The Official Bub Hub Blog!

I've created a monster. The Toddler is obsessed with my iPhone. He gets up in the morning and silently nabs it from my bedside table before I wake.

He rests it on my pillow and stands beside the bed. I'm awake soon enough - this morning I woke to the tune of The Gigglemobile at full volume. Yesterday he was completing puzzles on Tozzle then loudly congratulating himself with an enthusiastic 'yay' and some vigorous hand clapping. Cute ... but less cute at 4.45am.

Last week he called my mum, my brother-in-law and an old work mate at 5am. Doubt they saw the funny side either.

So seeing as though he is already (at 21 months) adept at choosing, opening and closing apps I wasn't sure how he'd react to the new Fisher-Price Apptivity Case, which covers the home key to stop baby from deleting your photos, ringing your boss at the crack of dawn and posting nonsense on your Facebook page.

It was 30 minutes before I was able to find out though ... the lock on the back of the case is so baby-proof that I spent half an hour locating something to pry it open. A keyring did the trick by the way ...

Once I'd choosen an app for him to play (Fisher-Price has three free apps available from the App Store) and loaded the iPhone into the case he was happy to play away. He loved the 'steering wheel' shaped case, and when he got bored of the app he turned it over and checked himself out in the mirror!

He even gave it a chew ...




Interestingly, with the case on, he didn't play with the phone for as long as he usually would (if I let him) - and I consider this a good thing. When there's no case he will continually press the 'home' key, then find a new app or scroll through all my photos/videos. But with the case on, he played for a little while then abandoned it to play with his cars.

Thank goodness! I don't mind him playing the occassional game but I don't like him a) getting into an iPhone trance and b) monopolising the phone when I need it!



So here's what I liked about the Apptivity Case:

1. It actually helped him concentrate on one task then move on to other toys.
2. It will be handy on our upcoming road trip (I know ... shoot me now) as I'll be able to put his favourite TV show on for him without having to constantly restart it each time he presses the home key.
3. It keeps my iPhone safe from sticky fingers and the occassional drool plus protects it when it falls on the ground.
4. It stops him deleting photos, moving my apps into very unusual sub-folders and making awkward early morning phone calls

The information bit:

Thanks to Fisher-Price for sending us an Apptivity Case for review.

The Apptivity Case is available from all good retailers (RRP $24.99). It is compatible with iPhone 1G, 3G, 3GS, 4G and iPod Touch 2G, 3G and 4G.

Visit www.fisher-price.com/au/ for details.