Did you ever hand your cell phone to a young child and hope a game would amuse her while you did something else? How often did your child end up making a call or messing with something else? Inquisitive Minds has a kid-friendly “playground” app called Zoodles Kid Mode that will ensure they’ll stay in the safe zone.
When you select the Zoodles icon, it opens to let your child (or you) choose which game or learning program to run. Many of the games pointed to the app are Flash, so only Android OS 2.2 (Froyo) can use those. Phones that cannot play Flash video will not show those game choices. While some phones will be upgraded to Froyo, there are many that won’t, especially older or less feature-laden handsets.
The phone can’t be “accidentally” switched to another app while running Zoodles. The back and home keys are disabled and you have to draw the letter Z in the right place to exit Zoodles. It will definitely keep a pre-schooler away from your phone dialer or your chat logs.
Inquisitive Minds already makes a web browser version that runs on the PC and the Mac. You need to set up an account and enter specifics about each child who will use Zoodles. You will have several opportunities to buy a subscription which offers more content and more control over what is and isn’t shown.
The iPhone and iPad apps are “coming soon.” Kind of nice that Android got their app first. To download it, you can get it from the Zoodles website, the Android Market, or AppBrain.
QR code (scan with your phone to install):
Here is their promotional video:
Source: VentureBeat