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Posts Tagged ‘iphone’
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Dear Sprint, Limit the iPhone? Let Me Count the Ways
By Daddy Clay Monday, November 28th, 2011
You’ve seen the apps drifting across the cityscape in the most recent commercial from Sprint. The one that ends with a cherubic kiddo, maybe 5 years old, playing with what we assume is his parent’s iPhone 4S as the voice over asks, “Why would anyone want to limit the iPhone?”
Did I hear that right?
What next? Disney touting parent-free cruises to Amsterdam? Read the rest of this entry »
East Bound and Down, Loaded Up and Truckin!
By Daddy Brad Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
This week on Cast of Dads #6 the conversation ranges from old school cb radios to gate way electronic devices for the youngsters. Read the rest of this entry »
i spy spooky is better than candy
By Daddy Troy Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Note to spooky grandparents who plan to send Halloween gifts from afar: Don’t send candy. My next door neighbor already plans to give my kids twenty pieces. Instead, send a copy of I SPY Spooky Mansion.
“Oh, come one Daddy Troy,” you might say. “You had tons of candy when you were a kid, and you are now only a slightly overweight middle aged guy.” You might be right, adverbs aside, that a once a year candy binge does not add to the national childhood obesity problem or promote long term tooth decay, but I am not so sure. Finding a direct correlation would be difficult, but with childhood obesity tripling in the past 25 years and candy sales trending higher and higher, one has to wonder if this is a good place to make a stand about nutrition.
Or you could take the cowardly route. Every Halloween night in our house the halloween monster comes and throws away 90% of the candy in our household. The kids don’t know about this monster yet, but I am sure they will come to discover him soon as they start to track their bounty.
Or you could buy a copy of I SPY Spooky Mansion in addition to all the candy. Who am I to judge?
I must have been hiding under a pumpkin for the past few years as I had not head about the I Spy series from Scholastic. Now both my son and I are hooked. In I SPY you are presented with a beautifully crafted image, say of a spooky room full of cobwebs and bookcases. Embedded in that image are hidden items that you have to spy. For example, in the image below there are goggle on the skeleton in the lower left corner. Can you find the other pair? Eventually you earn keys and access to other rooms in the mansion.
With games for the iPod, iPod Touch, Mac, Windows Wii and more, it makes a really great Halloween gift, and it lasts a lot longer than candy. My seven year old plays it for hours, although not continuously as he has a daily screen time limit. Remember the whole childhood obesity thing.
Here is what I like about the game, as well as the whole I Spy series from Scholastic.
1. It is not time based or score based. It does not need to be paused to go to dinner. You simply come back to wherever you were. 2. Its not scary spooky, but instead fun spooky. A seven year old does at ever feel scared by it. Instead he is looking for a broom or a black cat.
3. The graphics are beautifully crafted, and I must think that this sinks into a kids consciousness. Check out this story about the photographer Walter Wick and his books.
4. Kids practice a little reading.
5. There are synonyms and other word tricks. For example, a pin might be a straight pin or a bowling pin.
6. Its UX is seamless. There are some bad iphone apps out there. This one, alongside the actual computer app, are easy to use for a kid. The interface never gets in the way.
7. There are other iSpy properties, all equally fun and cool.
8. The variations are clever. For example there might be a wispy cloud to look into instead of room. In some spaces there is an X-ray feature.
9. I have found few games that can challenge me and a seven year old at the same time. I get most things a lot faster than him, but there are a few that stump me in the short term.
At just a buck for the iphone app, its even cheaper than 20 pieces of candy (minus the ipod), and the Halloween monster can play it too.
Thanks to the folks at Scholastic for sending us a review copy of the iphone app.
DadNews and Tech Reviews Roundup 8-13-09
By Daddy Clay Thursday, August 13th, 2009
This post is a bit of a preview of the live show that we do every Thursday at 2pm (if you haven’t checked it out, please give it a watch some time – just click on the Live tab above). But there have been a few items out lately that I’d like to bring to your attention.
- This article in the New York Times sites the assault currently being carried out against American Family Breakfast by Technology. I am both a fan of breakfast and technology. Reading this article is like watching my kids fight. Can’t we just work this out peacefully? I am guilty of turning off my alarm clock and checking my email all in one fluid motion (both are on my iPhone), and I have noticed my wife taking a quick peek at the new Blackberry before getting the kids up. But overall, I would say that the invasion has been unsuccessful. Facebook has not made a beachhead in our breakfast nook. Maybe it’s a teenage thing and I should not speak so soon. How about for you?
- A study soon to be published in the Journal of Population Economics (WTF?) indicated that we’re #4! Go American Dads! The study polled 13,500 men and women in twelve industrialized nations to find out who had the most helpful husbands. Not Surprising to those that have spent any time in Nordic countries, Norway and Sweden were the top two (BabyBjorn, anyone?) Then the UK and the US! Pretty good showing, fellas. Norhern Ireland rounded out the top five. Bottom of the heap: Australia. WTH is going on down under? Maybe that crazy football they play has addled their brains. Hey mate, slap on a helmet and do the dishes.
- Then there is this frackin’ thing in Time Magazine telling me that exercise is useless in losing weight. Really? Is it not hard enough to stay motivated to do the right thing for your health when you have kids? I get it, reward eating after a big workout tends to obliterate the weight loss potential. I’ve been exercising almost every day since New Years (FitFatFit Dad Challenge) with pretty minimal weight loss. So maybe the article has a point, but it pissed me off and is fundamentally unfair and bullshit.
Two tech notes:
I updates the maps on my Garmin nuvi GPS unit. This is the second map update I’ve bought. I sprung for the one mostly because the old map did not have the new road leading to our house, and I found driving through empty space to be disconcerting. That and the fact that they are opening new toll roads in the Austin area all the time. But I’m not feeling good about my purchase. These updates are almost $70 a pop — a pretty ludicrous price point, when a new unit can be had at Costco for $150. It would be like Apple charging $750 for Snow Leopard. You can get a lifetime update for $120, but I balked. These updates really should be baked into the cost of the device. Somebody out there offers this, I suspect, and I will be shopping for this next time I’m on the market.
I was much more satisfied with my recent upgrade of me Eye-Fi SD card for my DSLR. Full disclosure, I was sent a free one to test and review. At first I wasn’t all that impressed. Being able to wirelessly transfer photos was cool (I hate having cables al over my tiny desk at home), but then I had to import photos into iPhoto and I kept losing track of which photos I had already loaded. Plus, the social sharing features seemed to be too shotgun to appeal to me (I do have some remaining privacy concerns re my kids). But the card has been upgraded to integrate with iPhoto and — poof — instantly invaluable technology. I shot pictures of my son’s car wash in the front yard. Walked inside and the pics were sitting in iPhoto albums. Wow. And I’m looking forward to having fun with the GeoTagging features that the Eye-Fi will enable me to take advantage of in iPhoto.
