iphone – Mediocre Mum

Struggling to read messages on your phone?

I thought this was pure genius so I wanted to share it with you. I’m now in my 40s and a few months ago I started noticing that I was struggling to read text messages on my iPhone. I was having to progressively hold my phone farther and farther away until it came into focus.

Oh the joys of getting older!

However, I noticed a friend had rather large text on her phone the other night, so I had a little look in the settings and worked out what she had done.

These are instructions for an iPhone.

Go into Setting>General>Accessibility

The select Large Text and choose the font size you would like but don’t go to mad or anyone in a mile radius will be able to read your texts. I chose 20pt and it’s making the world of difference.

Hope this helps in some way.

Apps we love! Doodlecast

I absolutely love this app, bar the music at the beginning. At first, Doodlecast (£1.99) just looks like another drawing app which we have many, but if I’m honest we prefer paper and crayons for that. What I really love about this one is that the children can record their own narrations whilst drawing the pictures. It comes with a selection of templates for inspiration (shopping trolley, park, dinner late, faces etc) or you can start from a blank canvas.

In addition, if you set it up, it will automatically upload the final product to YouTube which makes it incredibly easy to share with friends and family!

You can check our more of our favourite apps here.

Ipad Apps for Kids: Puppet Pals HD

Yet, another fantastic Ipad app recommendation from my mate Danny Nicholson from The Whiteboard Blog. I absolutely love this app Puppet Pals, it’s also available for iphones but can’t help thinking the screen would be too small and fiddly for little fingers.

Simply choose your characters, a background, resize the images and when you’re ready push the record button, move your characters around and narrate your story. Within seconds you have an animated story. My daughter is only four and cracked it right away. The educational value is limitless (literacy, listening and speaking, drama).

The basic version is free and comes with the Fairytale characters, but I’m tempted to buy the Director’s pass (£1.99), which includes custom content and all the characters, so we can start using our own images; including my daughter so we can plonk her right in the stories. She’d go crazy!

Here is my daughter’s first attempt. Do bear in mind she’s only 4 and the concept of a beginning, middle and end to a story is still beyond her.

For more of our app reviews click here

Iphone App – GPS Wakeup

Have you ever stayed after work in London for a few drinks and ended up falling asleep on the train and missing your stop? My husband has a couple of times in the last 6 months and ended up at the end of the line in Bedford, resulting in a very expensive taxi ride home at 4am.

I haven’t tried this app myself yet, but I absolutely love the idea of it. GPS Alarm (free from iTunes) lets you set an alarm based on your location and will go off when you get close. The only other solution is to stick a post it note on your forehead with your stop written on it, like this slightly inebriated woman did!

Iphone Apps for Kids: Casper’s Scare School

People must think I’m in the back pocket of Mindshapes as I’m always raving about their apps. However, I think there success it due to the fact that they have consultant teachers on board so you end up with fun apps that are also educational.

I was sent a promo code for their latest iPhone app Casper’s Scare School (£1.99), which was released just in time for Halloween and it’s a scream (excuse the pun)! Kids are faced with a character in fancy dress and they have 10 seconds to study it. Then they have to try and remember the ghoulish outfit. It’s great for short term memory. Honestly, it’s ‘fang’tastic!