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Ask Slashdot: Android Apps For Kids Under 12 Months?
An anonymous reader writes "My kid seems incredibly interested in my Android tablet, but I'm not too comfortable with letting her play with my browser. I've been hunting the app store for apps that I could let my kid play around with, but haven't found much. It seems like most apps are targeted for slightly older kids and are trying to teach them words, math or whatnot. Has anyone found any cool apps for approximately 6-month-old children? I'm mostly looking for something that makes funny noises or where you just have to e.g. track moving objects on the screen."
I wouldn't worry about finding specific apps that are "safe" for a 6-month old. At that age, no parent should even consider letting their child use an Internet-connected device unsupervised. So, if yo show the child something on the web browser, or another app, you should know specifically what you're looking at and should be 100% comfortable with the material.
Counting Robot
Basically it is a sort of whack-a-mole with different numbers of moles each time.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
http://www.zoodles.com/home/marketing/android Pretty good kid-mode for android. Disables most apps / buttons and provides its own kid interface to just what you enable.
http://interserver.net/
Love and affection. At that age it is nothing more then a glowing rectangle that makes noise. Go outside and show your children the world around them.
Toddler Lock works nicely. Cool colours and sounds as they touch the screen. It temporarily replaces the home screen so it locks out phone/internet/other app access until an adult follows the onscreen unlock instructions.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=marcone.toddlerlock
The current research is indicating that children under 2 years old should not have any screen time (tv included). And after 2 years they are saying that it should be limited to under 2 hours. I know it is a popular thing to do to have your kids zone out in front of a screen but it may significantly hinder their development. That said it is ultimately your call.
My understanding is that physical play with 3D objects (e.g. blocks) for motor skills and physical interaction with a parent for language skills are much more important to young children than learning apps. Anecdotally, I've heard that kids learn language much better from real interaction with an adult than from language aps.
Although this might be heresy for a tech web site, put away the screens, big and small, for the very young!
This idiotic question is easy to answer. Any app calling shutdown() right at the beginning will do just fine.
Really, just stop fucking up your kids.
If you want to make them into responsible open source contributors you better start as early as possible.
You've GOT to be kidding me! Are you serious? What the hell is wrong with you? Children that young need to experience THE WORLD not steer wide-eyed, slack jawed at a screen. You might as well put the poor thing up for adoption because you've already proven yourself to be a completely incompetent parent. This is so sad, so very very sad. I'll pray for your poor little child. (And I'm a devout atheist.) Let them play with blocks, with stuffed animals. Or, hey, has a novel concept - how about you, you lazy disinterested excuse for a real parent. Read them a freakin book. Bring them outside. Get a g*d d*mn puppy or kitten. The REAL WORLD people. The REAL WORLD is just on the other side of that plastic light emitting panel that your eyeballs are so hopelessly stuck to! GET A LIFE!! 6 months old. Oh my g*d!
what about a system where free apps don't need a pin / CC card to buy / install but one where you need a pin to buy / install a paid app / buy stuff in app?
http://aaronwolfe.com/a
its pretty much as dumb as they get, just hit the ufo cats and they make noise and fly around. done as a learning experiment.
kids do seem to love it though.
-Lod
My toddler is very interested in my car keys, but I'm reluctant to let him drive my BMW. The iDrive system is somewhat complicated, and I think a RWD performance car might not be appropriate for a first-time driver - especially since here's snow on the ground and he can't reach the pedals. Can anyone recommend a FWD or AWD car with a simpler interface and adjustble pedals which would be appropriate for a sub-2 year old child?
A child shouldn't be handling technology until about 3 years old, as many Slashdot stories have reported. It's also just common sense that so much stimulation so early on is bad for a developing brain.
You mistake interest for curiosity. It is in the child's nature to explore and learn about their environment, but introducing them to your tablet is just going to impede their progress as all their attention is consumed by the device.
If you are not an Android developer yet and would be interested in trying it out, here could be your chance to develop something simple to the platform and possibly even share your work to fill the gap in the app store.
and we decided he will not look at a TV/PC/phone screen before he is two years old as a minimum. We instead try to spend as much as time possible with him doing activities appropriate for a 9 months old baby. Maybe this is the reason why he is so active and curious about what happens around him.... And no, I am not a tech luddite (I am a physicist).
Little ones tend to toss phones aside when they get them, so be sure that you can fit the phone in some kind of protective case. The better ones out there, at least for iPad and iPhone (and iPod Touch) even have a blocker to prevent pressing the home button. However, they are all standardized for ipods, so be sure to try one on your android device first to be sure it fits and is secured and stable.
I can't speak for pre-toddler apps on android, as for my little one we opted for an iPod touch instead, since we knew it would 1) fit in those kinds of cases, and 2) be easier to secure vis-a-vie the home button, shopping sites, the settings panel. Fisher Price's apps have been good for our little one in the IOS. Some of those might have been ported.
The other important thing to watch for is the free preview apps - those are *entirely* for adults to try. When they reach their time or step limit, they may take you to the app store to purchase the full version. Make sure it doesn't do that before you hand it over to the kid to try.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Don't tell me how to raise my kid--I won't tell you how to raise yours. Hate to break it to the fucktards wanting to tell others how to raise your kid--electronics are a large portion of the world for many. Kids will get outside, but why can't they learn and get a fascination with everything?
Anyone actually read the AAP article? The study found children can't cognitively comprehend anything before two--basically there is no educational TV before two. something along the lines that watching SpongeBob makes your kid dumber... Shocker!! My own theory-stimulate that young brain any way you can. The notion kids don't comprehend before two is hogwash--give them the right stimulus and they will do amazing things. Some kids can count, know their letters and shapes by two--others can eat.... A lot depends on the parents.
Simple games do wonders: Here is a simple ABC game as well as one that helps with counting and has the advantage of doing it in several languages.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=russh.toddler.game
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kidgames.connect.dot.dinosaur
"My 3 week old is fascinated by certain shapes. Is there an app that looks like big tits dripping milk that would be something he could play with?"
Dumb ass posting; never should have seen the light of day.
Look for the following....
A rattle, a ball, and any of the other toys that work on dexterity and focus. Apps? really?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The research is still early on this. I would be very careful, and I'd limit exposure to flat screen TVs as well.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/28/news/la-jc-sleep-book-backlit-melatonin-20120828
“Our study shows that a two-hour exposure to light from self-luminous electronic displays can suppress melatonin by about 22 percent," said Mariana Figueiro, the lead researcher. “Stimulating the human circadian system to this level may affect sleep in those using the devices prior to bedtime.”
Buy blocks or big Lego bricks. Puzzles with big pieces are good. Is the app-for-the-kid really for her or for you? Things with glass are not for small children (unless it's the Bag O' Glass from Saturday Night Live: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/irwin-mainway/1185611/).
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Change the question for "What a baby should be learning at that age?". A learning device with no texture, fake 3d, no smell, taste, heat, or any other input for senses other than sight and hearing maybe could be harmful for his development. Human and nature contact, toys that estimulate his senses (if possible, several, something with more texture than just plastic), a pet, music. A tablet (i.e. very simple games like ant smasher) could be a complement, but not a substitute.
It just so happens there is exactly the application you need. It's called the original all natural boob tube. Round, soft to the touch, a simple circular universal interface with a single button that also dispenses nutritious drink. They come in matching pairs with virtually every mother.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobileaddicts.rattle&hl=en&referrer=utm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_term%3Dbaby+rattle+app
Baby Toy is a small app that just has some pictures of animals, musical instruments or robots and it makes sound / vibrates when one of them is touched. It has an option to lock into the app until some specific combination is pushed so it's very hard to get out of it.
Kid Mode is a shell that provides some apps that are age appropriate. We got a cheap white label tablet (7") and put it on it. It's pretty good and can wrap around other kid apps so that they can't get out of the kid mode / app easily.
We've mainly used both on planes and places where it gets hard to bring lots of toys. I do agree with the comments about sleep and melatonin production, whenever she used our phones / tablets near her sleep time it was harder to get her to sleep. We're now more careful about that.
Heh.... I just released this for Android tablets.... now I get to flog it here on Slashdot, LOL.
Seriously, though, it was designed for cats, but the reviews for the webOS version have stated that small children loved it, too. This was more or less confirmed when my 2 year old niece played the new enhanced Android version at a family Christmas party and she was delighted.. there's even an Easter egg in the game to put up a "Scary dog" which jut made her giggle (not my cats, though). She was also much better at it than the adults that tried it.
At any rate, here is the link.
If this isn't a troll then I would say tablets aren't really made for babies so why not stick with human interactions rather sitting her in the corner with a tablet?
Infants and toddlers should not be watching TV before 2, and should definitely not be on phones before then as well. They need to be looking around, trying to make sense of the world, and not be preoccupied with "entertainment". Every moment they spend teaches a lesson about this world. Having a constant distraction in front of them is not a wise thing, as focus and concentration will come harder in life.
Akin to our grown up habits: Nowadays, we have enough distractions. Every time we get a spare second, we are looking at our phones, playing a game, checking our status... We don't get nearly as much time to ponder and imagine. A child is the same: whenever they get the chance to see something new, they will try to feel it, weigh it, taste it, smell it, and basically, in their way, to understand it. Providing an infant or toddler distractions which, through their senses, does not teach them about how the natural world works, is inappropriate. i.e. staring at a screen will mean slower eye coordination (focusing on near/far objects). Having a lack of texture, or taste, or smell... things that infants/toddlers need.
And please don't plop your child on your lap while you play COD or HALO IV. Play with THEM. Children without these social interactions are, not accounting for genetic inheritances/mutations, more likely to become psychopaths.
We all pretend not to see the occasional article about cell phone radiation. That is us. Do you really want an infant having one of those devices close to their head all of the time?
Try "baby picture fun" ... Super simple, free, no ads. Will entertain for a couple minutes.
Zoodles is excellent. You can even lock the kid in zoodles "kid mode". I got it when my son turned 2 and still use it. Liked it so much I pay for it but it's fully functional for free.
They have hundreds of apps arranged by age. And you can add links to other apps (e.g. angry birds). They send you a weekly report card with more graphs and stats than anyone needs.
Zoodles is awesome.
Seriously, it's crazy to do that to an infant. An infant is still developing their visual system and learning (by pruning their brain synapses) about the reality of the world around them and how they (the infant) interact with it physically. Providing examples of useless GUI interfaces and ongoing stimuli with poor interaction is a crazy thing to do to an infant.
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They need physical toys like rattles and pacifiers and blocks that they can touch and move around and make noise with and learn the "intuitive" laws of physics from them. Give them a few years before you throw Emacs at them. The only Gnu they need to interact with at that tender age is a stuffed Gnu plush toy. And I say this as a fervent believer in children playing with computers: do NOT make infants and toddlers play with computers and tablets.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics itself recommends limiting access to screen time for children under the age of 2 years .
My kid will be two next week and it will be quite some more time until he will be allowed to use a tablet or similar. I find it deeply wrong to let a small kid use those devices. On top of that the use of such devices seems to have an impact on children's vision and eyesight.
how about the 'play with your kids app'??
like peek-a-boo, and pass the ball, and ride the horsey?
expecting a 10 month yr old to play w an android tablet instead of playing w a real human is ridiculous..
you can do better as a parent
2cents
j
Peek-A-Boo Barn, Peek-A-Boo Jungle, Kids Song Machine. These are a huge hit with the little guys!
As a forewarning, your child's eye sight isn't fully developed yet at this age, and should probably not use the device before age 2-3 any more than a 3d game consol.
Now, if you still let him or her look at the screen at arm's range, he or she will see bright lights with vague shapes. You'll be able to tell because he or she will have a hard time distinguishing and interacting with precise UI features. Thus, at least do your kid a service by dimming the screen's brightness to the lowest possible setting.
If my own nephew is any indicator, btw, tasting the device will your infant's primary interest, alongside an occasional crash test when it slips. You've little need for fancy apps for that, the device itself and some simple music or drawing app will suffice.
Lastly, as many other posters have suggested already, you should be playing with and talking (very important) to your child, instead of delegating babysitting to a screen.
My kid is now two years old and has been using an iPhone or iPad since a little earlier than one.
There are plenty of things they learn by using these devices -- fine motor control, color and shape recognition.
This is definitely a good thing and these people that are alarmists about these new devices are being ridiculous.
Yeah -- limit access to the device, don't let them sleep with it and play with it all day -- but they are fine for ten minutes at a time.
I think the first app that was useful to my son was a drum app. a flash card app that showed a picture and spoke its name were
favorites for a long time (there were various a year ago, Food, Vehicles, Everyday Objects). Then a drawing apps and now number and
letter apps
Books have been popular -- Sandra Boynton books and Dr. Suess mostly
My son, who is 27 months now, has been using a tablet since about 8 months old. We started mostly with apps that consist of pressing a button to hear animal or machine sounds, he also liked the bubble pop games - especially ones with lots of colors. He caught on really quickly and was able to navigate around my parent's kindle better than them shortly after he turned one. He liked the kneebouncers apps when he was little too, which are just a series of simple cartoon characters that do repetitive things every time you press any button. I also think the book apps on the tablet really helped him to appreciate actual books more, we had problems getting him to listen to a book until we got him some book apps. After watching them with us for awhile he really started liking real books too. The Netflix app is also nice. Lets face it, there's times where having 15 minutes to make dinner, take care of bills, etc are needed and I'm glad my son can watch something to keep him entertained that doesn't have any commercials in it.
I realize that everyone thinks their child is above average, but my son has a great vocabulary, counts to 15 by himself, knows all his colors and shapes, and has an extremely active imagination. I definitely think the time he spends on the iPad helps contribute to that.
Don't listen to the self-righteous assholes telling you your a bad parent because you want to spend time doing something other than peekaboo with you child. Anything that creates a form of bond between you and your child and stimulates their motor and cognitive skills is a valuable tool. It's obvious that a tablet should be just one form of stimulation you provide for your kids, but since there's several hours in the day for play there's plenty of time to include games/tablet use amongst books, puzzles, play-dough, blocks, etc
Playing games on a phone? Unlikely.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If there's one thing I can rely on Slashdot about, especially when no one here has ever met a woman, it's reliable parenting advice.
Even though I agree with the others that kids that young really don't need apps, the best I have found is Dr. Panda's Hospital. It's not really for 6 mos. old--more like 2 years--but it's about as close as you can get. It's a cute game with no real point, but just a bunch of cute animals and sounds, and things that happen when you touch the screen. I let my 18 mo. old play with it once in a great while. The only catch is that you can't stop them from minimizing the app, which happens fairly often in random touching. I got the app free from Amazon a little while ago. Seriously, though, it's funny that we even spent so much money on Christmas presents. My girl often spends her whole day crinkling paper ads we get in the mail. And her developmental needs are often met by sorting her mom's old business cards into plastic containers.
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
OP asked a legitimate question. Don't think he was looking for advice on how half of /. feels like they're better parents by limiting their children's use of technology (any many of the opinions here seem a little hard nosed.)
My two year old uses my tablet and smartphone regularly.
Do I limit how often he uses it? Absolutely. But there is some great interactive content that does benefit him as well. He's by far developmentally advanced (both physically and cognitively). I do expose him to the real world most of the time. However, I also expose him to technology that his world will undoubtedly be enveloped with as he gets older. He can navigate and use an iPad better than his grandparents, and he has a health outdoor routine, social activities...
Obviously anything is bad in excess. I don't see interactive apps being anything but beneficial in moderation.
But I suppose - this is the Internet. Someone asking a legitimate question is clearly asking for people's opinion and stories about how they're better.
Get the "CPS Child-Friendly" App...
You have to let it have Geo-location rights and rights to either dial out or e-mail out.
It contains a human body-gingerbread outline, and prompts the child to put marks "where daddy or mommy touches me".
It also monitors the child and time left alone with the device. This is tracked to the threshold of Child Abandonment.
Also, it can post to your Facebook page - "I've left my infant child alone for xx hours now!" with a picture of the child from the device camera.
And, the app is COMPLETELY free. It is sponsored in part by Child Protective Services (CPS), Department of Children & Family Services (DCFS), and Department of Social Services" (DSS).
Of course, the App MIGHT potentially have some privacy holes, but hey - the app is targeted for the age group you requested, and it's FREE, so go for it.
I have no good app-suggestions for you. But I am eager to pick up the few good suggestion that may emerge here.
And don't mind all the ignorant trolls flaming you about letting your kid play with the tablet. They're either ignorant or not parents themselves (and hence not in a very good position to lecture you on parenting).
They just don't understand that letting your child play with a phone/tablet is not in any way an indication of you spending too little time with the kid.
Letting kids play with technology is no different than letting them play with their normal toys
(and I am sure some of your "normal" toys use batteries and makes sounds/lights already). They will learn just as much from that as they will pressing physical buttons on a chunk of plastic labeled "Fisher Price".
And off course the kid is interested in the tablet. Not only because it makes sounds and shows images but because the grownups use it. Observing you doing things, and wanting to the exact same things, is an important part of a childs natural evolution. Don't let the single-geeks with no children lecture you.
Our oldest boy is now just over 3 years old. He has operated iPhones and an iPad since he was five months old. He hasn't turned into a green monster yet nor is he showing any signs of problematic behaviour. We limit hos time with the devices off course and we make sure he accepts breaks lasting several days. But the time he has spent with these things has tought him a lot of good stuff. In spite if his young age (3) he recites the entire alphabet in two languages (or own 100% and English about 80% correct). He knows shapes, colors and objects better than most of his peers in kindergarten.
It's a great toy. Just limit the time with the device and make sure it is a supplement to the normal quality time you would have spent with him/her anyway.
Letting your kid interact with a modern toy makes you a better parent. Not a worse one. Take it from someone with many years of first-hand experience. :-)
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
I am going to interpret the question as the cry for help that it seems to be. It's not that tabs are bad for kids per se, but I'd you are so fucking addicted to your tablet that you can't turn it off when you pick up a baby, you need to get rid of it. Now. If it is your dev platform, leave it at work. Otherwise, open the nearest window and toss it out.
SoundTouch and Paperland.
Fuck that, no TV for the first nineteen years, and your child will be a fucking genius. TV is just a massive brain drain.
Well, some TV is kinda okay but the majority of it is utter shit, so don't even have one in your house.
TROLLS: The person did not ask you for help raising their child. Get out of their life. It is not your job to raise their kid. They asked what would be a good app on android. This is what is wrong with the world today. Look after your family and yourself first. They are the parents and it is their choice to make when to le their child use whatever. If you do not have something to contribute then may I suggest you move along to the next subject.
Question asker: My child is two years six months has excellent eye hand coordination and great deductive skills. She already knows how to use the mouse on the computer and very often when it is bad weather outside we will let her go play on seasame street or nick. She is also great at interacting with other kids and is constantly running around. I let her play music and music videos on Ipod and Android. I own both Android and IPod. I do not see the app "Moster at the end of this book" on Play but that is what she started out with at 6-8 MONTHS on IPod touch. At first it is just the noise and sounds, her just pointing and touching the screen, mommy or myself had to help her. It is a great activity to do with the little one. Rest assured this is a great question to find some child friendly apps on Android. Thank you to the people that have contributed. I thank you and I am sure these parents do too.
There should be nothing, nothing with screen given to children below 3 years old. They are harmful to one's attention span and concentration ability. If you let any baby/toddlers access them, you've just brain damaged the children.
First recommendation: let the OP parent however s/he sees fit. This isn't your kid and you don't necessarily know best.
Second, I do have a couple of apps to recommend. Disclaimer, these are my apps. I wrote them for my son when he was little. The voice you'll hear in Baby Animal Balloons is his.
Baby Animal Balloons supports a wide range of devices and is available across the board. This was the first app I wrote and I released it on iOS and Android (in google market, amazon app store and Barnes and Noble). It's super-simple, touching the screen causes a cute little animal to appear and start floating away. Touching that animal causes a cute child's voice to say its name and allows flinging it around.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.littlelaptime.games
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/baby-animal-balloons-little-lap-time/1107081455
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Lap-Time-Animal-Balloons/dp/B005D7BKLI
Interestingly, I never got almost any sales on the Google or Amazon stores. I steadily get 1-3 sales a day on iOS. On B&N I was getting as many as 900 sales a month, though it's slowed down over the last year. For that reason, my next app targeted the nook family of devices. I released it on Amazon as well, simply because it didn't really take any more effort to do so.
Night Night Baby MusicBox is just meant to soothe your baby and get him/her to go to sleep. It plays 5 songs and has some minor (but cute) interactive elements.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/night-night-baby-musicbox-little-lap-time/1108563370
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Lap-Time-Night-MusicBox/dp/B00711YP3O
"as opposed to 2d pictures of 3d things"
How sad for your children, a childhood without picture books.
Your high horse, please step down from it.
You are reading too much into it. Electronics and the outdoors aren't mutually exclusive and they don't detract from one another. People can have both, children can have both. This question has nothing to do with giving up nature or spending all your time in front of computers. None of that was implied by the question.
The question doesn't say anything about ignoring kids. That all came out of your imagination. Are you projecting? Tell me about your own childhood.
GP was posted at 4:47 PM.
4:25 PM
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3339315&cid=42387833
4:27
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3339315&cid=42387851
Redundant is a tough mod because who reads every comment before posting? Still, it's a fair mod. He not only repeated exactly what those other posts said, but he also parroted the sanctimonious tone of the entire thread.
Forget to login /. while posting the above comments :s
http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
The question doesn't say anything about ignoring kids.
He said the kid was interested, so how can a 6 month old be interested in a tablet if the parent is not holding it or leaving it on the floor? Secondly: in how many ways can you say nicely that this is not a good idea hence no market for it , therefore no good apps... without being redundant?
Apps with fun colors, shapes, animals, funny sounds. All good things.
2 girls and a cup videos, snuff films, Al-Queda training videos, Halloween scare apps, not so good.
Is it just my imagination, or has "Ask Slashdot" become "I can't figure out how to search for things on the internets"?
Turn off the wireless (engage airport mode).
Yes, I know the jury is still out, but if you're kid's playing with your phone you ain't receiving emails or calls anyway.
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
Our kid is 4 months old and an app which I have sometimes brought out for him to play with on my phone is "baby fireworks". Now I don't bring it out all the time or rely on it for him to be distracted/use as a plaything. It is just something that gets brought out that he is allowed to play with periodically
His lamaze toys, Sophie the Giraffe teether and various rattles and bright baby books do a sufficiently good job of amusing & distracting him. It is brought out as an occasional toy (think once every few days for a maximum of five minutes or so at a time), and is a toy that he is actually surprisingly effective at demonstrating hand-eye coordination on.
As to the drool factor, I've got a water/drool resistant case on my SGS2, as I do on my Dell Streak 7 (which is too big for him to interact on/with effectively anyway).
I figure that in moderation it's not doing him any harm, and the fact that it does appear to be helping with his hand-eye coordination is somethign that I am not going to ignore.
Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know when your gonna get food poisoning.
There is absolutely no reason why a kid under the age of 14 YEARS has access to a smartphone.
Most android devices are portable and can be used outside.
I can forget keeping it from my baby. He's already too good at grabbing it when I least expect it. What's really needed is an app to keep my 10 month old from teething on it. There's also that disturbing trend of throwing things that doesn't boad well for electronic's in general.
Toddler Lock is good when the child doesn't yet understand the meaning of the home or back buttons:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=marcone.toddlerlock
At around 18 months, our toddler figured out an exploit in Ice Cream Sandwich that got him back to the main desktop. Amazingly, on his own, he figured out how to swipe desktops and run his favorite kid apps! (Fortunately, he didn't go shopping for any new ones.) At this point, we switched over to Kid's Place:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiddoware.kidsplace
This is a fully sandboxed kid-friendly desktop environment that offers your child all the apps you deem fit to allow. It enables airplane mode, disables the Google Play market, and so on. Our (now) 23-month-old knows how to navigate in and out of all his favorite apps with no trouble. There's also a separate Kid's Place Video Player app (accessed from inside Kid's Place) that they can use to play their favorite videos.
Disclaimer: I haven't evaluated other toddler desktop environments; this one worked well for us so we stuck with it.
As for all the tablet haters in here, it has been simply incredible how quickly our toddler is improving is cognitive capabilities. There are things that app can teach in a very intuitive way (memory match games, connect the dots, letter/number and counting games with fun rewards, shape puzzles with several dozen variants) that are difficult, impractical, or impossible to teach with physical toys.
And guess what? When he gets bored of his tablet, he puts it down and goes and plays with his other toys. Imagine that.
You equated "holding a tablet" with "ignoring kids". That is nonsense. Check yourself. You don't have to stake out a black/white position and defend it with bad reasoning. You can use subtle distinctions and complex thinking to come up with nuanced arguments.
If you are saying there are no good apps for some reason then you are apparently mistaken according to commenters who aren't ignorant of what is available.