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These are a few of my favorite….apps!
My girl, she so loves the iPhone. She is a total pro. She absolutely can get around that thing without an issue, including unlocking it and plugging it in to charge. She can navigate to various apps and play them until she’s tired of them and then navigate on to something else, like her adoption video on youtube. She has also figured out the new voice record app that came with the latest software upgrade, as well as the camera. It’s always fun to see what pictures she’s taken or messages she’s recorded. Sometimes, though, she experiments with new apps and then there is trouble. Recently I noticed she called everyone in my ‘favorites’, one at a time. I noticed this because our home phone and Tony’s cell phone rang and when we answered, she was on the other end! ha. She also called her brothers while they were at a friend’s house but the brother she called has a phone low on battery power so the other brother called her back. And she answered (figured that out straight away!), talked for a bit, they tried to convince her to bring me the phone but she refused to even consider it. I had no idea that the iPhone was designed to work perfectly with a 3 year old’s brain! So if I have your contact info, you too may get a call from Addy-Mai some day soon!
Anyway onto to topic of this post – my favorite apps.
First my favorite free apps for kids:
- Jumbalu Zoo: This cute app divides the body of various animals into thirds (head, torso, legs) and allows you to mix-and-match animal sections. There are TONS of animals to mix and match.
- Match: Just your typical memory game. Addy loves this one.
- Whack ‘em All: Like whack-a-mole, great sound effects, silly and easy for little ones.
- Shape Spot: this one is for kids who love to do puzzles. Kids have to be able to rotate shapes and then drag them into the right spot (a la the game Perfection). Addy totally loves this game although she’s never able to get more than 2 or 3 shapes in before the timer runs out. But then, either am I! ha.
- Dress Chica: Chica, from Sprout, is featured in this app. Kids get to dress Chica with various clothing and accessories and then chose various silly facial expressions before saving as a photo. This is definitely one of the apps Addy loves best.
- Flash Cards: Addy thinks this is fun. It’s just various pictures with the word underneath. She loves to try to name the picture and “read” the word. I think it’s helping to teach her to read, too.
Built-in Apps:
- Camera: easy to use, super fun and instantly gratifying.
- Voice recorder: harder learning curve but still really fun once kids get the hang of it.
- youtube: Save some favorite videos on your youtube app and surfing to watch those videos over and over is a breeze, even for a 3 year old.
Top favorite free apps for adults:
- Pandora: type in an artist you love and it will play endless similar styles of music! We use this every day while we swim to play music over our outdoor speakers. We have all sorts of stations and sometimes Tony makes me special stations as ‘gifts’ online that transfer to my app. Pandora is totally awesome. I never load music onto my iPod, I prefer Pandora.
- Twitterific: My twitter access app of choice. I have others but this is the one I like best. Not sure why. Open to suggestions for others.
- Take Me To My Car: When you are at the mall or other busy parking lot, use this app to mark your location and it will find your car for your when you come out and are totally lost, wandering around aimlessly, unable to remember where you parked. Awesomeness.
- Facebook: Duh, my facebook app that lets me do everything I want to do on facebook. Only thing it doesn’t do is let me ‘like’ or thumbs-up a status update, which I do a lot on facebook. So that’s annoying. Otherwise, it works well on the road.
- Have2P: LOVE this app. Totally lets you find bathrooms nearby, anywhere. Very very handy with potty training toddlers!
- Shazam: What I like best is that if you hear a song you love on the radio, you your iPhone up to the speakers, it listens and detects the name and artist, gives you links to buy the song, lets you save song data, etc. I have used this MANY times.
- Amazon Kindle Reader: Free reader that turns your iPhone into a Kindle. No expensive Kindle required.
- Vlingo: A voice app that allows you to search the web, make phone calls, search for local contact info and update facebook status all through voice commands. It’s totally genius and really fun and easy to use, plus it makes it safer to use while driving along the highway. I never have to look down. Vlingo is one of the three apps I have on my bottom quick access bar.
- Good Food - app that locates the closest carry-out/fast food locations nearby and delineates the healthiest options at each of those places. This is an awesome app if you travel and worry about eating well or how to find healthy options in unfamiliar places.
- Traffic Info: will show a list of traffic slow downs, construction areas, accidents, etc. Great for rush hour navigation!
So there ya go. I have no idea if those apps are available for other smartphones – most probably are! Check ‘em out and let me know which apps you love best (for you and your kids).
16 Comments to “These are a few of my favorite….apps!”
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July 9th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Awesome info! Thanks!
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July 9th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Really great information, but it sort of makes me a little sad (read envious). I keep waiting and waiting for my current phone to die, but it just won’t. It must KNOW how bad I want to replace it with an iPhone. Ah, but one day it WILL be mine! :-)
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July 9th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
I have like 3 apps. I am soo lame.I don’t want to fill it up so it crashes. BUT I do need to get a few more! thanks for the ideas.
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July 9th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Oh I hope I get a call from Addy!! That’s hilarious, can’t believe she’s so tech savvy…you’re in trouble! I am TOTALLY coming back to this post when my phone isn’t charging to download all these apps. Thanks for the recs. My faves are all the medical apps b/c they save my clueless ass on a daily basis lately (epocrates, medref, skyscape, etc.), I also loved LoseIt! when I was trying to shed my baby fat. I have some drawing / sketchpad app that always keeps my kids happy when we’re out to dinner (rare, but it has happened) and need them to sit still – it’s like an etch-a-sketch; you shake it and it erases. I LOVE the built in GPS / map thingy. I use it ALL the time, since I’m always lost. Oh, and Pandora is my absolute fave.
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July 10th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Oh gosh! Both Rachel (4yo) and Josh (almost 2yo) have my iPod Touch mastered!! I have several I have paid for for the kids (I’m a bad mom, eh? LOL) Our favorite apps:
AniMatch
First Words: Animals
First Words: Vehicles
Flight Control (Rachel’s new favorite game!)
Giraffe’s Preschool Playground (a fav w/Rachel & Josh)
Scoops
Signing Times (Josh loves this one, too)
Topple
Trace
I use:
ByLine (my RSS reader)
TheWeatherChannel (much better than the built in app)
Stanza (my ebook reader of choice)
LaborMate (helpful when timing my contractions ;) )
Free Word Warp
Stoneloops
Myst
Fish Tycoon (although my fish keep dying!)
I’ll have to check out the ones you listed above. :)
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July 10th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Ok, that pretty much seals it. I’ve been starting to think already of what to ask for this year for Christmas/Birthday from my mom and the iTouch vs. Wii were battling one another. I think it’s going to have to be iTouch! I’m totally clueless on all of these apps and what the units can even do, but some of what you highlighted has me practically salivating (the car thing, the pee thing and the kindle – oh my GOSH!!!)!
Addy is a hoot – and I see Delaney absolutely heading down that road already. She is obsessed with my phone already, and I hate the phone and am hardly even on it! She learned eons ago how to get on the internet on any and every cell phone and has called random people. I’m SO in trouble by the time she’s Addy’s age (she also goes nuts over computers, cameras, remotes, etc).
Thanks for the list – I’ll definitely be back (someday) to grab all of this!
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Nicki Reply:
July 10th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
@Stacy, you are in serious trouble. That is way younger than Addy was and she was always very techy!!!
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July 10th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Wow…your iphone can do so much!! I love love LOVE Pandora. It has kept me sane on many, many late nights!
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July 11th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
I haven’t downloaded too many apps to my iTouch (of course, a lot of them don’t work if it’s not the actual iPhone) but my favorite is still the Beam It Down book reader. It’s now something like 150 classics for $10. And after the first book? I got over the motion sickness. Now I read it when I’m on the treadmill. Which really isn’t very often, which is why I’m only on something like chapter three of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, even though I started it WEEKS ago.
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Nicki Reply:
July 11th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
@Elaine, Really? is that true? A lot of them don’t work on an ITouch? Like which kinds? because I really do regret having the iPhone and wish I had an iTouch instead. My kids are all planning for the day they’ll be able to afford an iTouch, too, but that’s because what we all love about the phone is the apps! If we can’t even use them on the iTouch then that is a bad plan!
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July 11th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Like Shazam and Take Me to My Car. You have to be connected to a WiFi network for iTouch stuff — it doesn’t have a data package like the iPhone, not hooked up to satellites and whatnot. So, if you’re not in an accesible network, those kinds of things don’t work. Plus, since it’s not a phone, it can’t “hear” the music for Shazam. But let me just say, I am totally making assumptions here. I’ve never actually tried apps like these because I just figured they wouldn’t work since the iTouch doesn’t have the same components as the iPhone. And you know what they say when about those who assume . . . So if you find out I’m wrong, feel free to tell me!
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July 12th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I have learned that if the app will for sure not work on the iTouch they tell you that and that unless you absolutely have to be connected to wifi for the app to work the iTouch is great for apps and my kids love them….thanks for the recs
But Elaine is right the wifi thing is necessary for iTouch easy in house harder in public.
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July 13th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Makes me want an iPhone!
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July 13th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Sienna has my iPhone down pat! She is constantly playing with it and has made many a phone call. I have noticed that since we are now home all day (until August) that my phone will go missing and I always know it is with Sienna and Lord only knows what she is getting into!
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July 14th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Ugh. Stop making me want an iPhone! I have a BlackBerry, but have been thinking I want to switch to an iPhone this fall when our contract is up. The only problem is that our carrier doesn’t offer an insurance option on the iPhone like they do the BlackBerry – and since I have poured liquid on my phone twice in the past seven months and my husband likes to send his through the laundry every three months or so, that insurance thing is pretty important to us!
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July 17th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Oh I’m so using this list. I have like 3 apps – 2 of them downloaded by my 12 year old. I have this fear of downloading lame apps … weird technophobe that I am!
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