7-finger exploding mind baby MultiTouch technique
One of the things that Maggie absolutely loves is seeing a device interact with her. Whether it’s my phone on selfie mode where she can see herself, her educational toys that blink and say her name, a xylophone and a mini piano she can pound on and hear, or the obnoxious CAT truck that responds to her button pressing, the visual and auditory feedback that’s responsive to her touches is what she craves.
Unfortunately so much out there in the baby realm is garbage with advertising sitting right where the fingers rest.
With this in mind and a baby in my lap who wanted to do something (and ITMama on the couch unable to move due to a pulled back muscle,) I thought maybe she would enjoy an application I used to use to test whether an Android kernel would work with multi-touch on my HTC EVO phones. She’s geeky like that.
That testing tool is MultiTouch Tester, and all it does is put a ring around where your fingers are pressing on the screen. The circles move as you drag your fingers around, and that was enough to absolutely captivate Maggie.
The lack of advertising, large obnoxious zones that break out of the app, or random popout info, kept Maggie exploring how her fingers could create differently colored circles and how they disappeared when she lifted her fingers or followed as she moved her hands.
All I know what that she really enjoyed it and it felt like at the end she was able to make the circles do what she wanted.
While this isn’t a kids’ game, it’s free, seems to captivate a 17-month old, doesn’t take up much space and doesn’t hit you with obnoxious advertising or crazy permissions.
Oddly, it’s also kind of fun to play with as an adult… not that I’d do that or anything…
