Kids. Can’t live with them, can’t manage their allowance.
I don’t know if you have kids or not, but one of the more difficult things to keep track of, at least for me, is their allowance. Yeah, you might say, just write it down on a piece of paper or something. While that may seem to have merit, it rarely works out in my family. Let’s say my son gets $5 every two weeks for allowance. That’s a $5 bill I need to have each and every week.
Honestly? It never works out that way. So we tried using a calendar, on which I created a repeating event, set for every two weeks, figuring we could just count it up when he needed something. Well, that didn’t really work out, either. We’d be at a store, and he’d want something, and it’d be some non-multiple of five, and we’d try to remember to write it down, and so on.
Suffice it to say that I am doing a poor job at helping my kid keep track of his allowance, and an equally poor job of prepping him for real life money management.
So imagine my joy when I saw Allowance Manager for iOS, a Universal app that basically does what we need: tracks allowance on the iPhone or iPad. Win!
Hooooo! That, apparently, is the sound of an iPhone whistling. At least, that’s the sound of an iPhone whistling when its inside the WhistleCase, a combo tweeter and phone protector that actually looks cool enough to buy and use.
Autodesk has a stunning — and I’m not using the word lightly here — catalog of free design-focused iOS apps that do everything from applying filters to photos, to drawing on your iPad — or even turning the subject of an iPhone photo into a 3D model. Now, they’re taking their deep knowledge of modeling, physics and mechanics and using it to make iPad apps that’ll teach your kids cool stuff. For free.
You know those black balls in the kid’s section of the Apple Store? Yeah, you probably shouldn’t sit on them: underneath the fabric exterior, they are essentially gigantic sponges soaked with the pee of a thousand children with such weak bladder control that they just hose off when they get excited, even in the Apple Store.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a picture of one black ball Apple was getting rid of after a bunch of kids had whizzed all over it. As the former Apple employee and Redditor who posted it says: “Just one of the nasty little “ewwws” lurking in arguable the coolest retail environments around.”
A mobile phone in the hands of your kid can be a liability. But it can also be guardian angel — it all depends on how it’s used. MobileKids is a free iPhone and Android app that enhances a phone’s guardian angel-like qualities while putting the liabilities on lockdown.
Pangolin is a cute little puzzle-platformer for iOS that might either drive you mad with rage or mad to the point of insanity. Or both. It’s tricky, challenging, and offers plenty of repeat play opportunities.
NEWSFLASH: Teens don’t want the iPhone! Parents beware! The Microsoft Surface and Samsung Galaxy phones are the new “it” things! Apple has lost its cool factor!!!
That’s what the Buzz Marketing Group, an organization that seeks to provide ”lifestyle and buzz marketing services for brands seeking to attract teen audiences,” wants you to think. You may have recently seen some headlines from big sites saying that teens think Apple is uncool now.
As my British boss Leander Kahney would say, that’s absolute bollocks.
If you’ve been around on the internet for any length of time, you’ll have probably heard about a site called Xtranormal, which converts text you enter into a simple little video starring cute animal characters. (If you haven’t heard of it, go and have a play there now, it’s fun.)
Tellagami is a new free iOS app that does something similar. I say “similar”, but the two are not in the same league. Tellagami is very simple, and its features limited. That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it, though.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Back when I was a kid, I had all kinds of Fisher-Price toys I loved playing with. But I don’t think I remember anything quite as magic as Fisher-Price’s new line of Apptivity sets for preschoolers that combine child-safe cases and toy figures with slick augmented-reality apps (though my little Classic Xylophone came close).
