We kinda like the theory of apps that help you read stories to your children even when you’re hundreds (or even thousands) of miles away from home.
In practice, we’ve never found one that beats a simple FaceTime or Skype video-call for a chat. In the last year we’ve written about Kindoma Storytime and Be There!, which both mixed digital books with video-calls. Neither quite stuck with us.
Now there are two more remote-storytelling apps for iPad, trying to take the idea on: Caribu and Your StoryTime. They work in different ways, but both are aimed at family members – grandparents, not just travelling parents – who want to connect to children using their tablets.
Caribu (the top image in this article) is the closest to those two previous apps: you talk to kids over a video-call while reading a selection of books together. One is included for free, with others sold for £1.99 each in an in-app store.
There’s one pointer so you can both follow where you are on each page, with an option for a video-only mode, as well as an offline mode if you want to read the stories when actually in the same room.
Your StoryTime (above) is different: it’s not about live video-calls. Instead, you record your voice reading a story, with video too – associating each section with specific bits of the screen, so when your kids tap there, they’ll hear and see you.
You can also record videos of yourself to play at the beginning and end of the story. It’s a bit like Me Books, but with video as well as audio recordings – but all asynchronous, so you don’t have to be online at the same time as your child for a live chat.
(That said, on the Your StoryTime website, its developer says that a “Live Screen Share” option is coming soon to add that capability too).
The pattern in our family when one of us is away is more about a video-call around teatime to talk about our children’s day, then whichever parent is with them will handle solo storytelling at bedtime – so we’re not sure if remote storytelling apps are quite right for us.
Still, we wouldn’t apply our habits to everyone, so if the idea appeals, Caribu is a free download for iPad, and Your StoryTime is a free download for iPad – both from Apple’s App Store. Your StoryTime also has a companion app for iPhone to record and send your stories when you don’t have an iPad to hand.
Read about more storytelling apps for kids on Apps Playground, and check out our 100 Best iPad Apps of 2013 e-book – £1.99 from Apple’s iBooks Store