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More and more of us are becoming familiar with the children app market, and maybe even becoming bored with the selection.
However there's a new genre of toys emerging out of the app phenomenon: The app + plushy combo. These are plush toys that you can slide your iDevice inside and, by running an app, your iDevice becomes the interactive face of the plush character. The latest of these to grab my attention is the Ubooly, an iPhone-powered cute cuddly critter that promises an interactive friend you can really talk to.
There are three activities in the Ubooly app: the bedroom, dreams, and awake time. You start in your Ubooly's bedroom. You can decorate the bedroom to your liking, but items to decorate are only available for purchase with earned coins or as in-app purchases. There are bedroom items Easter eggs that can earn you coins too!
"Dreams" are more traditional game levels. Currently there are only two dreams available, both simple side-scrolling games. Simplicity isn't always a bad thing, I found the games to be pleasantly challenging and entertaining. My husband overheard the game music and asked "what are you playing? That's pretty epic music." It is indeed one of the best, least annoying, non-highpitched soundtracks I've ever listened to in a children app game. New dreams will be coming soon, though no release dates have yet been confirmed. I talked with Carly Cloge of Ubooly, who told me their goal is to publish new mini-games every two weeks, starting in a few weeks.
The above two activities (bedroom and dreams) are available in the free app without the plush. Finally, you can also "adopt" your Ubooly (purchase the plushy toy for $29.95) to "wake him up from his dreams". When you wake up your Ubooly, the entire iPhone screen will become the face. You slide the iPhone inside the plush and it becomes an interactive plush. The bedroom and dreams are still available to play, the "awake time" is yet another activity inside the app.
While I've tested other plush+app toys that failed to deliver on the promise of interactive play, I have to give the Ubooly two thumbs up on that level. In the awake time, Ubooly will genuinely communicate with the child. It's like Siri for children, stuffed instead a cute orange creature! Unlike Siri's machine voice, Ubooly's voice is done by a voice actress so its language flows naturally. Ubooly can ask the child what he or she wants to do, tell choose-your-own-adventure stories, offer pretend play ideas, play music, and tell jokes.
I was actually pretty impressed at the quality of the speech recognition and the interactive communication possible with the Ubooly, so I asked the rep to tell me how it worked. "We actually match keywords. And dynamically adjust which keywords Ubooly looks for depending on the scenario," said Cloge. "For example, if Ubooly asks a math question, it specifically only matches keywords that are numbers in the response."
Moreover, the Ubooly will learn your child's play patterns and favorite activities so that over time, it can tailor its awake time to match the child's preferences and interests. Yes, this toy is as close as I've ever gotten to a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer!
I have a funny story about the time I spent playing with Ubooly's awake time. At one point Ubooly asked me if I wanted to listen to music. I said yes. Then it started playing a familiar tune and I exclaimed excitedly, "that's the intro song from Car Talk! Major geek cred to the creators for slipping that in there!" I was thrilled. Then it started playing an actual Car Talk episode, meanwhile the Ubooly was bobbing his little face rhythmically to the sound of Tom and Ray making jokes about the Fiat-Chrysler partnership. "Wait a minute..." Yeah, I felt pretty stupid when I realized it had simply selected a song at random from my playlist, my playlist consisting solely of old Car Talk shows. So be warned, your entire iTunes library is up for selection, whether or not your music library is kid-friendly!
(For the record: Car Talk is totally kid-friendly.)
As for the plush toy itself, it is very cute, soft, and sturdy. There's a gel pouch inside that makes it weigh considerably more than you'd expect. While the idea of gel near my iPhone makes me a little uncomfortable, it really does give the Ubooly enough substance to easily stand straight without extra support or risk of tipping all over the place.
The negative: There is limited content at the moment, future monthly content is nothing more than a promise, and quite frankly I think offering in-app purchases in children app is really annoying. "I would like my child to have access to my credit card to purchase imaginary items for worlds that don't exist," said no parent ever. I know you can block in-app purchases, but I would really prefer not having them there at all. Why not charge for the app and remove in-app purchases?
In the end, thirty dollars sounds like a lot of money in the world of 99 cent apps, but this one definitively delivers on interactivity. With the promise of new content every month, it could be worth its price in the long run. However, there are a lot of video games that offer much more content for the same price, so you have to judge whether the coolness factor of carrying a conversation with a plush toy is worth of risk of missing out on future content if the company fails to deliver. Cloge admitted they've fallen behind on the original Kickstarter planned features and content, but that they worked really hard this summer to setup a good system that will let them push content faster in the future, and a good team of writers to create all that content. "We believe by keeping our users happy and excited about new content, so we'll have future opportunities to reengage them as customers in the future," said Carly. "For example, we have specific educational packs that will be available for purchase. My personal favorite will be a road trip pack where Ubooly will use the phone's GPS to become a tour guide for kids during travels." That I would love to see!
I had fun with Ubooly and I look forward to the next content release update. It's the first children app in my experience that you can really interact with based on voice commands rather than taps on the screen, which allows for all kinds of fun pretend play possibilities not really present on the app market until now. It's not like my daughter is ever playing games on an iDevice long enough for me to need an app that gets her off the couch, but it's very refreshing to see diversity in a world of children apps. Ubooly can really be more of a friend than an app, and that is pretty cool.
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary Ubooly for review purposes.
