When I test an app with my three-year old, I sit down next to her and go through the basics of what she has to do. I sat down to test iMommy with her and was not very impressed at first. Putting blue hair on a baby? WTH? So I started to click around more.
I watched as she fed her new virtual baby, changed his diaper and put him to bed. She started to tell me that she wanted to do things that aren’t even in the app, like undress him, pick out new outfits and on and on and on. That night, after she was ready for bed, she told me that we had to put her baby to sleep and…keep the iPad by her bed. (I can only assume in case her new virtual baby needed something during the night.)
The app is essentially designed to give older siblings some basic lessons on how to help with a baby and having three kids, I know help from siblings can be big. The premise of the app is a very unique and creative idea.
I can't give iMommy five stars because it does have its faults. It's $1.99, which is a tad expensive with apps like Lola's Alphabet Train selling for 99 cents. There is also some inconsistency within the app. For example on the diaper page, the child is essentially given instructions (via flashing objects) on what they should do next. It would be nice to see that feature on all the pages, even if only activated after a certain period of time.
My seven-year old boy also wanted a shot at baby-tending as well, so when is iDaddy coming out? We do all those same things too! Or at least I did.
Overall, it's a must-download for parents of preschool (and perhaps a tad older) girls.
It's a shame it's not called iParent - the name pretty much excludes little boys. I wonder if they'll localise it to iMummy or iMammy for other countries?!
Posted by: Mamadotie | 05/03/2011 at 03:25 PM
I totally agree with Mamadotie about the name, but we HAD to call it iMommy because iParent (which was our first choice) was taken. I have a little boy and two girls and they all like to play it and I wish we could have made the title more gender neutral, but I hope this won't make people shy away.
As far as the items which glow in some rooms and not others this is done because there are only certain times where a sequence needs to be followed so that's why we have them glow...in other words you wouldn't put the diaper on before you use the wipes! LOL...but in other rooms it's not as necessary. Please send us your comments and suggestions we'd love to hear from you to help us improve the app.
Thanks!
Posted by: Kathshimm | 05/05/2011 at 12:45 PM
Kathshimm: Will Apple let you release the same app under a different name, like iMummy or iDaddy?
Posted by: Uncle iPad | 05/06/2011 at 07:42 AM