iPad Games Summit

On Monday, I went to the iPad games summit in San Francisco and learned quite a few things about this very interesting device.  In summary, I don't think it is an ideal form factor for EnglEasy's target market of Children 6-10, but it is interesting none-the-less.

Interesting Stats

• 60% of the applications built for iPad are games.
• 50% of the users of the iPad also have a Windows PC, so this means that these buyers are not Apple crazy
• 15-20 new games for the iPad show up on the Apple app store daily, so competition is quite stiff already.
• People play games longer on the iPad as it is more comfortable to look at than the iPhone
• There still isn't a killer App for iPad.
• The market size for iPad is still much smaller than iPhone, so it is best to develop products for both in mind.  It is less likely for a parent to just give an iPad to their child, whereas with an iPhone, it is a nice distraction for the child while in a waiting room or riding in the car.
• Children's hands are better suited for a smaller format like the iPhone.  The border on the iPad is too wide for most children, and the device is quite heavy.

Licensing Famous Characters for your Games
The developer of the Dr. Seuss books on iPad also presented.  Oceanhouse Media acquired the rights to publish all Dr. Seuss books, and everything it touches seems to be turning to gold.  This is because they create many small applications and cross promote within the app.  They build very high quality products with a known brand name.  This may be interesting for EnglEasy because we could leverage existing franchises to help teach children English.

Different kind of emotion with the iPad
Also, since the form factor of the iPad is different from the iPhone, there are lots of opportunities to add additional features to iPad such as 2 player mode.  2 player mode is interesting because the players sit across from each other.  This creates the same kind of emotion that people would have while playing board games.  This is important to note because not only does this create a deeper relationship between the players, but it also brings back the concept of playing head-to-head, which has largely gone away with most networked games.

All in all, it was a great conference and I got to meet some very interesting people.  Now it is time to really see what this format means for EnglEasy!

Facebook Developers Meetup

Last night I went to the very first Facebook Developers meetup at I/O ventures offices in San Francisco. Met a very cool person from Facebook, who worked on the platform team. There was also a few presentations that were given. The two I thought were the most interesting was rootmusic, and Apigee. There was not too much related to us as far what we want to accomplish in the next few months. Although I think it would be good for us to try and build a relationship with I/O ventures, which is a newly formed venture capital firm.

Andriod App: Voice Recognition Game

Here is a demo of our prototype Android game.

Start-up Weekend: What is all about.

Here is quick news video on what Start-up Week-end is all about, and it features EnglEasy as well!

Motor skills of a 5 year old vs. a 7 year old

This weekend, I got a chance to test the iPad interface with my 5 year old cousin and my 7 year old cousin. Both of these girls have been surrounded by technology their entire lives and play web based games all the time, like pbskids.org and dora games. They lit up when I let them play with the iPad and I found a few interesting findings:

The 5 year old, Anoosha, was pressing really hard on the screen and her fingers were sticking to the screen as she was sliding it across to drag and drop an object.

The 7 year old, Arfa, had no issues with the iPad interface, and was using it like a pro right away. She knew to tap lightly to get it to respond.

From this, it appears that we need to do a lot of testing depending on which device we choose to use for the final product.

Android Apps the way to go?

Over the past week we have been getting quite a bit of buzz from our Android App. From a strategic perspective, this may make more sense than iTouch or iPad applications simply because the Apple Hardware is too expensive to bring into the classrooms. If Android devices can be brought down in price, to less than $100 per unit, we see some huge potential.

Moreover, if the touch interface on the Android can become as slick as the iTouch or iPad interface, we see can see these devices becoming ubiquitous in the classroom, while keeping the web based - computer interface in the home.

Web 2.0 Conference Video

Here is our video from the Web 2.0 Launchpad: