[Gllug] iPhone 4 or Android phone

[damion.yates at gmail.com]

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010, Tethys wrote:

> damion.yates at gmail.com writes:
> 
> > When I tried the n1 (another free xmas gift) and my 3 year-old's
> > iPhone
> 
> Now I know I'm poor at keeping up with current trends in many areas,
> but what on earth would a 3 year old want with an iphone? Or indeed
> any phone?

It really is a great toy for toddlers, loads of very basic games for 2-5
year olds and some good educational ones, simple video playback* and easy
to use camera.  Confiscating it is a more effective punishment than the
naughty step, often just the deterrent is enough ;)

It all started when my mate used to let her play the toddler games from
the app store on his iPhone and she soon became good at navigating the
left-right swipe and spotting the icons she wanted.

I realised after the 3G came out that it may be possible to get the
original one very cheap.  I was lucky and found her a 2nd hand one for
next to nothing as her main xmas gift.

We considered the iPod touch but those haven't changed as much over
releases and so old ones cost much more.  Also this has camera and
loadspeaker, bt and potential for gprs/edge.

It has an expired O2 sim which it apparently needed to allow you to plug
it in to iTunes.  Because of this it has to be left permanently in
flight mode or it crashes apps and pops up a cellular warning every
minute.

Some weird bug means it can't use the wifi AP upstairs, but it works on
the downstairs one for things like new games or Fring if she does want a
supervised phone or video call to the select list of contacts.  Fring,
solitaire, national trust app and snowboarding are "daddy's games" on
the far right swiped window, although she can actually play the
accelerometer based snowboarding game.

The biggest pain is that I have to keep an old macbook around for
iTunes.  It's only pulled out every few months for a backup.  Anyone
used wine for this?

My 1yo prefers my wife's N1 :)

Damion

*Playing video even though the sound is completely muted, is a fantastic
distraction for children if they're bored or having a tantrum at awkward
events like funerals or if we've gone to a posh restaurant.  We keep it
to a minimum as it makes us feel like bad parents, so only pull out the
big guns (smart phone time for the girls) if things get really bad.
We've witnessed other parents do the same, or others without smart
phones have to take their kids outside or never go out to these sort of
boring-for-kids events.
-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug