Peekaboo Barn, Night & Day Studios

Set to the tune of Old McDonald, this charmingly animated game starts with a red barn set in a pastoral setting, underneath a cheerful sun. The barn shakes, inviting your child to tap on the doors, opening them to showcase what is inside. A duck! Tap again: A cow! The word is displayed, and a (very American) voice says the word. The animal makes its signature noise.

Simple, but effective, and very pleasing to a toddler, this app is educational and a great distraction for the littler ones.

You'll like it because: The animations are sweet, like a great picture book.
Too bad: The voices grate a bit, and mine is a big buggy (but what barn isn't?!).
iPhone Apps users gave it 4.5/5 stars
Cost: FREE for Lite version, £1.19 for fullfat

Ages: 2-5

My Aquarium, Sam Robertson

Picture this: It's a half hour into a 3-hour car drive. The kids are bouncing all over the backseat. The snacks have all been consumed, the toys are strewn all over, the blaming and crying has begun. You give the younger one a soother, and "pass back" the iPhone to the elder, turned onto the My Aquarium app.

Immediately soothing bubble sounds spread through the car. Junior is focusing on adding fish, subtracting fish, adding seaweed and logs and deep-sea divers, in never-ending combinations. The calm may not last, but boy - while it does? Bliss.

You'll like it because: It's absorbing and easy to play with.
Too bad: It does eventually get dull.
iPhone Apps users gave it 2/5 stars
Cost: Lite is Free, Fullfat is £0.59

Ages: 3-8

iClean, Xtremize Software

This is one of those apps that proves that Kids Think Different(ly). My daughter and her friends think iClean is the funniest thing in the entire world - they have designed dances around it and play it endlessly, singing along with the tunes. Why they love it, I couldn't say. What is it? That's a bit simpler.

It's basically just a bunch of videos of real animals - a crew of "screen cleaners" including dogs, cats, and one drunk-looking hamster - licking a glass wall, so it appears to be "cleaning" the iPhone screen from the inside. Each animal has its own music-to-lick-by theme music, which spans a wide range (salsa, vaudeville, blues, and my favourite - the Hamster Dance for Stitch to lick by).

What are they putting on the glass to make those animals lick it so blissfully? Who thought this idea up? Why is it still entertaining after 74 viewings? We may never know. But it kept my daughter giggling and entertained for almost a 1/2 hour on a busy highway, so as far as I'm concerned, it was money well spent.

You'll like it because: Well, you won't like it, but the small fry will, which is the whole reason anyway, isn't it?
Too bad: Good luck getting "I got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart" song out of your head. Ever.
iPhone Apps users gave it 2.5/5 stars

Cost: £.059

Ages: All ages

My Makeup, AppsNMinded (blogged by Kate)

Part of the natural girlie triology (including My Nails and My Hair, natch), My Makeup features 4 girls from the shoulders up. Each girl has a different hair, eye, skin colouring and the player chooses one (each with Gossip Girl-style names like Blake, Tia, Tessa and Brooke) and gets to decide how to make her up. There are at least four choices each of mascara, eyeshadow, blusher, lipstick and nail varish. Add on the earrings and body art and you can create a completely different look each go - especially as you can design each side differently. A facial option complete with cucumber eyes and a facepack finishes off the game. Ahhh.

Our 5 year old daughter loves this app. She spends hours trying out colours and hearing the girls' comments - all in slightly bizzare English accents - "toodles, righty ho, ohhh, that was smashing ..." - and the other sound effects. She is sometimes disappointed that she can't save or send her efforts, although her dad (whose phone it is) is relieved as another of her favourites - a bunny dressing game that you can save - has taken up too much of his memory. I sometimes find it a bit flakey - some of the options never seem to work, and others only intermittently. That doesn't seem to bother our girl though, who just moves onto the next colour.

You'll like it because: It's girly, creative, with an almost unending number of colour combinations.

Too bad: Some of the options don't seem to work and you can't send your creation.

iPhone Apps users gave it 2.5/5 stars

Cost: £0.59

Ages: 3-8

Trace, Kevin Calderone

Trace. Even saying it kicks off the soundtrack in my head. One of the first games I downloaded for my daughter to play, Trace allows children to problemsolve while playing, as they work to get a little red stick man on a journey to the sun. Each "world" (volcano, flame, water, space, etc.) initiates a different background setting, with its own theme tunes and challenges.

Your job is to trace a path with your finger around a landscape with various moving obstacles. Each screen gets harder, but small achievements along the way make it very satisfying. You can erase errant lines, hop over gaps and try as many times as it takes to achieve success. This is one game we come back to time and again.

You'll like it because: As fun for adults as for children.
Too bad: The soundtrack will stay in your head long after the game is shut down.
iPhone Apps users gave it 4/5 stars

Cost: FREE

Ages: 4-9

Balloonimals, IDEO Toy Lab

This app is simply for fun, a silly balloon animal game that takes full advantage of the iPhone's various functions, like allowing players to "blow up" balloons,shake them into animal shapes and then pump them up with air until they explode.

My daughter's favourite bit was how the completed animals made various silly noises and motions if you poke them into different places. A good game for a variety of ages, as even small children can play and the instructions are very clear. There's also a teaser "LITE" version available for free, to trial it out.

You'll like it because: The animation is fantastic, great sense of humor
Too bad: There's a limited number of balloon animals, meaning the product has an attention-span shelf-life.
iPhone Apps users gave it 3/5 stars
Cost: Lite is FREE, Full-fat is £1.19

Ages: Any age can play

Hello

Welcome to our first official blog here on KiddyApp, a site designed to help you find the very best iPhone applications for your children. The idea for the site came at a brainstorming meeting myself and friend Patrick were having. We both work in mobile/wireless internet companies in London, UK and both have a passion for the iPhone. In between idea sessions, we talked about what we were up to, our families, kids, the usual. The conversation moved to our mutual love affair with the iPhone, and how it had ended up being something we and our children used in equal measure. We shared our frustration with the limitations of the iPhone Apps Store, and how difficult it was to find quality applications to share with little ones.

Next thing you know, we were making lists of what apps we each had found on our phones. We wondered how people were finding apps for a market like this, and started to snoop around online. We found some sites, mostly fellow bloggers who were parents who wanted to "pass it back" but not too much variety among them.


So here we are. If you're a developer who can't figure out how to get your family-friendly app promoted, a parent who is trying to find the next best "pass back" game or just someone who is passionate about the "small-fry"Phone, come along with us. Let's find and present the best the iPhone has to offer.