Daddy App Review: Old MacDonald Piano

One of the great joys I have in owning my iPhone and now my iPad2 is the ability to download countless apps for my kids to play with. Many apps attempt to offer the right mix of entertainment, education, and age appropriate content. Of course not all of them hit the spot.

I recently had an opportunity to review an app by Kiboomu Publishing called, Old MacDonald Piano. They make several in this series which is a musical app that works on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. The app allows you to play the piano to the tune of Old MacDonald.

 

However, the app does much more than play a piano. For starters there are 4 options from the home screen. You can choose, “Play and Sing Along”, “Learn The Song”, “Karaoke Mode”, and “Freestyle Mode”. Each mode allows the child to sing and play along to the song while watching a neat animation right above the instrument. What’s especially cool about this app is actually allows you to record not only the child playing the piano but also them singing the song! Guess what else? In Karaoke mode the app will actually play in English, Spanish, and French! How awesome is that?

In addition the app includes the following features:

Piano keys light up one by one following tune

Introduces animal and instrument sounds

Hear the song played on a banjo, xylophone, harp, flute, bells, and more

Records children singing and playing the xylophone

Considering you can purchase this app in the iTunes store for $.99 today I think this is just a no brainer. Considering how well put together this app is and the amount of quality time a toddler or older child could spend on this $.99 is just too cheap to pass up! I will say that for some reason after I record a song with me singing or playing the piano the playback sounds like static. I thought this was just the app but I tried it on their ABC version and the same thing happened. Perhaps this has something to do with downloading a bad version, I’m not sure. However, assuming this is not a normal issue the app is nearly perfect! The only other thing I would add is the ability to share your recorded song on Facebook, Twitter, or email. How fun would it be for the little one to make a song and then email it to Grandma or share it on your Facebook page?

I was provided with a review copy of this app by the Publisher. If you think my view can be swayed fro a $.99 app, you’re smoking crack.

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