Before Apple's original iPad went on sale, the notion that parents would hand over their shiny new tablet to sticky-fingered children seemed ridiculous. Now it's that assumption that looks risible, for there is a burgeoning market in apps aimed at kids – a trend that extends to iPhone and other smartphones.
One of the developers currently creating a buzz around its kid-apps is Toca Boca. Based in Sweden, the studio is part of media company Bonnier Group, which is better known for its newspaper, magazine, television and cinema businesses.
Toca Boca has been winning parental praise for a series of apps, including Paint My Wings, Toca Tea Party and Toca Hair Salon. They're not games or book-apps – the two most popular genres for apps aimed at children – but are described by the developer as digital toys.
"We started off by looking at the different ways kids like to play in the real world, " says chief executive Björn Jeffery, who outlines several kinds. Active play is sports and general running around; make-believe play can be dolls and role-playing; manipulative play is building and making; creative play is drawing, painting and music; and learning play is games and books.
"We realised that 85% of what was in the App Store [for kids] was in the learning play category, " says Jeffery. "That seems strange until you realise that this is the type of play that adults do: we play games and read books, but we don't play with dolls all that often! There is something lacking there. And that's what led to us exploring the more uncharted areas of play, looking at toys rather than games. "
Toca Boca's apps are open-ended: no winning or losing, high scores or time limits. They have beautifully crafted graphics, but are also tightly focused. Toca Hair Salon involves cutting and styling the hair of four characters, while Paint My Wings invites users to paint the wings of a pair of butterflies.
"We test with kids two or three times during the development process to validate the concept – what's fun about drawing on the wings of butterflies? – and we are trying to take these tiny little concepts, and make them really good, so that kids love them, " says Jeffery.
Toca Boca has been clever about the relative lack of speech or text within the games, which means they can be sold around the world with the minimum of localisation. Toca Hair Salon has been bought in more than 70 countries, even topping Apple's Top Paid chart in Kuwait. That experience colours Jeffery's views on the App Store itself.
"The market itself is slightly broken, in that there is a large supply of apps, and sufficient demand – a lot of kids – but the problem is the discoverability in the middle, " he says.
"The supply and demand don't really meet, and there is not even a Kids category in the App Store. At the same time, once you actively skew your apps to reach the whole world, the App Store is great. How could we have possibly sold in 70 markets in two weeks with relatively limited marketing before? "
Toca Boca also has some strong principles at work behind its applications. One is that the studio does not see kid-apps as pacifiers, used as a substitute for playing with their children. Jeffery says he has nothing against passing an iPhone to a grumbling child in the back of a car to keep them occupied, but is hoping for a different usage pattern from his company's apps.
"There is a time and a place for the pacifier idea, but it's quite a limiting way of looking at the segment. We think you can make these apps as fun for parents as for children, and when the two can play together, it can be a very powerful thing. iPad is a family-oriented device, as opposed to the iPhone, which is a very personal device. "
Toca Tea Party is a good example. The iPad app is a tea party, where children drag plates, cups and biscuits around a virtual table, eating and drinking with their fingers. The point being that the items are virtual, but the tea party participants are real: the child, siblings and/or friends, and family members.
Jeffery talks of being sent videos of children using the app to have a tea party with grandparents, and also expresses awe at a review from a user saying the app had sparked "the first non-aggressive play interaction between her autistic son and her daughter".
Toca Boca is also strong on the fact that its games are all paid titles, with no advertising or use of in-app payments. Jeffery stresses that he is not opposed to use of IAP itself, but takes a hardline stance on its inclusion in apps made for children, citing previous discussion around children making large virtual purchases in iOS games like Smurfs' Village that were charged to their parents' iTunes accounts.
"By making products and putting them in the kids category, you should have disqualified yourself from using that technique, " he says. "We have to make our money somewhere else. Developers must take bigger responsibility, rather than expecting parents to have the level of knowledge on how in-app payments work. If we want to build any kind of credibility, we can't start using these mechanics. "
For now, Jeffery hopes that Toca Boca will become a recognisable brand to parents, as the company launches more apps that may feature characters and elements from previous titles. What about looking beyond iOS? Jeffery says that the decision to avoid ads or IAP are a barrier to diving onto Android.
"So far, iOS is the only platform on which apps are being sold in a great number, " he says. "If you're not doing advertising or IAP, this is clearly an iOS market for now. Android Market and the likes are broken: they just don't work from a purchasing point of view for various reasons. "
However, he says that Toca Boca is not writing Android off altogether, and is keeping a keen eye on any data that shows Android Market or comparable stores are becoming more lucrative for paid apps.
"I'm very interested in it from a marketing point of view, because it's a more open ecosystem where you can use more things: bundle apps together with others, or give them away with partners, " he says.
"It's a free-er ecosystem to work with, but no one's buying anything. The sooner that changes, the better. We're looking forward to the day when these stores work, because there are plenty of Android users out there. ".
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