Thursday 4 October 2012

Magical Music Box - Review



Magical Music Box is a universal app from Kidoteca. It is based on the idea of the classical music boxes and turns your iOS device into your own personal music box. It requires iOS 4.3 or later. The app comes in English, French and Portuguese. 










There are six different music boxes to choose from. There is something to cater for all children; the Solar System, fantasy carousel,  the sleeping city, the gnomes diamond mine , the small ship travelling the oceans and a train exploring the countryside. My own personal favourite was the Solar System one. My son was fascinated by the shooting star, rocket and orbiting satellite. 






Each carousel has its own unique crank that you turn virtually to operate the box, or you can set it to automatic and sit back and enjoy the musical overtones and animations coming from your device.  







When you choose a carousel you will notice that it has a default tune , but you can change this by tapping on the menu bar at the end of the screen and selecting a new tune from one of the sixteen provided, including Old MacDonald had a Farm, Swan Lake and Brother John. The tunes are divided into three categories, Classical, Children and other. 



A feature of the app I loved is if you are unaware of the name of the tune you are listening to or where it came from you can select the question mark symbol from the menu and up pops a little description telling you all about the song, its composer and where it originated from. My kids loved doing this and found it very educational. 




I think this app is a nice addition to the device of any special needs child who has a love for music. It is easy to operate and easy on the ear. The music can be quite soothing and would be worth trying out with children who find that music helps them to relax and regulate themselves. My own son finds music very soothing and he was quite content to sit back and listen to the music while he lay on his bed. He also loved the fact that you can speed up the tune by turning the crank faster. 




Overall I believe this app is useful for children or adults with special needs who like the style of old music boxes, as the app sounds exactly like the old wooden boxes from times gone by. The animations on the boxes, the Gnomes Diamond Mine and Solar System in particular are very engaging for the user. It is simple to operate and a great tool for using with a child who finds music soothing and calming.

The recent update of the app includes the addition of an Asian package . There are 5 new songs to choose from China, Korea, Thailand, Japan and the Philippines. The developer has also added in auto-rotation of the screen , and the possibility to rotate the box directly , without using the crank.



The app is priced at  $3.99. If you would like to purchase it please do so by clicking on this link iTunes


To find out more about Kidoteca please check out the following links :



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