Tag Archives: apps

Avast! Today marks an exciting day for our hornswoggling crew here at Launchpad Toys: Toontastic Jr. Pirates is LIVE in the App Store for iPhone and iPad! With 3 million cartoons created in over 150 countries, our first app – Toontastic – has been a great success for kids ages 6-12. Now, with the launch of Toontastic Jr. and our new StoryShare platform for online, creative Co-Play, little brothers and sisters as young as 3 years old can create their…

At Launchpad Toys, we’re working to inspire creativity in children through play with digital toys and tools like our flagship storytelling app, Toontastic. As tablet usage in young children increases year after year (NPD showed 13% growth between 2011 and 2012), it has become more important than ever to provide kids with quality learning tools that maximize their time on touchscreen devices. Still, in the immortal words of former President George W. Bush, “Rarely is the question asked: Is our…

In January, we introduced Cooney Center Research Associate Cynthia Chiong’s new website, A Matter of App, in which she rates educational apps for children. Fifty reviews later, she shares what she has learned along the way.   THE BIG 5-0. Fifty reviews, that is. Woo-hoo! This has been quite a learning process for me. I started out with the goal of seeing what’s out there in the app world for kids, and I must admit that my goal has shifted a bit…

Carly Shuler is a researcher, developer, and author in the children’s media and toy industry. As our inaugural Fellow, Carly has researched and authored a number of Cooney Center reports, including D is for Digital, iLearn and Pockets of Potential. Since her fellowship, Carly has continued her work with the Center, leading many of our industry initiatives and research projects with a particular focus on consumer trends, informal learning, and mobile devices. When iLearn: A Content Analysis of the iTunes…

Cynthia Chong is an educational media researcher whose research focuses on how the design of educational media can affect young children’s learning and the way they interact with them, as well as how parents and teachers use these technologies to teach. She recently began reviewing educational apps for 3- to 8-year-olds on her blog, A Matter of App. We’ve invited Cynthia to tell us a little bit more about this blog and why it’s important for parents, educators, and designers…

Here at the Cooney Center, we often talk about the importance of multi-disciplinary collaboration, and I love it when talented people from different sectors of the industry get together and do something great.  Last week, brilliant app developer Andy Russell of Launchpad Toys joined forces with one of my favorite kids-tech writers, Dan Donahoo of WIRED’s GeekDad blog, on what I think is an extremely important initiative.  The pair has released the Children’s App Manifesto, which was unveiled via this…

… stays at App Camp?  I certainly hope not!  Because I was lucky enough to attend last month’s Dust or Magic Children’s App Design Institute, and the pure magic of this conference needs to be shared. For the second year in a row, an intimate group interested in children’s apps came together for a three-day event that included presentations from designers, reviewers and other industry experts as well as demos and brainstorm sessions.  There is no way I can summarize…

I hate to admit it, but I’m the one who brought Pocket Frogs into my daughters’ lives. We were at the airport, awaiting our flight. I was loathing the idea of breaking into all the carefully packed-up pens and activity books before boarding in 20 minutes. Why not find a new gaming app on my iPhone that would satisfy my girls, 6 and 8 at the time, while also giving me something fun to fool around with once in a…

With the recent release of the iPad 2, I was not at all surprised when Catherine suggested that I write this week’s blog about kids and the iPad. Considering the bulk of work we’ve been doing in the area of kids and apps, I thought this would be an easy topic. But when I actually sat down to write, I found it difficult to settle on a niche. In the last few months in The New York Times alone, David…

Every February, children’s entertainment professionals from around the world converge in New York as the overlap of Toy Fair, Engage Expo and KidScreen Summit turn the city into a veritable stomping ground for those of us in the kids business. And every year, I can hardly wait to hear about the trends and see the products that will entertain children throughout the year ahead. This year did not disappoint! Surprisingly, the product that most interested me this year came from…