I don’t remember being two, but I’m positive I never owned anything nearly as fun as an iPhone back then. Sure, some sticks, rocks and an empty coffee-can were great toys for a kid growing up in the early 80’s(no they weren’t; mom and dad, you suck) – but nothing we had back then compares to the awesomeness of the iPhone.
If you’re the owner of one of these devices, you know that the real reason for its invention was not to show-off Apple’s design skills or introduce adaptable user-interfaces. Nope, this thing was invented to be the smallest baby-sitter in history.
Any parent can tell you that a normal task becomes twice as hard when you are trying to simultaneously wrangle a toddler. Whether you are attempting to read a book or clean a closet, you are constantly distracted by a short-person who has suddenly decided their only reason for living is to prevent you from doing whatever it is you need to do. Usually you can buy yourself five to ten minutes of productive time by handing over your iPhone to his or her majesty. You may get it back with a new wallpaper image, your keyboard settings changed to use Cyrillic characters and your friends wondering why you just Twittered “uodfshghsoghobqqrbk”, but at least you were able to do what you had to do.
Below you’ll find some of the most useful (read: dangerously addicting) games for your 2-3 year old.
$2.99
It doesn’t get easier than this, a bunch of puzzles. It nicely adapts so that failure to put a piece into the correct place after a couple tries causes it to “help” by outlining the correct location and pointing a large green arrow to the correct spot.
Complaints: The little guy running out the door is not the most intuitive “return to menu” icon, but she figured it out quickly enough.
$1.99
Here is another easy one. Just tap the screen and it reveals some animal hidden behind whatever was in the foreground. Keep doing this until you discover the dumb-looking dog. Repeat…
Complaints: “Where’s Gumbo” features the most irritating voice-overs in the iPhone gaming world. After you’ve heard some pre-pubescent ninny screaming “that’s a cat!” 50 or so times you’ll probably want do to your phone what Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro did to Billy Batts in Goodfellas. If you can resist that destructive temptation you’ll see that this little game is a decent distraction for your kid.
$1.99
There is an increased level of difficulty with this app, which could mean that your child will lose interest more quickly, this of course defeats the whole purpose of letting them play with your phone in the first place. In this case you are trading ease of use for usefulness, as the goal of the game is to teach reading and spelling skills.
Gameplay is straighforward. An animal is shown on screen along with some jumbled letters. Drag each letter to the appropriate spot and you are rewarded with the animal spinning about in a cheesy 1970’s tv-show style special-effect. Bonus, the letters are read aloud when tapped. Annoy your wife by quickly and repeatedly hitting “a” and “s” when the snake comes on screen.
Complaints: Like I said, if your kid gets frustrated they might stop playing…
Built-In YouTube App
If you don’t feel like spending money on games (seriously? You buy an iPhone but you won’t spend $1.99 on a game for your kid? what kind of parent are you?) you can always fall back on some of the standard apps. Bookmark some of the Dora the Explorer, Wiggles, Mickey Mouse Club etc. clips that have been uploaded to YouTube and let your kid go to town…
Complaints: There are a surprising number of idiots who have decided it would be a good idea to upload a Dora clip with their own “custom” voiceover. Its just great to be surprised midway through the clip when Boots decides to call Dora “b**ch”. Guess there isn’t much else to do while living in your Mom’s basement.
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