Disney recently released the classic story of Dumbo as an interactive app for the iPhone and iPad. For children young and old the story of Dumbo is an endearing classic and while this interactive story book to the original story and artwork it also and features such as coloring pages, puzzles and a musical instrument in the form of a Calliope straight from the pages of the book.

The story itself is beautifully recreated in its electronic form and has well delivered audio to so that your child can listen to the story as well as read it. The pages come to life with animated action too which brings the story to life even more.

One if the most impressive features though is the ability to record your own audio of each individual page. You can do this one page at a time and when turned on the narration will be you voice and not the origami voice. This will be awesome if for any reason your going to be away from your child as this can be one way to stay close.

The three additional features are fun too. Playing the Calliope is fun and sounds very authentic. You can either freestyle or follow the tutorial to play along with the tune. The puzzle provides 3 virtual jigsaw puzzles for you to put together and each has 3 difficulty levels which increases the number of pieces in the puzzle.

Also pulling from the pictures in the book are the coloring pages. In these pages you have a paint brush, pencil and a palette of colors to color in the picture. You can save your handiwork if you want to come back to it later or email your completed masterpiece.

A nice added feature is the ability to personalize the splash screen of the app, not only with your child’s photograph but also their name which you can either type in or write in using your finger or stylus.

It’s no surprise that Disney would produce such a great app but it’s good to see it come to fruition.

This universal app cost $1.99 and is available in the App Store now, whether you are wanting to relive the story from your childhood or enjoy it with your child or grand children this app is a great way to do it.

What we like

• The great looking storybook
• Ability to record your own narration
• The interactive features
• The personalization

What to know

• More of the same please

On Thursday, Apple held a special education event in New York City and introduced a number of software products, including the newest version of iBooks, iBooks 2, bringing textbooks to the iPad from large publishers including Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton-Mifflin.

Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad. All you need is an idea and a Mac. Start with one of the Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. Add your own text and images with drag-and-drop ease. Use Multi-Touch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects, and more. Preview your book on your iPad at any time. Then submit your finished work to the iBookstore with a few simple steps. And before you know it, you’re a published author.

Apple also released an iBooks Author application, which allows users to create their own textbooks for the iPad 2. Since then, Apple has posted the video of the event to its site, alongside all other past events.

The Cupertino company also posted the Podcast for the event in both HD and standard formats. Apple is continuously increasing support for iBooks and is attempting to move into the e-reading market to compete with other popular reading devices such as the Nook and Kindle.

‘A Boat Message’ for iPad is a storybook-style app for children ages 4 and up. It is a quiet-time adventure about an origami paper boat that sails off to a variety of adventures with the mission of writing a letter.

Review

A Boat Message is a finite, 16-page storybook. The story, the graphics, the music are all geared for young children, preschoolers in my estimation. However, it assumes the user can read. You must read the story in order to know how to interact with the screen.

Some screens require no interaction and the “next” arrow doesn’t appear for a few seconds to give you time to read the text. Only a very quick reader will be done before the arrow appears.

Other screens require you to interact with the graphics before moving on. Often the object that you are to manipulate is highlighted with a glow to identify it. But where it is to be placed is not so obvious, and you must read the text to have any idea of where to put it. With enough trial and error, I suppose you could find the sweet spot. But I imagine this to be very frustrating to users who either can’t read the text or didn’t understand it. Even I was unsure on some screens.

This app has great potential. I think it could benefit a lot from a toggled “read-it-to-me” option. And maybe a highlight glow of the destination for objects after a certain amount of time has elapsed.

In all, it’s a nice quiet-time app for small children. But I think this is an app that is somewhat missing its audience. I also think it’s a bit high-priced for something that takes less than 5 minutes to complete and doesn’t have much repeat value.

Pros

• Interactive
• Fun graphics that provide visual interest
• Comes in English and Spanish

Cons

• Doesn’t rotate with the iPad
• Would benefit from a read-it-to-me option
• Must read the story to know what to do

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