Video Touch: Wild Birds

Although these apps were designed for babies and toddlers, I've purchased every one of the Video Touch apps for my daughter who is a young adult with special needs. Autism is one of her many issues and the ability to control what she watches and to watch the same videos over and over if she chooses makes her so happy. Now I have a grandson who is old enough to enjoy my iPad and he is intrigued as well. We can talk about the pictures before he starts a video and discuss what is happening just like reading a book together but with moving pictures instead. The ability to set a minimum length to each video and to choose how to close the video - with a touch anywhere on the screen or by an arrow icon - are very useful so that a very inexperienced user can control the screen and then advance to a more sophisticated method when they are ready. Another nice feature is that if you own more than one of the apps you will find that you only need to open one of them and all the rest are accessible from little icons at the bottom screen. This is one of my daughter's favorites in this collection. I think she enjoys the bird calls as much as the colorful birds with their quick, dance-like movements. I have purchased quite a number of apps specifically for my daughter and the Video Touch apps are among the best that I own. Each video is recorded beautifully and intriguing to watch and the developer has continued to augment and improve them over time. I highly recommend all of the Video Touch apps.

I am a big fan of sound touch which my young son loves. When I saw Video touch I thought I had to go get it as live video would be a hit. I was, however, surprised I had to download each set of videos as a separate app (many icons) as opposed to one that I could just enable new functionality in even though usage is seamless when you have them all installed. Secondly, while the videos are generally of good quality, the sounds you hear are a nit hit and miss. Many times the sound you expect when seeing something is missing. The cows do not "moo" and the cats do not really "meow" ;)... it is just a video and it seems pure luck as to if you get the noises you were used to in sound touch. For the fire engine, for example, you get a video of people at a fire with everyone standing around a burning building not the fire engine on-the way to a fire... I love these apps in terms of what they are trying to deliver overall and with a bit more work to improve the videos and merge the apps I would give this 5 stars..

This app and it's 5 companion apps are some of the best apps for the youngest of iDevice users. My 2 year old and 4 year old love these apps. Perfect and simple! Your child will be given a grid of icons that correlate to the chosen app (in this case parrots, peacocks, etc). They choose an icon and they get to watch a continuous (no fast cuts!) clip of the chosen icon. Watch the TED Talk on kids watching shows with fast cuts to learn why that is NOT a good thing. Get this! Kudos to the developer for shaving around 200MB off of each app in the latest update! Thank you!