Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 195 posts

Re: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

#151

Post by eps »

JeremiahNunn wrote: post #118
huhtenberg wrote: post #41

Spot on regarding the in-app purchases. I have a rule of giving 1 star rating to any kid's game that has them regardless of how well it's done and if my kids actually enjoy the non-gimmicky part. Milking parents by making their kids beg and nag them is an unethical way to earn money.

What is wrong with people here? In app purchase doens't have to be gimmicky, and rating with 1 star just because it has iAP is ridiculous. What about kids games that can be expanded on with modules. Do you really want to buy 5 different apps, one for color minigames, one for shapes, etc? Especially when they can all be linked together in one app, holding the child's attention better and providing a better experience?

If the option for purchasing an extension stays out of the way, and doesn't just sit there begging to be clicked by those who click on everything, then and only then it's fine.

Re: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

#152

Post by kschua »

veidr wrote: post #48

I'm curious: don't any other people here think 2-year-old kids shouldn't be playing iPad games at all ? I'm convinced that watching TV is harmful to a child's intellectual development. (And there's an established body of evidence to support that.) As a kid, I hated my hippie Montessori teacher mom for allowing me only one hour of TV per week as a kid in the late 70s and early 80s (elementary school; I usually chose t…

The iPad is just a tool. It depends on how you use it.

My personal experience (Android Tablet user/iPod touch user) here.

a) The iPod touch keeps my daughter occupied whilst we are waitig for food. Do I really want my 3 year old daughter getting restless in restaurant and annoying everyone else? The parameters are set such that i) iPod touch usage stops once the food arrives and ii) Drawing only (because there is no sound). It allows her to explore her creativity

b) Flash cards - My 3 year old plays this on her own and learns how to spell through this

c) Photo albums on the iPod touch - She proudly takes her own pictures and has a great time relating her pictures and experience to other people. IMHO, this is great way for her to open up her otherwise shy nature

d) Learning the motion of writing letters and numbers even before she can hold a pencil properly

e) Nursery Rhymes on the iPod touch. She loves it

There are no-no of course. Some of them are a) No TV shows on the iPod touch b) No games on the iPod touch (except Angry Birds, which is for the father's entertainment) c) No pop music

Re: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

#154

Post by pbhjpbhj »

dagw wrote: post #140
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the book may be even more interactive than a traditional book. // Books are not interactive. Isn't that the point, they're supposed to be entirely passive objects used solely to feed ideas to the imagination/consciousness/memory. > why limit that just because it's on a screen? // To encourage the child to develop interaction in the real world first.

Books are not interactive Kids books often are. Many of my daughters favorite books have lots of flaps and pull tabs that make things move. Opening the flap on the third thing and seeing the number '3' or guessing which item is in which box based only on the shape of the box and then opening the box to see if you where right is endless fun if you're into that sort of thing.

Aren't they more like games in handy book-a-like format?

This I think promotes my point (I would!).

If you only ever share pop-up books, coloring books, sticker books, flap-books, texture books, carpet books (they have samples of carpet in them), etc., with your child then they're not being exposed to the central concept of receiving ideas from a passive medium and giving life to those ideas internally without a proscribed pattern as to how one should do that.

Mind you I've no strong evidence that the move through object presentation, to picture based story, to picture accompanied story, and on to pure prose, genuinely does lead to a development of imagination (rather than say just accompany such a development).

Re: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

#155

Post by plink »

ArtB wrote: post #93
ja27 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's a $1.99 "20 additional game levels" after you finish the first 20, that's not scummy. If there's a $99 in-app purchase (Basket of Smurfberries), that's scummy.

Sadly, that is just people responding to the market conditions. Most people want things near to free, so the initial price must be low or else you'll get ignored. Then, you need some whales to actually generate revenue. Surely there is some CEO you'll happily pay $99 bucks to shut his kids up.

Market conditions can be constrained by regulations such as Apple's prohibition against pornography. Eighteenth century USA excused slavery as the price of doing business before government regulations altered those market conditions. Prior to such changes the practice was no less scummy. In-App kid-chiseling falls squarely in the category of scummy.

Re: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

#156

Post by JeremiahNunn »

mwidarto wrote: post #143
JeremiahNunn wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways to do in-app purchases for kid apps that aren't unethical. In fact, allowing people to try your app before buying it is a very ethical thing to do. Don't limit yourself unnecessarily, and don't assume kid apps with iAP must be from shady developers.

You are correct. There are a lot of kid apps with iAP that offer great value such as additional levels etc. I purchased some my self. It's the smurfberry kind of iAP that I don't like.

I absolutely agree with that. What disappoints me is how quickly HN parents will shut off their brains and have a knee jerk reaction to an otherwise really handy feature. And in most cases, if they really hate iAP that much, they could figure out that an app isn't for them before downloading, and save themselves and the developer from a negative situation.

Which makes me wonder what kind of parents are downloading apps and handing over the iPad without doing any research (since certainly if they were doing any research at all, they'd know it used iAP beforehand).

Re: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

#157

Post by maegget »

adriand wrote: post #65

I actually had to get a refund from Apple for an in-app purchase my son made while using Talking Tom Cat (I since deleted that app and turned off in-app purchases). I've got two kids and what I would add to the observations listed in this article are as follows (these apply to any app that is intended for kids, but also apps where a significant section of the userbase might be kids - for example, my four-year-old is…

Re: Point 4: " Don't make it easy to do destructive things like delete accounts."

This has happened with our toddlers deleting our gaming progress, and is very annoying.

Requiring a word to be typed for confirmation is a great way to lessen the chances of this happening. For example, in World of Warcraft you have to type in the letters D E L E T E and press Enter (or click the button) before you can delete your character.

Re: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

#158

Post by wiredfool »

femto wrote: post #141
evilduck wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar story, my 14 month old mocks everything we do. If I knock on a door, he knocks on the door, if I sneeze, he'll try to make a sneeze sound, if I fold laundry, well...he'll unfold it and scatter it on the floor, but you get the idea. But since we use the phone, he wants to use the phone, there's no avoiding it. I don't see the big issue, it's something in his environment that he's curious about. It's not a dire…

Our 17 month old is similarly into imitation. Kids have fantastic imaginations. Our 17 month old couldn't care whether it is a phone or an old cardboard box that he is holding up to his ear. The advantage of a cardboard box is that it seamlessly transforms into a car or a ball on demand!

Check out the book "Not a box". Utterly charming, its a favorite of my 2yr old.

Re: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

#159

Post by leecho0 »

adriand wrote: post #65

I actually had to get a refund from Apple for an in-app purchase my son made while using Talking Tom Cat (I since deleted that app and turned off in-app purchases). I've got two kids and what I would add to the observations listed in this article are as follows (these apply to any app that is intended for kids, but also apps where a significant section of the userbase might be kids - for example, my four-year-old is…

good points,

#2 may be difficult for certain uses, since it's the system that displays the pop-up notification for push notification. But I agree it should be removed if possible.

#6 can be done with how multitouch is handled, like the wrist guard feature in note taking apps like penultimate. In most cases, just allow multitouch interactions with objects on screen.

#7, question for parents: what's the monetization policy that would work for you? - one free app from the developer, all others cost money - free app with in-app purchases, tucked away somewhere for parents - no "sample" app, all apps cost money

Re: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

#160

Post by brianobush »

feralchimp wrote: post #86
veidr wrote: post #48

I'm curious: don't any other people here think 2-year-old kids shouldn't be playing iPad games at all ? I'm convinced that watching TV is harmful to a child's intellectual development. (And there's an established body of evidence to support that.) As a kid, I hated my hippie Montessori teacher mom for allowing me only one hour of TV per week as a kid in the late 70s and early 80s (elementary school; I usually chose t…

> don't any other people here think 2-year-old kids shouldn't be playing iPad games at all? > My own kid won't be here for a few more months, so I'm not preaching; just honestly asking. > Shouldn't kids of that age, instead of learning in-game physics, be learning real physics? Like with balls, marbles, and blocks, running and falling down, and not with animated honeypots and flying unicorns? You are in fact preachin…

No he isn't preaching, just stating common sense.

If you supervise your children, they won't swallow marbles or anything else. There are many vendors of wood toys (usually European) that are meant for small children. An ipad, is in the same realm as TV -- not meant for small kids.

Post reply on HN