Draw with Stars!

Create celestial art with twinkling stars on the iPhone and iPad

Grade: B | Age rating: 2+ | Price: $0.99

Draw with Stars is exactly what it sounds like: a mellow, creative drawing app where the medium is stars.  Simply touch a dark part of the night sky, then drag your finger across the screen to add stars.  Touch them again and they become shooting stars and fly away.

Unlike some drawing apps, this one’s multi-touch.  So you can draw with more than one finger at a time.  Pretty!



What’s Hot:
The cricket sounds in the background.  The plinking harp sounds that accompany drawing.  The zen-like experience of goofing around with this open-ended app.

Don’t know how to take a screenshot on the iPhone or iPad?  Not to worry.  Just go to the moon menu and touch “Snapshot”.  Now you can email your masterpiece to a friend. Read more…

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Fruit Ninja

A juicy action game for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Grade: A+ | Age rating: 3+ | Price: $0.99

Fruit Ninja is the best iPhone and iPad game we have discovered in a long, long time.  It’s a lot like Doodle Jump (the most downloaded game in the iTunes store) because it’s fun, easy, and very hard to put down.

Using your finger as a blade, you swipe various pieces of fruit that fly up in the air, chopping them in half.   In classic mode, you also have to avoid the bombs.

It’s very simple, but the best things often are.

What’s Hot:
We love the fabulous fruit-slicing sound effects and the splattering juice—you get all the violence without the gore and questionable ethics!  At the end of every round, you are served a Sensei’s Fruit Fact such as “In some parts of the world, trained monkeys are used to harvest coconuts!”  Sweet.

For a lower stress experience, play in Zen mode.  You won’t lose any lives if you drop fruit or blow up if you accidentally slice a bomb.  For a more competitive experience, compete on the leaderboards. Read more…

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Best family travel iPhone apps for road trips

If you’re planning a summer road trip with your family, you might want to load up on apps—not just for your kids—but for you too. This short list of iPhone apps will be helpful for tech savvy moms and dads that want to make their road trip travel experiences more fun (and efficient).

SitOrSquat: Bathroom Finder
Price: Free

Does little Susie gotta go? SitOrSquat helps you find clean bathrooms (and changing tables). This app not only shows you a map of rated bathrooms around you, but gives you pictures too. Great for avoiding bathrooms as much as finding them! Note: This app has an “Open Now” feature.

Roadside America
Price: $2.99

The fact that you don’t have access to the entire U.S. unless you spend more money ($5.99) is pretty lame. But it has some fantastically weird and helpful features that you could get pretty addicted to. In addition to locating and mapping out all the totally weird places, museums and odd statues in the U.S. your kids will be laughing at for years—Roadside America also helps parents with a sunset alarm so you don’t miss that crucial family photo. I like that some of the attractions have photos you can look at ahead of time – saving you a lengthy drive for something your kids might consider a dud. Another favorite tool is the “Touristus Interruptus” that sends you a call in case you’re stuck in a boring museum!

Read more…

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BrainShake

An iPad game that tests kids’ reflexes and coordination

Grade: B | Age rating: 5+ | Price: $2.99

BrainShake is an electronic hand-held action game that challenges kids to think fast and act faster.

If  you were born before the millennium, think Simon Says.  If you were born after the millennium, think Bop-It.

What’s Hot:
While this game is bewildering at first since you have to squeeze, switch, pull, and twist the controls, kids will master it quickly.  Just when things are getting easy, the whole console spins around and things get more challenging. Read more…

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The Cat in the Hat

A story app for the iPad and iPhone that’s as good as the book

Grade: A | Age rating: 2+ | Price: $2.99

The Cat in the Hat – Dr. Seuss is a faithful reproduction of the classic analog version of one of the best-selling children’s books of all time, and what a reproduction it is!

It’s all here: the deceptively simple rhymes, the funny characters, and the “Mom’s coming!” drama.  Plus now there are sound effects, simple animation, and funny voices.

What’s Hot:
Read it to yourself, have it read, or listen to auto-play.  Touch story elements, and the words appear and fly across the screen.  We loved the Cat’s mysterious accent—he sounded sort of like a cross between Sigmund Freud and Nathan Lane.  It’s a nice, long story that will take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to read, so you’ll get your money’s worth. Read more…

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