Dads Turn iPhone Into Children’s Books
Los Angeles Times:
Like most parents who find themselves juggling fussy tots and multiple chores and errands, Woody Sears and Graham Farrar have surrendered their mobile phones to distract their toddlers.
It wasn’t just the buttons and beeps on those devices that attracted their kids — it was also the music and video clips that turned the phones into instant toys.
“But we always felt guilty about doing that,” said Sears, a 31-year-old father of two who lives in Westchester, Calif.
So Sears and Farrar came up with iStoryTime, a platform for creating children’s books for the iPhone that can entertain their kids during shopping trips, airplane hops or long car rides to grandmother’s house for a holiday weekend.
They recruited Peter Kyriacou to help them develop the software, and pooled $10,000 from their savings. It took the three partners four months, working in their spare time, to start their business from scratch in January to launching their first app in April, a 99-cent book called “Binky the Pink Elephant.”
Click on the video below for a narrated sample of the book.
Stefan / intuitiv on September 11th, 2009 3:28 am
Hi,
I hope they invented s.th. for preventing your expensive gadget beeing thrown on the floor by some young children.
#FAIL
I would never ever give my smartphone into the hands of young kids!
Stefan
Angela Shupe on September 11th, 2009 8:04 am
It’s a cute idea but I would also be reluctant in handing over my phone to my daughter. For those that are brave enough to do that though, a cute app like that could come in handy. :-)
Jaclyn Wells on September 13th, 2009 2:15 pm
They have good points here. Yes phones do seem to entertain children for some reason, but i would never give my almost $400 cell phone to my son and let him go to town on it. Maybe if they made a similar version “toy” phone like this for children that is the real deal, plays music, show’s pictures, etc.
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