app. But that’s just me. Everything else was terrific.

On a side note, the creation of this app was actually a family affair for the Weiner family. The development involved dad, mom and their three children. Pretty cool! Throughout the month of December they are donating half of the proceeds from Family Matters to the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Which makes this an app that can benefit your own family while you help someone else’s.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Weiner Family Studios

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

A little while ago I reviewed the app Baby Connect. It was an app that really impressed me and I think it could be extremely helpful for mom’s who work outside the home. Now the developers have a new app called BabySitter Connect. It’s very similar to the original BabyConnect except it’s only $.99 and doesn’t have quite as many features. It does however still integrate with the Baby Connect website, send push notifications, allow the babysitter to record information for food, diapers, sleep and activities. BabySitter also comes with a timer and a cost calculator you can use to figure out how much you owe the sitter. For more detailed information on the app you can read my review of BabyConnect or  visit www.baby-connect.com.

I’ve been given two promo codes for Baby Connect and two for BabySitter Connect. To enter please leave a comment telling me which app you’d like to try. I’ll keep the contest open until Tuesday night – 10 pm MST – and then I’ll choose four random winners. Good luck!

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Seacloud Software, LLC

Mobicip provides a “safe browser” alternative to Safari.  It’s a way to restrict what your children are allowed to access online using an iPhone or iPod Touch. I found it to be a fabulous product. There are two versions of Mobicip, standard and premium. I’ve tried both and will give you a quick run down.

Standard: This is available through the $4.99 app. The first time you use the app you’ll establish a user account with Mobicip. You’ll be asked to enter in your child’s first name and select a filtering level – elementary school, middle school or high school. Each filtering level blocks different types of sites. Elementary is the most restrictive in it’s blocking, high school the least. A summary of what types of sites are blocked can be found on the Mobicip website under “User Levels and Policy. There you can also read about the real time content filtering that the app employs. I’m impressed with what they’ve done and the resources they’re using to filter out all the icky stuff. Plus, they’ve done it in a way that doesn’t really slow down the internet access. When I was browsing and using Mobicip I didn’t find much of a noticeable delay in the internet speed.

The app comes with preset bookmarks and the kids can also add their own. They’ll be able to create and use bookmark folders just like you do in Safari. The Google search is also still present at the top of the screen, only when they use it in Mobicip it’s subject to their search restrictions.  I was surprised to find that it offers search suggestions. I tried a search for Hannah Montana and by the time I’d typed in Hannah it had pulled up a list of suggestions for what I might be searching for. Another really cool feature is the ability to use multiple tabs, just like in Safari. The iPhone’s copy/paste feature will also work.

Premium: This version is available with the $4.99 app and a $9.99 annual subscription. You receive quite a few additional features with the upgrade. You’re able to monitor multiple users from your one parental account. Each user can have a different level of filtering and a different device. You can customize the type of filtering that’s done. For example, you can add extra restrictions to a high school level account or remove some from the elementary school one.  You can create a blacklist – specific websites that you want blocked.  Or create a whitelist – websites you want to allow. This means that you can have social networking sites blocked but allow Facebook to come through. You’re able to receive reports detailing what your children have done online, which websites they visited and even better, which one’s they tried to visit but were blocked from. All this can be done online at www.mobicip.com. The user interface on the parental account is extremely straightforward and user friendly. Exactly what I needed. I haven’t the faintest idea how all the technical voodoo works to block/allow websites so I’m grateful they’ve kept the parental account features simple.

I was explaining how it all worked to my husband and he asked a valid question. He wanted to know why the kids wouldn’t just get around the restrictions by using Safari. So I told him what I’d do is hide Safari through the restrictions setting on the iPhone. That way the only way to access the internet would be through Mobicip. The icky possibilities of the internet are endless and if Santa manages to put an iPod Touch on his sleigh for my kids this will be one of the first apps that I install.

Price when Reviwed: $4.99

Seller: Mobicip,LLC

Total Baby is designed to help you keep track of everything that comes along with a new baby. Eating, sleeping, endless diapers and hopefully lots of growing too. When you first begin this app it walks you through setting up your baby’s information. Once you’ve finished that you’ll see a summary-like screen. At the top of it will be five buttons. Tapping each one brings up a screen where you can record different information. The diaper icon = diaper changes, bottle = feedings, pillow = sleep schedule, duck = baths and the question marks = an “other” event. (The “Other” event has some built in choices like medications, spit up,  and temperature.) What I like about this setup is the fact that you can see the most recent entries underneath the icons. They’re easy to spot when you want to quickly see the last time you changed baby’s diaper.

Underneath this section is a summary of the things you’ve recorded for the baby on that day. It seems to be the same information but in a different format. Tapping on one of these entries will bring up additional details that you recorded. If you tap on the section at the very bottom of the screen, where it shows your baby, you’ll find even more places to record information. At the bottom of this screen are four icons. Tap “Diary” and you can enter in notes about your baby and add a new photo. “Milestones” is the section where you record all the firsts from your baby’s first year. “Doctor” gives you a place to take notes at doctor visits, record your baby’s growth, vaccines and allergies. According to the iTunes description Total Baby allows you to track and log over thirteen different types of baby information.

I liked the ease of use in Total Baby. It was easy to record different baby things throughout the day. Just a couple of taps is all it took. I also like how this app gives you places to record milestones and doctor information. It’s also nice to have all the weight and height measurements in one place. We’re going through babyhood with number four and without apps like this the record of her first year would probably be pretty sketchy. All the first time moms out there are now horrified but those with multiple children know exactly what I mean.

Price when Reviewed: $4.99

Seller: ANDEsigned

I really like the concept behind Bank of Mom and it’s a very nice looking app. I think with a couple tweaks it could be a very useful app for my family. Bank of Mom is designed to help you keep track of your child’s “virtual bank account”. In it you can record money that is earned and money that is spent. This is a great thing for us because we are absolutely sporadic about paying allowance. I never carry cash and am always forgetting to go to the bank to get ones and quarters for allowances. With this app I can record what they earn without really paying out the cash. I keep the money but the app tells me what they’ve got in their accounts. If they want to spend their money I can provide the funds, then note a withdrawal. For example, if we’re at Target and my daughter sees a Littlest Pet Shop she wants to add to her menagerie I’d check to see how much money she had in her account. If she had enough I’d pay for the toy but mark down a withdrawal in her account. Bank of Mom is also designed to let you keep track of minutes earned for computer, T.V., video games, etc. There’s also a spot for you to track what your child is earning money for.

This app is very easy to navigate and it has an appealing design, but I do have a few suggestions. First, a help section within the app would be great. Something that can explain the different sections and icons. Next, it would be nice to be able to see an available account balance on the screen where you enter transactions. You can see this on the main screen but it would be helpful (to me at least) to also view it where you add withdrawals/deposits. Lastly it would be nice to have the option to view the money separate from the TV/electronics allowance.  It’s handy being able to see the running totals together on the main screen but it’d be nice to have a unique input section for that category. Just a few suggestions from a mom, not a programmer.

One last note: there’s always the worry though that by going this route your children will never know that a dollar bill is an actual thing, not just something magic inside Mom’s debit card. I wouldn’t use this app to teach your kids how to manage their money but instead as a tool for those of us who don’t (or forget to) give their kids cash. I’d use it to store totals on  my iPhone instead of in my brain. A good thing in my case because my brain is notoriously unreliable and according to my ten year old I owe her about ten months of back allowance.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Gomu Gomu

There are times when I’m acutely aware that my control over my little kingdom is merely an illusion. So when something comes along that gives me true power over my little people I get a little excited. And I’m absolutely excited about the new restrictions feature in the iPhone OS 3. The good people at Apple have given moms the power to shut down certain content on their iPhones and it feels so good!

To play around with the restrictions tap your “Settings” button and then tap “General”. Now tap “Restrictions”, it should be towards the bottom of your screen. The first time you visit this section you’ll be asked to enter and re-enter a passcode. You’ll need to enter the passcode every time you monkey around with the restrictions. Now for the power. You, my fellow moms, can allow (or not allow) Safari, You Tube, iTunes, the App Store, the camera or the location feature on your iPhone. Just slide the button next to each of these from on to off and they will literally disappear from your iPhone screens. I got rid of You Tube and iTunes. I know I’ll hear from my kids when they try to watch the silly video of the cat fighting with the copy machine but such is life.

Farther down on the screen you can set what type of content you allow. I tapped “Music & Podcasts” and turned off the explicit ones. They will not show up on my phone. You can set ratings for movies, TV shows and apps. Once you’ve set a rating anything that’s rated higher than that won’t show up on your iPhone. No worries though, you don’t have to download all your movies again. Just change the rating and they’ll be right back where they were before. A note- videos that you’ve converted yourself aren’t subject to the ratings restrictions. It appears to only work on content you’ve downloaded from iTunes.

No illusion of power here, iPhone moms have got it now.

I’ve heard horror stories about texting charges from friends with teenagers and we’re already getting complaints from our 9 year old because we won’t let her have a cell phone like some of her friends. The other day she asked me what wasn’t invented when I was a kid like her. When I answered email, internet and cell phones she was shocked. Times have changed and I don’t think parents can be too careful about setting limits when it comes to how much “tech” we allow our kids to have.

On that note, click here to read an interesting article from msnbc.com: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30805093/

Life with a newborn baby means endless feedings, diaper changes, sporadic sleep patterns- it all blurs together in those first few weeks and Baby Brain is designed to help you keep track and make sense of it all. It’s an easy to use app with a great built in help system. Hints pop up as you work your way through the app. You can read them and then choose to hide the hint until next time or never see it again. I left them on for a bit until I had the hang of the app.

You begin using Baby Brain by adding babies to a list. Enter in their name, birth date, and the amount they take in a bottle. Now you’ll just need to tap the baby on the list and you’ll go to a main screen where you can start tracking your information. It’s very straightforward. Tap the appropriate button for what you want to track – nursing, bottle, diaper or sleep then enter in your information. Once you’ve entered it in and saved it you’ll see it on your main screen. At the bottom of the screen you can choose whether to view the information by day, week or month. At the top of the screen is a “Share” button. This allows you to email out your information log. The app will open up your email and you’ll see a nicely laid out table of what the baby’s done for the day.

I could do without the use of “boob” and the graphic on the nursing button. But I’m well aware that having growing daughters has turned me into a bit of a prude. Overall Baby Brain is thorough and would be very helpful to new moms.

Price when Reviewed: $4.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: Maternia, LLC

Birth Date calculates your child’s exact age in months, weeks and days. Just use the plus button to add a child’s name and their birthday. When you tap save the dates are calculated and displayed.

This could be a helpful app if your child is young enough to still calculate age by months. I always gave up after 18 months because the math got to tricky for me. The Birth Date app would solve that issue for me.

Something I noted is that the age isn’t displayed in years. This would be a nice addition to future updates.

*Review Update on 5/27* – Carla, the director of  Silver Bunny Books, tells me that they considered including years in the app but because they are easily remembered they decided to include days for something beyond weeks and months.  Makes sense to me.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: Edward Povazan/Silver Bunny Books