Well, sort of. iMated is supposed to be goofy – think all those face-melds currently making the rounds of Facebook – so the scientific “genome” mumbo jumbo from their Webpage shouldn’t fool you. They’re not looking for points of familiarity (a la fingerprints) and matching them up to create a sweet little bouncing babe with your eyes and his nose or her pointy ears and your pointy eyebrows.

You’re totally going to end up with your boyfriend’s beard on your kid or your girlfriend’s nose ring. And all the better for freaking out the grandma-to-be.

So go have fun – you can download it from the app store or get it at iMated. It’s enough to make you run out and buy an iPhone just to play, isn’t it?

Image: iMated

I’d resisted the hype until now, but with the launch of the new-generation 3GS, it was time to finally give the iPhone a try.

Our brother site Gizmodo can give you the full rundown on the technical specs and performance of the device. Bottom line? It’s fast. That ‘S’ stands for speed. Other improvements have been made to battery life, camera resolution and the addition of voice-controlled dialling and video recording.

But what people really like about the iPhone – and this is only enhanced on the new version – is that it is fun. More on applications later.

In typical Apple style, the iPhone 3GS comes beautifully packaged. Vodafone have loaned me one with a Vodafone SIM for internet browsing, calls and text (sometimes I forget that it is primarily a phone.)
The device is shiny, slim and relatively light-weight, I can picture the thing sliding out of my hand when balancing a load of groceries and a baby, so a shatterproof case is probably a good optional accessory.

Usability wise, the touch screen is a whole world away from the standard Nokia I’m used to. It’s all about touching, tapping and sliding, but it’s intuitive – my two year old knew what to do instinctively. You’d think all that handling would leave a messy screen but, jam-covered little hands aside, the new fingerprint resistant oleophobic coating is a success.

Typing, however, is still proving difficult after a week’s practice. Typing with two thumbs is fast, but terribly inaccurate. Better results are achieved with one finger-tip, but it’s a slow process. Without the tactility of actual buttons it can be hard to hit the right letter. Turning the screen to horizontal mode seems to help, although I still find it hard to believe you could blog on the thing.

Now back to the fun stuff. Along with the groovy pre-installed applications like YouTube, Weather, Maps + Compass and iPod +ITunes, you can customise the phone infinitely to your family’s needs with free and paid apps from the iTunes App. Store.

For my own enjoyment, I’ve had fun with Sudoku, Air Hockey, Wordfu (a Boggle-like game) and Shazam (which identifies songs playing on the radio or over a speaker system).

For social networking and working, email, Facebook and Twitter have all been easy to install and trouble free, while the Dictionary.com and Note applications have come in handy. Although the voice recording application seems to record in high-quality, it does not record phone conversations, which would be most useful for journalists and, err, professional blackmailers.

As for keeping the toddler amused, I found a wealth of fantastic applications for kids. Wheels on the Bus ($AU1.19) has received rave reviews from around the world for its interactive educational features. Cooking Mama Lite (free) is a whole lot of fun to play together and uses a lot of movement – shaking the phone to ’stirfry’ a dish etc to provide a fun and surprisingly enthralling game.

Scribble Lite, Bubble Wrap, and Chase the Dot (all free) are basic and brief diversions while much musical fun can be had with Shaker and Mini Piano (also free).

The favourite here though has been SmackTalk ($AU1.19), a ridiculous application which records your voice then has an animated guinea pig, kitten, puppy and chihuahua ’speak’ back to you in a high-pitched squeal. It is beyond amusing to watch a two-year-old argue with an animated chihuahua about going to bed.

Of course, there are way too many applications to review here. There’s quite a few for household budgeting for example, and for travel organisation and planning and even a few for breastfeeding and timing labour contractions!

The standard phone features – address book, SMS, calendar, calculator, camera etc are all slickly delivered. Internet browsing is a breeze and cleverly switches to wifi where available, sparing your mobile data allowance. Vodafone network coverage has been decent, only dropping out through tunnels and occasionally in lifts. Browsing speed over mobile internet is reasonable, but much faster when connected to wifi.

I am told you can set parental controls on each application or install another, family-friendly browser to use instead of Safari.

All in all, the iPhone 3GS, when combined with the seemingly infinite variety of apps available, is a remarkable family communication and entertainment device. The only problem being that you may not want to share it!

The iPhone 3G S 16GB is available free on Vodafone’s $69 iPhone Cap (24 months), which includes $400 value, unlimited free Vodafone-to-Vodafone calls during the evening and on weekends and 1GB of included data downloads. The iPhone 3G S 32GB is free on Vodafone’s $114 Cap (24 months), which includes unlimited calls and a massive 2GB data.

For the first time, Vodafone now also offers the iPhone to prepaid customers. The 8GB iPhone 3G is available for $759 up front, the 16GB iPhone 3G S for $929 up front and then 32GB iPhone 3G S for $1129 up front. Customers who purchase and register their Vodafone Prepaid iPhone and mobile number before 31 August, 2009 will receive a bonus $500 Flexible Credit ($100 bonus Flexible Credit on each of their next 5 Prepaid Recharges on $49, $79 or $149 Flexi-caps).

For pricing plans from other carriers, as well as more news and information about the iPhone, check out Gizmodo AU.

Over the last 9 months, Owen has buried himself in university-level computer science books, a foreign programming language and “a mountain of doubt” to build his very own iPhone application. His creation MathTime debuted last month on Mac’s App Store and soon rose to number thirteen in the paid educational apps section.

What is MathTime? It is like a flashcard drill which includes addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  But Owen didn’t do it all alone. Nope, he enlisted an ‘art guy’, his 9 –year-old brother Finn who did the math graphics in PhotoShop.

Owen said about creating the tool, “I thought it would be cool…It’s really cool to make something work, to make a little money, to do something like this and see it up” on the App Store.”  In one day the .99 cent app was downloaded 141 times. “It started booming,” said Owen, “I woke up and I was like, I’m an entrepreneur now.”

Source

Called “Baby Shaker,” the 99-cent app, developed by Sikalosoft, made iPhones cry incessantly like a baby while showing a charcoal drawing of a kid. How to comfort/quiet the needy squawker? You shake it. Hard. Ha, ha! So fun … it’s a crying baby and you shake it until the eyes become two red Xs … that’s hilari — oh, maybe not so much.

What’s weird is that Apple didn’t reject that app in the first place — they’ve rejected other violent ones. Oh, and ones with swear words. But Baby Shaker! Well, Baby Shaker had been available for download since Monday. Only now it’s been pulled so you’ll have to settle for something else.

Here’s what the critics say. From the LA Times and CNET:

“This horrible iPhone app will undoubtedly be downloaded thousands of times by others in that same young male demographic — the population group that is already statistically the most likely to shake babies,” Jennipher Dickens, communications director for the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, said in the release. ” As a result of the child abuse my son endured in the form of shaken-baby syndrome, my son now has
irreversible brain damage.”

The only other major player in the kiddie cell arena is Firefly, a device that allows children to call only a few select people. The KiDPhone, on the other hand, will essentially be an iPhone, able to use all of the apps and games that have made Apple’s so-called “Jesus Phone” such a hit with consumers.

“Children are more technologically capable that at any other time in history,” Apple’s founder Steve Jobs said in a press release. “By releasing the KiDPhone, we are enabling our loyal customers to share their favorite device with the whole family.”

The KiDPhone will be slightly smaller to accommodate little hands. The smaller size will also hopefully lead to a lower price. The iPhone sells for as low as $US199 with a service plan; presumably the kiddie version will cost less, although Apple hasn’t announced pricing yet. No carrier either, but it will likely be AT&T again. (That’s OK, since kids don’t need reception that badly. Ba-dum-bum.)

No way am I buying this for my kids. Not only don’t they need it (or any phone for that matter), they can break electronic equipment at 20 paces. I don’t care if this thing comes encased in an unbreakable metal alloy, it would get broken in a week. Who needs the hassle?

Source

My first reaction to Labor Mate – an iPhone application that times your contractions — was something along the lines of “Oh, please. What will they think of next? An app that gets down in your business and looks for crowning?”

Then I remembered those first panicked, anxious hours when it was my job to time contractions and I could barely keep count for all the nerves of being a first-time dad. While I probably wouldn’t have emailed the “contraction log” to my mum or our circle of friends, it would have been nice to have a handy application that wouldn’t say, “Wait a second, is that three minutes? Four? Crap, where are my car keys!”

Has anyone tried this? Is it worth it?

I’m not talking about the puff pastry kind, but the useful wonders that are available for the iPhone. This app turns your iPhone into an instant baby monitor.

If you’re visiting friends or relatives and baby needs a nap away from the crowd CodeGoo’s Baby Monitor application, $US4.99,for the iPhone will keep a watchful eye. Simply place the iPhone near your sleeping baby, if it detects noise, it places a phone call to the number of your choice. You can then listen in for activity from your baby.

A recent post on ParentDish — which I discovered via Wired's Geekdad blog — provides an extensive overview of iPhone applications that are particularly helpful to parents. So far, no one has figured out a way to make the iPhone raise our children for us. But many of these make our parenting responsibilities easier. You should definitely check out the full post, but these are the four I think new mums and dads may find most useful:

Baby Monitor: This one turns your iPhone into a baby monitor, which is such a great idea, especially for parents who frequently travel or don't want to spend extra money on another device. Word of caution: Yes, the phone will call you when the infant stirs, but that doesn't mean it's safe to leave the kid in his crib while you hit a "Quantum of Solace" matinee.

Nursing Tracker: Most mums find it challenging to keep track of how long they last breastfed, which side the child fed on, etc., especially when they're operating on very little sleep. This app helps make that process easier. Sure, you could just write down the information. But this way, that feeding log can't get lost or inadvertently thrown away by a spouse who think he's being helpful by cleaning up in the nursery. Not that, like, I am speaking from experience.

Food Additives: This application is perfect for parents of children with food sensitivities and allergies. It allows you to look up information about 450-plus additives, ideal for those times in the supermarket when you're trying to make a quick decision about whether to buy or not to buy. Pretty useful for grown-ups with allergies, too.

Diaper Tracker: This is perhaps the most useful of them all. My husband and I spent a ludicrous amount of time tracking our son's, um, defecation progress in those early days because he wasn't gaining enough weight. This app allows you to record all of the relevant information, right down to the description of the b.m. (Appetising, I know.) Now, will you look like kind of an a-hole when the paediatrician asks for details about your child's bowel movements and you whip out your iPhone? Kinda. But you'll also have the most precise poo information of any parent around.

Image: codegoo.com via ParentDish.

We've all been there. You're in the grocery store, or doctor's office, or a restaurant and you need a five minute distraction for your toddler. And if you're a dad or mum on-the-go who doesn't keep a spare stuffed animal in their pocket, you're usually relegated to whatever you have handy. If one of those things is an iPhone or an iPod Touch, then you may not realize it or not, but you've got a wealth of toddler distractions just waiting to be explored.

I've combed through the iTunes Application store and tested out what I think are the ten best applications you can use to distract your young child. The emphasis here is on the word "young." I only included things that would be good for pre-school aged kids, which means I didn't pick any games or anything that would have a learning curve. I also didn't pick anything that required your child to shake the iPhone. It's one thing to hand over your $300 telephone to a two year old, it's another to hand it over and encourage them to shake it.

So here they are, in no particular order:

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Preschool Adventure ($0.99, 3DAL, LLC.):
Preschool Adventure is one of the few on this list that was written specifically for pre-school aged kids. It's an app that has four smaller activities inside of it: Colors, Shapes, Sounds and Body. With all of them, you touch the screen to make something appear and sound. So for instance, in the colors app, your child touches a splash of a color, and then a sea creature appears saying the name of the color and the name of the creature ("Pink Sea Animone" is, admittedly, kind of a mouthfull for children). I found the app to be very simple but engaging for a pre-schooler, and my two year old loved it.

Bubble Wrap (Free, Orsome Software):
Bubble Wrap is one of those adult time-wasters that can double as a diversion for your kid. The app itself is simple – you just get a field of bubbles like you were holding a sheet of bubble wrap. Then you touch each bubble to make it pop. As soon as you start, there is a timer to see how many you can pop in sixty seconds, but your kids will undoubtedly ignore that and just enjoy popping the bubbles.

Midomi (Free, Melodis Corp.):
Midomi is a distraction for your kids that you'll have to do with them, so it won't buy you any time, but it's cool nonetheless. Midomi is an application that will identify any song it hears, whether it is on the radio, being played live, or your own singing or humming. It's pretty amazing when you first try it, as it's quite adept at figuring out your tuneless humming. My kids and I had loads of fun thinking up songs and singing them into it to see if it could recognize the tune. Even better is listening to some of the songs it thinks you're trying to hum (especially the songs in Japanese).

YouTube (free, with iPhone):
Everyone who has an iPhone has the YouTube application built in, so some may think this one is a cop-out, but in reality it's one of the great diversions on the iPhone. This is how you get the most out of it. Get a free YouTube account, and in your free time (you are reading this after all) go and search for videos you think your kids will love. Mark all of those videos "favorites" and then when you log into YouTube on your iPhone, go right to your favorites and start playing them. I loaded my favorites with videos of Disney songs, and I can get both of my girls (2 and 4 years old) silent for the length of each song.

Scribble (Free, Zintin Software):
This one is kind of self-explanatory. Scribble is a simple app that lets you draw on the iPhone screen. You can choose colors and draw whatever you can manage to get on the screen. Better than drawing though, I've found it good for quick games of tic tac toe or getting my four year old to practice writing her name.

Vehicles ($0.99, iFRizzo.com):
I don't have boys, but this one is clearly for those of you with little XYs running around. Vehicles is a soundboard of all the cars, trucks and plane sounds they could fit onto one screen of the iPhone. The sounds themselves (cars, police cars, fire trucks, airplanes etc.) are about two or three seconds in length depending on which one you choose and can be played over each other for a true sounds-of-the-city symphony.

Koi Pond ($0.99, The Blimp Pilots):
This app is deceptively simple but mesmerizing to adults and children just the same. When you launch Koi Pond, you get a screen with Koi fish swimming underwater, with tranquil outdoor sounds playing in the background. When you touch the screen, the app makes it look like you are touching the water they are swimming in. This naturally makes the fish swim away, so you have to wait until they unwittingly swim again into your view. There are lilly pads to move around and food to feed them too (when you shake the iPhone food appears – thereby breaking my "no shake" rule) which makes them swim back into view more quickly. I know, it sounds really simple and boring, but both of my girls were fighting over the iPhone for a half hour the other day so they could see the fish.

Rulla (Free, LIngon i Korg Software Creations):
This one is a little odd, but kind of fun for a toddler who is learning to read. Rulla (terrible name) is a simple app that makes a message crawl across your iPhone screen, kind of like a news ticker. I think the original intention was to have a way club kids could shoot a message to each other across the
dance floor, but my kids loved thinking up funny messages to "make the phone say." It started with their names and ended up with "Daddy is a kitty cat."

Color Tilt ($0.99, IMAK Creations):
This one is kind of like Scribble, but is way cooler. It's an app that lets you draw by bringing your finger across the screen, but the color you're drawing in is determined by which way you are tilting the iPhone. It's a great use of the iPhone's capabilities, making any scribble look cool. And quite frankly, scribbling is about all you're going to get out of a two year old anyway.

Bubbles (Free, Hog Bay Software):
Bubbles isn't the same as Bubble Wrap, although it may seem like it. Instead of a static page of bubbles, with this app you draw your finger across a blank screen to create the bubbles. Then, as they fall down the screen you pop them with your finger. Simple, but interesting enough to stop a toddler crying in a shopping cart, believe me.

Photos (free, with iPhone):
Photos might be the eleventh suggestion, but everyone gets it with an iPhone (or any iPod for that matter), but in some ways I saved the best for last. The Photos app is the one slam dunk that my kids always want to use. Looking at pictures of themselves, friends and family always quiets them down, and it's gotten to the point that when my two year old sees me with my phone she asks to look at pictures. The trick to it though is to load it up with pictures you've been taking with your regular digital camera, not the iPhone. The pictures will look better and you'll always have more of them.

So there they are. If you have any suggestions or great finds yourself, please let us know in the comments below and happy distracting!