Ben is 3 years old already and I've always been scouting for apps which I can get him to try on so it was a coincidence that I received an email asking me to review a preschool puzzle app. Of course I said yes! Anyway, my review as below...
* Title: Kids Preschool Puzzle & Words
* Price: $3.99
* Category: Education
* Updated: 23 May 2012
* Version: 1.0
* Size: 41.8 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: EduKidsApps
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.
Description from the product page:
"The challenge of this educational game is interesting and exciting: a child will move patterned pieces of paper to complete a picture. When the object is created, its name is spelled on the screen and you can hear the word pronunciation - in any of 14 languages available! Pictures are grouped into 6 categories (Animals, Vehicles, Fruit, Veggies, Numbers, Shapes), so there are 60 wonderful pictures to assemble and learn."
** Note: Free lite version (with one category open: "Animals") will be available on May, 30th 2012
What's good?
* I like the child lock features (you need to tap the screen a few times to unlock/edit certain options in the app)
* I also like the different levels of difficulties when playing the puzzle - allows me to adjust the difficulties based on my boy's learning skills now.
* I like the feasibility in changing the categories (Animals, Vehicles, Fruit, Veggies, Numbers, Shapes) just by pulling down the ribbon icon at the top right of the screen.
* The puzzles are easy to play and solve but my boy couldn't focus long at the app (reasons noted below)
Room for Improvement?
* Language selections showing on each puzzle – for me, I think a puzzle app should show more puzzles instead. Currently the language selection option is sharing the screen with the puzzles. Yes, there might be people who wants to learn other languages but perhaps this can be done with an option at the menu asking user whether the show the language selection on every puzzle or to turn off showing the language selection.
* The puzzles outline should be darker as currently not easy to see (due to the pastel color)
* I would prefer as we solve the puzzle, it shows the puzzle pieces instead of the current pastel color shapes (where the puzzle only revealed when you managed to solve it) I think showing the puzzle pieces as we solved will motivate the child to solve faster as they can see what is being pieced up together now.
You can purchase the "Kids Preschool Puzzle & Words" app from the iTunes App Store.
I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code by the sponsor to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"