iTunes App Review: Playground TV

Playground TV – MobiTV

Released: August 18, 2012

ABOUT THE APP:

Playground TV is a commercial-free, educational & entertaining app that bring children’s TV to your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad! Watch full episodes of your favorite shows from PBS KIDS like Dinosaur Train, Word Girl, Arthur and Wild Kratts, pre-school favorites from Nick Jr. like Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go! plus other great content from Discovery for Families, Sesame Street, Baby First TV, VeggieTales, Pocoyo and more!

Playground TV is FREE to download, and includes some fun and educational sample content to get you started. You can then subscribe for 1, 3 or 6 months to start watching everything, right from within Playground TV. Your subscription even lets you watch on all iOS devices that you own – buy it once, and run it on both an iPad and multiple iPhones!

Here’s what comes in the subscription version of Playground TV:

• PBS KIDS
• Nick Jr. (iPhone and iPod Touch version only)
• Discovery for Families
• Sesame Street
• VeggieTales
• Pocoyo
• My KazooTV
• BabysFirstTV

To learn more, check out  www.mobitv.com/playgroundtv.

You can also Like Playground TV on Facebook and Follow Playground TV on Twitter

 

MY THOUGHTS:

Okay so I admit, I am guilty of handing over one of our many Apple devices (usually the iPad) to my kids to keep busy or quiet. It’s scary almost how much I rely on our iPad to entertain and even educate my children. Recently they discovered YouTube and while I feel YouTube can be useful (my kids love to watch videos on how things are made or done) I also don’t like it because it is not kid safe. There are tons of inappropriate videos out there and I can’t always be on top of them watching what they are clicking.

Playground TV is an ap that is free to download and it is not just another television for kids. Yes there are popular full-episode shows on there, but there are no inappropriate content or advertising. The shows are picked because of their quality and kid-appropriate content. Since the app is designed for children, I found that it was also just as kid-friendly to navigate. Kids just scroll through a wheel to their favorite character and click it. On the top left of the screen is an arrow that brings them back to the home screen and there are also controls on the bottom if they tap there to restart the episode, go forward and backward or pause it. My 4 year old had no problem at all, figuring it out all on his own.

While PlaygroundTV can be downloaded for free and there is some free content, you obviously get more when you subscribe. I found the prices to be quite reasonable too at just $4.99 for a month and up, you save money by subscribing to more months. I think it is worth paying some money to get rid of commercials and in-appropriate content, not to mention characters that my kids already love! The app has content for children as young as 1 year old with BabyFirstTV streaming continuous content so child doesn’t have to push any buttons. Next there are tons of episodes from PBS characters, Nickelodeon and more for preschoolers to 2nd graders. Finally there is Discovery for Families which features Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. My son loves Wild Kratts and while right now there are only two videos in that category there are like eight in VeggieTales, which he is now getting into.

Overall, I do like PlaygroundTV. We have tried other apps before but the content was not anyone my children recognized and therefore they weren’t really interested. I like too that the app is not 3G required, meaning once you download the app everything is there. I suggest downloading the free app and seeing how well your child like it and navigate it. There are a few free videos to check out and the extras are locked with you having to put in your password to actually pay for a subscription.

BUY IT: You can download Playground TV – MobiTV for FREE and then there are monthly subscriptions for 1-month ($4.99), 3-month ($12.99) and 6 month ($23.99).  The app is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 4.3 or later.

Mom and More Disclosure: I was compensated to download this app and review it but my opinions remain my own. Please see my Disclosure Policy.