Few weeks ago Takayuki mentioned a project he was working on. To my usual interest, few DMs were exchanged on Twitter finding out it’s a children’s animated book conceptualized by Mobile Art Lab that comes with a physical book you can order through amazon.jp. Considering I have an 8-month old daughter, I was very excited. Very small children and technology don’t always necessarily go together. It seems that after numerous attempts I have finally managed to teach her that once I said ‘NO’, at somewhat elevated tone, she’d stop putting the iPhone in her mouth. Instead she chooses to completely release it out of her hands resulting in a drop, meaning that word NO usually goes with catch the iPhone before it hits the ground.
Last week, I got a DM from Takayuki saying the book is in the mail and within few days it arrived in the office and what a wonderful packaging showing the book right through the wrapping. Of course, this was no place to open it regardless of the co-workers with children eager to see it working with the iPhone. Having arrived home, the wrapping came off pretty quick. Mia (my daughters name) is currently at that age when she wants to touch everything and most recently developed a fascination with book covers. She would listen to the story and watch pages being flipped and every so often she would stretch her arms out flipping the book to show the cover. The same was with the PhoneBook where my attempts to show her the pages would have her flipping it back to the cover. Once we have put the iPhone inside the PhoneBook, having taken out white padding that the book comes with, and launched the iPhone app, the book came alive. Each page is unique containing characters in different locations. The distinction between the physical book and iPhone is maintained where what you see on the iPhone is usually the background to the context book creates. For example POPO and MOMO (book characters) are on the train and iPhone shows the landscape with trees and bushes which release apples, birds and more once touched. In another scene the characters are in a submarine and you touch the sea to let the submarine descend, once in the deep tap to gather the fish or to see more fish touch and hold the screen for a while. The full descriptions of each scene is available here and I highly recommend, if you have a little one, is to download the iPhone app regardless of whether you get the book or not. Beautiful music accompanied by wonderful illustrations and a story simple for anyone including the grownup moms and dads to enjoy. Of course, having both the book and iPhone app together is the real treat. For now, Mia is loving it regardless of her being maybe a little young for it. One year and up is probably age I would recommend, nevertheless the app has been made in a way to avoid accidental quits and simple taps on the screen will create enough visual variety and sound for even the little ones to enjoy.
One fine day, Popo and Momo were viewing outside from the window as usual. While they were watching a train passing by in the distance, they dreamed of traveling all over the world by riding on many vehicles. One day, they casually tried to touch the train by stretchingtheir arms through the window…..
POPO (5 years old)
Popo is a gentle boy who cares his little sister Momo very much. He is generally a personyou can rely on but sometimes he gets carried away when something fun is taking his attention.
MOMO (3 years old)
Momo is a curious girl who touches all the things that are new to her. She often tries to annoy her brother Popo by imitating him.
Team:
Idea by Mobile Art Lab
Takayuki and Takuma – UI designing, Interaction, Flash Prototyping (Everything is made with Flash first, and re-implemented to ObjectiveC by hand).
Creative direction is by Dentsu, Animation and Sounds are by Robot, published by Kodansha.
Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.0
Cost: Free
Developer: DENTSU MAGAZINE
Order book from amazon.jp
