GORDON  MCDOWELL

App Store Link – Baby UI is an extremely simple iPhone / iPod / iPad app designed for Test Subject #0001, also known as, “son.”

Baby UI is a result of my son not intuitively understanding what constituted a simple “tap” on my iPhone. We don’t think much of tapping, but it involves pressing your finger down, not moving it for a moment, and lifting it back up. During this process, you can’t be holding the iPhone with your other hand so that you’re touching the screen.

Baby UI responds to just such “incorrect” interactions, and offers the chance for discovery as your infant rotates & shakes the device. Some interactions are simple (colors appear at point of contact), others are complex (shapes chirp and swarm around baby’s touch).

The lesson? “This device responds to me.”

You can purchase Baby UI (for 99 cents) at Apple’s App Store.

Customer Feedback

• My son loves this BTW. :-) Good job Gordon!
• Good app very entertaining. (iTunes review of v1.2.2)
• Baby loves it. Interesting and colorful visuals. (iTunes review of v1.2.2)
• Simply beautiful, baby loves it and so do I! (iTunes review of v1.2.2)
• I’ve been waiting for an app like this! Finally! (iTunes review of v1.0.0)

…I can’t link to individual reviews, but you can see these by looking at Baby UI in iTunes (or App Store on your iPhone / iPad), and looking at Ratings.

v1.2.4 of Baby UI

Fixed issue where 1.2.3 would freeze if device was rotated while the screen was being touched.

Stopped modal flocking behavior and replaced it with multi-touch swarming… so instead of birds alternately chasing / running / chasing / running, they’ll instead chase however many fingers are touching the screen at the same time.

Tuned flocking so newer devices had more birds on screen than older devices. Smooth movement is prioritized over quantity of animation.

I’ve tested Baby UI 1.2.4 with an iPhone 3G (pre-4.0 iOS) all the way through to iPad Retina (iPad3). If you submit any feedback (good or bad) to iTunes App Store, please include the age of your child in months!