Have you ever heard of the rare animal called “Rhinoyakgaroo”? Or the “Zebigalot”? No? Well, you’ve guessed right: There’s an App for that! Remember those books we used to have as kids – where you could mix body parts of animals – head, body and legs – an create new characters? This book has now come to the iPhone.

Price: 1.99 USD
Would I buy again: If I had kids, definitely.
Learning Curve: Beginner
Who is it for: Children from the age of 3.
Version tested: iPhone 3.1.3
Comparable Apps: My Zoo – Animal Shuffle
Available Languages: English, German
This App was tested by Kira
appstory.tv rating:

Download in iTunes | App Website

This is how it works:
- With Mix-Max you can mix your animal by swiping over the body parts.
- The name of the creature shows in the top and changes accordingly.
- You can mix a random creature by giving the device a shake.
- You can also let the app read the description of the animal out loud,
- and you can email the animal to someone without leaving the app.
- There’s also a button for saving an animal.
- Back on the intro screen kids can also choose to practice the alphabet.
- They basically have to fit the correct animal parts together, and he first letter of the animal part will show up above.

Mix-Max is a great way to entertain and educate kids. Younger ones can learn the alphabet – and the older ones (like me) can try to pronounce tongue-tying names of new creatures. Have fun!

What I like about Mix-Max:

• The new creatures’ names are very funny
• The audio descriptions are professionaly done and very fun to listen to
• Kids have fun learning

What I don’t like so much:

• Audio output of the new creatures’ names would be great. When a kid can’t read yet, he-she will want you to read those tongue-tying animal names out loud. This can get really annoying after the first animal.
• It would be great if the aniomals in the alphabet-mode would sample their voices

© Kira for appstory.tv, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: App, appstory, appstorytv, book, game, iPad, iPhone, ipod touch, Kids, Kira Song, mix max, ravensburger

Being not good at mental maths it might be a good idea to have some training sessions every other day. With BrainTuner you can train your brain in less than a minute a day – that’s a perfect thing to do before boarding the next flight!

Price:  2,39 € and a Free Lite Version
Would I buy again: Definitely
Learning Curve: Easy
Who is it for: Curious people
Version tested: 1.8.0 on iPod Touch OS 3.1.2
Comparable Apps: All brain training apps
Available Languages: English, Spanish
This App was tested by Michael
appstory.tv rating:

Download in iTunes | App Website

BrainTuner comes in a free and premium version for 2,39 Euros which allows a greater variety of operations and doesn’t show ads. If you have those short periods of time between meetings or travelling – then BrainTuner is a very nice app to train your brain!

This is how it works:

• BrainTuner lets you train your mental maths abilities in short sessions at different levels
• You can choose from 20, 60 or 100 problems per session and 3 difficulty levels
• In settings you can choose from different mathematical operations which should be used in the problems
• After having having started the game BrainTuner countdowns and presents the first problems you can answer with WRONG or RIGHT
• Having finished your first session you will be confronted with your score which is compared with all BrainTuner users
• This comparison makes calculating a competition: judging from the highscores we see that there are guys playing regularly to rise in the ranKira
• After having solved the first level with a decent score you might upgrade to the second one – and so on
• This can be pretty addictive…

Nice little app with both educational and playful aspects.

© Michael for appstory.tv, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: App, brain, braintuner, mental maths, tune-up

Ever walked through the forest being asked by your son which tree you just passed? I mean you don’t want to to look like an ignorant of nature’s beauty, do you? Using your iPhone or iPod Touch you now can combine these techie’s weapons with superb knowledge on mother earth: identify trees by their leaves!

Price: 1,59 €
Would I buy again: Definitely
Learning Curve: Beginner
Who is it for: Parents, Kids
Version tested: 1.3.2 on iPod Touch OS 3.1.2
Comparable Apps: dunno
Available Languages: English, German, French
This App was tested by Michael
appstory.tv rating:

Download in iTunes | App Website

Having a son using my old iPod touch I can combine his desire of using the Touch with my educative thoughts to combine the online with the offline world.

This is how it works:

• Passing some trees in the forest you take a leaf and start IdentifyTree
• You now can easily define the shape of the found leaf via the menu
• In the case of our “Lobed” shape we find 9 different leafs with lobed shapes which we compare with our leaf
• A click on a leafs picture zooms in, another click on the symbol in the upper left corner turns the leaf so we can compare both sides (a double click brings us back to the list)
• Additionally we can have a look the tree’s bark and compare this with our example, too
• Having found “our” leaf we get to the leaf’s description page with lots of botanic information on the tree itself, like pictures of leaf, bark, bloom and fruit

What I like about IdentifyTrees:

• Easy to use
• Effective and educational
• Not boringly educational but makes fun
• Nice integration of technology (iPhone app) into nature

© Michael for appstory.tv, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
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