Play at Home with Daniel Tiger
© 2012 PBS Kids
9/10/2013 See also Daniel Tiger's Day & Night (CTR September 2013) for a much better app. Daniel Tiger's iPad debut looks good, but the ratings are reduced by sluggishness and shallow content. Testers: "On the surface, this looks like this is a very appealing app, but there's not much to do." You start with a menu that offers four activities: a doctor's office, Daniel's bathroom, bedroom and an open-ended sticker activity. The star of each is Daniel Tiger, the animated four year old son of one of the puppets that appeared on the set of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood (Daniel Striped Tiger). This is the first time the famous red sweater has appeared on any character, besides Mr. Rogers. In Doctor Daniel, you can select one of five "toy" versions of the instruments pediatricians use, such as a tongue depressor or a syringe. The idea is that this might make it easier to manage a real visit when the tables are turned. Other than a verbal label for each instrument and a one time demonstration on Daniel, there's no other information provided about the tools. In Daniel’s Bedtime you see Daniel getting ready to go to sleep. The idea is that children can think about their own bedtime routines through Daniel. The routines and songs are automated and, once they start, they can't be stopped. In addition, items are shown on the screen that don't do anything. Daniel’s Bathroom has the same problem. You can turn off the water, and make bubbles, but when you try to pop the bubbles (what child won't) you can accidentally turn off the water. In addition, you can't put the seat up on the toilet. A sticker book is a good idea, but the stickers don't do much. They can't be resized or adjusted, creating an "all or nothing" setting, where you can't undo things. While there's actually quite a bit of content in this app, it doesn't feel like it, because children have to access it through an adult-designed filter. We're hopeful these issues will be fixed in future Daniel Tiger apps (we've been told this is the start of a series). PBS KIDS now has 19 apps available in the App Store, and quality varies widely. This is the first app to be produced by The Fred Rogers Company and CloudKid for PBS Kids. See the CTR critique at http://youtu.be/YCV4ZDvdGmM
$1.99, iPad, iPhone
Teaches: health, personal needs, social-emotional school readiness curriculum
CTR Rating: 48%