171–180 of 195 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A single sentence is not enough evidence to diagnose someone with a mental illness.
Absolutely, which is why I didn't say mere "focus." Just something to be aware of when deciding the benefits of a technology.
Is there a way of stopping accidental taps on the lower part of the screen? Android is bad for this, with back/home buttons in the corner. Perhaps some sort of elasticated non-capacitive fabric barrier wrapped around the device that can be moved when it's needed?
Sounds like you're describing a sock :)
Also, which is better for kids - landscape or portrait? Has anyone seen a preference, or are all the apps landscape?
My daughter, a daily iPad user from about 9 months old (now 2.5!) exclusively uses it in a landscape orientation and I've never seen her try otherwise. That said, I'm the same unless one handed operation is desirable (no dirty thoughts, friends!)
On smaller devices I find portrait more natural, possibly due to the one-handed nature of use.
Out of interest: do any of the apps she uses support landscape? Is she choosing that orientation or are the app designers making the decision?
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…
I have two handicapped children. One of whom is severely handicapped and even at age 18 has a mental age of around 6. I would make every argument given in this article and then some. The most "fun" I've had with an iPad is when she was placed recently in a group home and I had to protect it against all sorts of things she accidentally does, as well as underpaid staffers (not my decision there by the way) who may well want to play with it when she's at school.
Other "child" is around 20 and mainly has the issues you would normally associate with Tourette's. Guess how many of these arguments still hold water given his problems with fine motor control and tendency to react based on impulse?
Now I think that shows that whether you feel a 2 year old should use an iPad (and regardless of whether you think they should they probably will), I think the article makes a case that certainly expands well to anyone with usability limitations.
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…
You're aware that they put CHOKING HAZARD labels on things not because those things should be kept away from children at all times, but to alert inattentive parents to supervise their children?
The CHOKING HAZARD is not an intrinsic property of the object, but rather of the situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it can really help a child sit down, focus, and learn things under their own steam, without that Brave New World programming that comes from most TV sets. Hyperfocus is a symptom of ADHD.
ADHD is a load of crap, and diagnosis of it is a purely western endeavour with very little actual merit.
With all due respect, I must ask: have you ever interacted with an individual diagnosed with (severe) ADHD?
Also, please clarify: are you claiming that those whom have been diagnosed with ADHD aren't sick or that they've been incorrectly diagnosed?
I appreciate your time and look forward to your responses on this matter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Let's turn this around for a second. Why are parents letting children use their very expensive and unlimited purchasing power mobile devices without supervision? If the kids have their own phones, why are they linked to their parent's account for purchases, instead of using the (very cool) allowance feature that is built into the store?
There are a number of solutions to this problem, but arbitrarily deciding how many clicks away a purchase has to be or somesuch is near the bottom of the list.
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…
Regrettably one of the biggest offenders in terms of usability for kids apps is Apple itself. The introduction of multi-touch gestures made a complete mess out of kids apps. For example, if you've ever watched a young one interact with an iPad you would have seen them plant their paws on the screen and do things with 3+ fingers very frequently. Imagine what happens then: The whole app moves up, down or worst, sideway…
Ouch. I hadn't even thought of that.
I was just going to say it's ridiculous that you have this powerful device with advanced touch screen and you're developing software for it, but Apple prevents you from simply exerting control over the device.
A non-crippled OS should give you near exclusive access with minimal meddling, like Desktop PC games. Full screen, raw touch data and no accidental gestures.
I don't understand why hackers could abide by this.
(the next part is a bit off topic btw, but maybe some professional iOS app devs can shed some light on the matter for me?)
I work with kids (a bit older, ages 8-12) teach them to do creative things on the computer (GameMaker, GIMP, some HTML, etc). I'm still working to figure out a good method to learn them actual code (not all, but some are definitely smart enough). A lot of them ask me if I can teach them "how to make apps". I don't know (don't have a smartphone or tablet), but at some point I thought ok let's figure that out.
The kid had an iPod Touch so we started looking around for some iOS SDK or whatever (I feared writing a whole app would be too large of a project for him, but now I wanted to know and it taught us both a valuable lesson).
Can anyone who writes iOS apps maybe confirm this for me, because it seems pretty much impossible:
- You can't actually load an app that you just coded onto your own device, to try it out. Instead you can only test it in an emulator.
- The only way to get the new app onto the actual device is via the AppStore. Is that really true? Do even professional app developers not see their app run on an actual device instead of the emulator before the app is in a suitable state (as judged from the emulator tests) to place on the AppStore and even then only if they or someone buys it? Really?
- This SDK/emulator kit is only available for the Mac. So if you don't own a Mac, you can't develop iOS apps.
- Money. Does the SDK/emulator kit cost money or not? I couldn't figure it out because I stopped looking as soon as I saw it was Mac-only, anyway. But depending on which route I took through the Apple ID developer program website, it alternatively told me it was free and that it cost me $100. And then to be able to place the program onto a physical device I own, I need to pay a yearly $100 for the AppStore?
(I probably got some details wrong here and maybe I missed some programs or ways to do things so please correct me)
The centre I work at is mostly run by volunteers and doesn't use Macs or has $100/yr to give to Apple for the "privilege" of teaching a new generation of hacker kids how to develop applications for their petty locked up hardware/software universe. So there won't be any "how to make apps for iOS" lessons in the foreseeable future.
That's what I learned. And the kid that joined me on this wild goose chase learned that he most definitely will be getting an Android as his next smartphone.