Product Launch

XPERIA X10 – Stellas Favorite Phone Already from day one the X10 has been my daughters favorite. It’s something about that big capacitive touch screen and the UI of X10 that apparently makes it very intuitive to use. There’s really huge amounts of apps and games for kids on Android Market and over time Stella has gotten some favorites which you find in the list below. Please add your tips among the comments if you have suggestions on more apps for her to enjoy! It all started with me downloading an app called Toddler Lock that does just that, locks everything except the screen which makes colorful symbols and fun sounds when touched. However this app had a “loop-hole” which she found within minutes. If you long press on the center button it still brings up the Android recent apps list and from there she started multitasking So now she has taken one of my three desktops for her favorite apps and she plays around with them using the recent apps button to multitask between them.. pretty amazing how quickly kids learn new stuff! She even made an almost historic quote a few days ago -”Oh No! Dad has re-flashed his phone again, all my games are gone” – Quite a little mobile phone geek for being 2 and a half.. So here’s the list of apps and games she’s playing with right now. (For more information about each app and the brilliant developers behind them just click the links) Toddler Lock was the first one. It’s still great but has lost a bit of here attention now when she’s found more advanced stuff, I guess she’s getting old already Zebra Paint has been a favorite for a long time now. It’s basically a digital coloring book where you choose color and then touch paintings to paint. In this one she’s also learnt to use the submenu button, choose “new” and switch to another painting. You’ll see it in the video below. As you’ll see she sees it as a game where the goal is to fill the entire painting with one color before going to the next. I guess she’s more competitive than creative Farm Animals has a grid of a few common farm animals and when clicked the phone makes the animal sounds. Simple but great fun for Stella! I especially like the cool design of the animals. Monkey Kick Off was her favorite for a long time as well. A very simple (and well-known from browser flash-based gaming) game where you just tap the screen at the right time to make a monkey kick a ball as far as possible. This is also very addictive for us grown-ups! Kids Paint is a simple painting app where the brush change color and apperance for every new line, very simple but Stella enjoys it a lot! You see her using that a bit in the video as well. Abduction is a very good game that has beautiful design and uses the accelerometer. Stella thinks it’s a bit hard to play but really loves that Cow that plays the lead role in it. Definitely fun for her dad as well! Touch! 4Kids is a rather simple game where different animals and stuff come flying across the screen and you need to touch them before they pass by. Great sounds and has a toddler mode which makes time restrictions etc go away if it’s too hard. Touch Cat is the most recent new one she likes. It’s basicly just a picture of a cat on the screen and when you touch it the phone vibrates like a purring cat. This is probably the first one we really disagree about, I don’t really see the point but Stella enjoys it a lot.. I guess age does matter As said I’m blown away by how fast she’s learning new things I download for her and it really has made me think a lot about the level of intuivity this platform has. It almost feels wrong telling her not to touch the screen on our PCs and Macs at home now since I guess most gadgets will actually have touch screens when her generation grows up. She was also quite frustrated with her grandmothers K810 over the holidays when nothing happened when she swiped the fingers cross the screen. Here’s a clip showing her playing around a bit, it’s been quite a while since I shot it though so some of you might notice the X10 she uses has rather old SW and I can assure you that Stellas technique have improved quite a lot since then as well