Looks well done, but it seems fairly similar to a lot of other apps in the same space: "look, ma, flood fill!". That, or the big, fat "pen" that's possibly even more difficult to do anything useful with for little fingers than a real pencil or crayon.
In other words... I'm still not convinced that tablets or phones are very good for "coloring" or "painting" for children. That's not really a knock on your app, which seems about as good as these things get, but more of a call to use the devices in a new and interesting way that lets kids be creative and makes the most of the features the devices have, rather than emulating (poorly) something that works ok in the real world.
>>In other words... I'm still not convinced that tablets or phones are very good for "coloring" or "painting" for children.
My personal experience has shown they can be very beneficial. My little sister has Down Syndrome and never did well with regular book coloring. I downloaded an app that used tap-to-fill and what she learned from it has carried over to real life. She learned the lines are the edges for colors, different sections can be different colors, etc. I fully credit the app with teaching her that.
Definitely agree with this. My little girl is almost at this stage now and I'm not sure that tablets are the right way to go. This implementation looks really nice but I think that the real world version is sooooo much more expressive.
Not that I'll have much say in it, my wife will veto tablets in favour of actual genuine finger painting in a heartbeat :)
In general they are worse than the actual paper and marker, but when you end up waiting somewhere and you left the kids coloring stuff in the car, apps like this are a life-saver.
That being said, my kids like the free-form doodle apps more than the coloring-book style ones.
My 3 year old has a marker and paper in her hand almost every minute of the day. She is constantly doodling and drawing pictures. I get at least 4 pictures a day from her, all with a story to tell.
When we're out and about, she loves having access to my iPhone when she's been already waiting 20 minutes and losing her patience. She immediately goes for the colouring and drawing apps, and continues doodling. And she knows how to click the home button and the power button to take a picture of the screen.
I don't see these as a replacement, but as a compliment. Don't think 'if I give this to my kid to use, they'll lose all ability to actually use a pencil'. It won't be the case.
The fat pen is fairly useful in this app since when active it doesn't let you go outside the lines. However, you only seem to get to use it when the shape isn't divided up into sections.
I've used other apps (a branded Crayola one on Nintendo DS springs to mind) where it remembers where you put the stylus down and keeps you within the lines of that section until you lift it from the page. Worked quite well and I think it'd be a good fit for this app.
Uh! Ya I did look at your HN profile; and also visited your personal website. Have reached out via twitter, because your email wasn't listed here. Catch up there :)
My personal website has a big 'contact' section at the top of the page, with several email addresses. That's your best bet for anything more substantive than 140 characters...
In other words... I'm still not convinced that tablets or phones are very good for "coloring" or "painting" for children. That's not really a knock on your app, which seems about as good as these things get, but more of a call to use the devices in a new and interesting way that lets kids be creative and makes the most of the features the devices have, rather than emulating (poorly) something that works ok in the real world.