iPad App: Happly Makes For Happy Kid-Safe Surfing

I’m a total control freak about all the media my kids consume. I’ll find a fun video like the Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise, then hand the iPad over to the kids to let them watch it.  My phone will ring, the toast will ding, and a few minutes later, my kids have accidentally navigated to some raunchy gangsta rap video. Well, I’m not the only person who has had this happen to them. Brian Monnin had the first F-bomb dropped in his house courtesy of  YouTube.  And that brought about the birth of Happly, kid-friendly browsing and discovery that easily allows parents to curate their kids content.

Kids get to browse in a beautiful, and safe, environment that was designed specifically (and only) for the iPad. It’s like a parent-curated kid-safe Flipboard – without the risk of  accidentally tapping through to unapproved content.   One of my favorite features is the ability for parents to send content that they like to their kid’s Happly, along with a little message, “Hey Joey, check out this Monster Truck!”

My biggest problem with the app is the steep onramp: parents have to create an account for themselves, accept the terms of service (which I actually read – Happly producers Daily Interactive Networks promised NEVER to advertise to my kid or to send them any messages – um, yeah!). Then, you have to make an account for your kid or kids. It’s a real bear, but the payoff is worth it.

A new user is rewarded with a homepage that consists of a pretty grid of images, each one taking you to an article, photo, illustration or video. The Happly team have rounded out a nicely curated selection of content with some slick original content –  beautiful info-graphics as well as some simple interactive games and quizzes.

My happiness with Happly really clicked when I watched my kids enjoy the simple pleasure of surfing and discovering articles, videos, and pictures without their dad hovering over their shoulder, freaking out about every little click. Kids are naturally curious, they want to explore, and Happly lets them do it without risk of navigating to more adult waters.  After all, it is the Internet, where terrifyingly kid-inappropriate content is only a typo away. After about fifteen minutes of worry-free surfing, I heard something that caught my ear: the original Sesame Street Mahna-Mahnham video. Guess what my family has been humming for the last week? Thanks Happly! (Um… I think.)

After just one session, my daughter said, “Dad, can I have some Happly time this morning?” For a kid who only gets a limited number of “media minutes” a week, that’s says a lot.

All in all Happly is a beautifully designed environment that makes discovering new content fun and safe for kids and makes it easy for parents to share stuff they like with their kids.

LIKE

Easy for parents to curate their kids content.

Excellent selection of content (curated and original).

DON’T LIKE

Lots of steps before getting started.

WANT

A “send to Happly” bookmarklet. So I can share content from my browser to the app.

Happly.

(Disclosure: I have worked with Daily Interactive Networks, the creators of happ.ly, in the past. And Brian Monnin is a friend of mine.) 

Here’s a potential solution to a common problem shared by many iPad toting parents: their kids can’t keep their little fingers away from an object with such shine and color. This Etsy shop has a solution – at least in the short term. Its a little whiteboard with a set of icon-like magnets for kids to fool around with. It could also double as a prototyping tool for an app developer. The only problem is that, as many parents know, kids have a way of sniffing out the real thing from these fake distractions, but it should buy you at least eight minutes of peace. Totally worth the $30.

anaPad | Design Milk.

iPad apps entertain kids on the road – USATODAY

Nice little roundup of some iPad apps for kids. I’m really on the fence about how much app time I want my kids to have before they are reading entire books.

However, some apps have clear educational value and there’s a lot to be said for keeping things calm in the back seat on those summer road trips.

iPad apps entertain kids on the road – USATODAY.com.

iCade – iPad Arcade Cabinet

This is a great idea and it only costs $149.99 at ThinkGeek – if it were REAL. What a great April Fool’s product. I hope it becomes a reality. Then I will really have to buy an iPad.

ThinkGeek :: iCade – iPad Arcade Cabinet.