I described in an earlier post how the iPhone is an indispensable part of my savvy aunt’s toolkit. A good chunk of my trip preparation time was spent downloading the latest software for iTunes and the iPhone so that I could install some of the new third-party iPhone applications. (Of course, I backed up my computer completely before attempting to do any of this, with my favorite Mac backup utility, SuperDuper.)

Until the iPhone App Store was launched, there was no way to put games onto the iPhone. You could play them online using a wi-fi or AT&T network connection, but if you were without a connection… no games. I knew that our destination, the Oregon Coast, was not going to be well served by any internet service. I have often bribed Dash with a game of Bejeweled on the iPhone, and I didn’t want to be without this vital element of my aunt coping skills.

(I did learn that it was a bad idea to let Dash play with the iPhone Calendar.)

I loaded up a lot of free games from the App Store that looked like they might be fun for the kids. In the end, I did not download Bejeweled for the iPhone because it was priced at $9.99, and I think Dash was already starting to get tired of it. It took a little time to find good things to download: you can go to a page of the top iPhone free apps, but that will include lots of stuff besides games good for kids.

To save you time and money, fellow iPhone-owning aunts, here are the best ones I found. The links go to the iPhone App Store in iTunes, so if you don’t use iTunes, you don’t want to click on them. (and why aren’t you using iTunes?)

(Disclaimer: I’ve already documented. on this blog that I am willing to let my niece and nephews play with a $600 gadget. Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack are not particularly destructive and the iPhone is remarkably hardy. In the year since I bought the iPhone, we have had a few drops, but nothing has damaged the phone so far. As they say, YMMV – Your Mileage May Vary!!)

PhoneSaber (no longer available)
This will sound really silly to a lot of people, but trust me: this is one of the most fun apps. It turns your iPhone into a Star Wars light saber. When the app is launched, you can wave the iPhone back and forth, up and down, and it emits the appropriate sound effects.

Age group: 3 and up. Most adult geeks I know love playing with this too, so good for uncles/boyfriends…

Tip: You did read the disclaimer, right? Kids could easily get carried away and iPhones could go flying out of little hands. I use the Speck ToughSkin iPhone Case which gives more “grippage” to promote a firmer hold.

Update: Oh no! George Lucas has forced them to pull PhoneSaber from the iTunes App Store. The rumor is that a licensed version might be available. So far iTunes hasn’t deleted this from my phone, but lots of kids and adults are going to be sad about this.

TapTap Revenge
A little like Guitar Hero for the iPhone. Music is played, colored bubbles must be tapped in time with the music. Violet and Jack loved this.

Age group: 7 and up. Too fast and complex for the little ones.

Tip: There is a co-op mode where two players can play against each other. Try to imagine two children tapping on your iPhone simultaneously. Re-read the disclaimer. Put the iPhone on a table so they don’t have to hold it, and to decrease the chances of the iPhone being dropped.

PearMe
This is a matching game. It can use your photos to create a game over 3 to 42 card-pairs, which means you can set it to be easy for the little ones or more difficult for the older ones. It’s very basic. Tap one card to turn it over, then tap a second card. If they match, the pair gets put in your pile. If they don’t, the cards are flipped over and you try again.

Age group: 3 to 10. It can be customized to have as few as 3 pairs, and using your own photos makes it fun for older kids who have otherwise grown out of matching games. There is a timer and it counts how many tries you take, so there is a competitive element that appeals to the older ones (including Uncle Bob) as well.

Tip: This is 1000% more fun for kids if you customize it with photos of them and things they know, like your house, pets, toys, etc. Click the little “i” icon in the lower right corner to access the customization options and then click on “Available Photos.” By default, there are a bunch of photos of European locations and lusty young women. (Typical…) You can delete these and add photos from your iPhoto library or your iPhone Camera roll. It’s a little tedious, but worth it.

BubbleWrap
This provides a piece of digital bubble wrap that you tap on to pop the bubbles. It’s fun in a silly way that works for Jack-Jack (age 3), but it is also a game. After you’ve popped a number of bubbles, some of them randomly re-inflate and you have to pop them again. There is a timer and a score, which appeals to Violet (9) and Dash (8).

Age group: 3 and up. Adults have fun with it too.

Tip: As I might have mentioned, some of these games are potentially hazardous to your iPhone’s health. A good case and a steady surface on which to place your iPhone will help minimize your risk.

I’ve downloaded some others that look promising, like DizzyBeeFree and JirboBreak (which is not free, but only 99 cents). The kids have played with them briefly, and I’ll review them and more apps as we find them in future posts.

“Warriors” is the saga of four clans of cats, living in the wild, adhering to what they call (mew?) “the warrior code.” The cats hunt prey, patrol their territory, mentor their apprentices, take care of their elders and try to keep the fragile peace amongst the four clans. There are many skirmishes with rival clans and outside threats (dogs, badgers, foxes), as well as intrigue and drama within the clan.

Into the mix comes a nearby housecat (sneeringly referred to as a “kittypet”) named Rusty, who was caught hunting mice in Thunder Clan territory and then is invited to join the clan. Rusty becomes Firepaw (his apprentice name), and later Fireheart (his warrior name).

When I noticed my sister and brother-in-law (aka Mr. and Mrs. Incredible) reading the Warriors books too, I was really intrigued. So I read the first one, “Into the Wild” where Rusty becomes Firepaw and tries to live up to the clan’s expectation while being thwarted by a power-hungry cat nemesis named Tigerclaw.

I ended up reading all six books in the series. I just had to know what was going to happen to our hero and his clan. I can read one in less than two hours. They are all 200+ pages long, but the typesetting is very big and open. Dash, who is 8, had no problem finishing one after the other.

Then I read the second series, “Warriors: The New Prophecy”, where the next generation of apprentices play the starring role. Another six books with an interesting environmental underpinning. There’s a third series, and the only thing preventing me from reading it is that I feel a little embarassed about reading 18 books meant for young kids.

Best way to explain the story: it’s Harry Potter with cats! Four clans with special powers, into which a young male comes who must prove himself and save everyone from an evil genius cat bent on total domination. Sound familiar? Firepaw even has two best friends who help him get in and out of numerous scrapes and rule-breaking adventures. Check out the lineup:

Fireheart: Harry
Graystripe, his loyal friend: Ron
Cinderpelt, his female friend, very smart: Hermione
Bluestar, clan leader: Dumbledore/McGonagall
Tigerclaw: Voldemort
Thunder Clan: Gryffindor
Shadow Clan: Slytherin
Kittypet: Muggle

The books are an easier read than the Harry Potter series, shorter and less complicated. They are a bit graphic when it comes to killing and eating prey; the phrase “juicy vole” comes up a lot, and if you love bunny rabbits, well, you might not like some of the scenes. There are a lot of fierce battles, and cats actually die. (I even cried at the end of one of the books…)

Aunt hack ratings:

Age group: 8 and up; obviously, some adults can even get hooked

Duration of activity:I can read one book in less than two hours; maybe double that for kids?

Cost: $6.99 per paperback, but you might as well buy the whole set, which is $24.41 at Amazon. They also had them at the library here.

Child/aunt fun ratio: 55/45. Kids will enjoy them a little more because they won’t overanalyze them and they don’t have the embarassment factor of reading a kids book.

When I was trying to decide about buying this house, I showed some photos to my friend Shonna, who said, “It’s such an aunt house.” “Oh no,” I said. “Don’t say that–then I’ll have to buy it.”

Which I did. I am very excited about moving, but it’s a total time sink right now. I will be posting updates on how the kids like the new house, but in the meantime, here’s a cute photo of Dash and Jack-Jack, who love the walk-through closet upstairs. Excellent prospects for building forts!

Aunt hack ratings:

Age group: All ages

Duration of activity: 30 years, according to the bank.

Cost: All your money. And then some.

Child/aunt fun ratio: 40/60. The kids are really enjoying playing in the empty house. The fun factor for me is somewhat mitigated by the work factor getting ready to move in. My fingers are covered in paint as I type this.

Now, Court (bro-in-law) says I only come over to play Guitar Hero, rather than to visit the niece/nephews. Not true. I come over to play *with* the niece/nephews. Violet and Dash are both better than me. Jack-Jack is a little young for it.

For those who don’t know, Guitar Hero lets you “play” classic rock and heavy metal tunes as part of a rock band. You choose your avatar (see mine at the right) and you pick a song to play. The game comes with a guitar controller that is a kind of miniature plastic guitar with five buttons on the neck and one “string” button to “strum” on the body. As the song plays, a series of color dots appear on a guitar neck on the screen. You have to press the corresponding buttons on the guitar and “strum” the note at the same time in order to score points.

Warning: the first few times you try this game, you will suck. And when you suck, the audience starts booing. Try not to take it personally.

Once you make it through a song, you’ll earn some money for the gig. It’s fun to go to the store and pick out new guitars or outfits. My avatar now has a sweet all-purple leather outfit. I’ve also bought a new guitar, but new outfits are more satisfying. Nobody said Guitar Hero was about the music…

Before you go judging me for leading Violet and Dash into Nintendoland, let me just say that I have tried to turn it into an educational experience. Dash is taking guitar lessons now (on a real guitar with strings, not buttons) and he has a cool teacher who is teaching them guitar riffs from Jimi Hendrix and Cream. So I’ve downloaded those songs (Purple Haze and Sunshine of Your Love) on the iPhone and let him listen to the real thing. We’ve gone to YouTube to look for videos of Hendrix playing Purple Haze live.

My biggest complaint about Guitar Hero is the small number of songs by female rockers available. But I’ve used it as an opportunity to show Violet some old videos of Heart, whose Barracuda is one of the most fun songs to play in the game.

I’m almost done playing my “career” through the Easy level. All that’s left is a guitar battle, a kind of competitive contest against a computer character, to the tune of The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Dash and Violet are already on the Medium level, and I might have to accept the fact that they will always be better than me. Unless I get my own Wii…

[2/15/08 Update: I'm a rock goddess now. I had to wait until the kids went to bed though, so I didn't get heckled for all my failed attempts. And Medium level is going to be soooo hard for me.]

Aunt hack ratings:

Age group: 7 and up

Duration of activity: 30 minutes minimum; if you’re not careful you could play this for hours. I recommend against that–it doesn’t set a very good example.

Cost: Nintendo Wii: $250; Guitar Hero III: $90. Guitar Hero is also available for PC/Mac, so you wouldn’t need to buy the Wii, although from what I’ve read, the Wii is more responsive

Child/aunt fun ratio: 50/50. Until it’s bedtime, and then it’s 100% aunt fun.

We tried some of the fun animated backdrops that come with it. We could have done a better job finding a blank wall to go behind us, so Photo Booth could have more accurately inserted the roller coaster and aquarium scenes.

But that did not diminish our fun! (And it kinda reminds me of some of those ’60s psychedelic videos…)

Aunt hack ratings:

Age group: 9-12
Duration of activity: 30 minutes
Cost: Photo Booth comes free with your Mac; iMovie is part of the $79 iLife ‘08 suite
Child/aunt fun ratio: 60/40

I composed the video using iMovie ‘08. A lot of people complained that this latest version of iMovie is a step backwards, including me. But then I heard Bob LeVitus of the Houston Chronicle speak. He said that he has cut in half the time it takes him to edit family videos! So I gave it a tryout, and sure enough, you can very quickly edit a little video project. And iMovie ‘08 seamlessly uploads your video to YouTube.

I have hours of video of the niece/nephews that I’ve never edited, because it used to be a minimum 2 hour project – and usually much longer. Now I can do nice short videos in a half hour, or less. This Photo Booth movie took 10 minutes to edit, add music and transitions, and upload to YouTube.

Somewhere there is a dividing line between quality and quantity. I’d rather edit more cute little movies of the kids with iMovie ‘08 than fewer videos that are more sophisticated. I’ll always use Final Cut for documentary filmmaking. But I’ve learned to love iMovie because it takes away the barrier to just getting the kid videos done.

If you want to do even more cool stuff with your iSight camera, check out Freak Show, a cool little piece of software developed by my friend Cosmo. It’s only $12.95, and it’s quite fun. Charlotte and I did a couple YouTube pieces with that last year.

Macs come with an application from Apple called Photo Booth. Using the iSight camera in your Mac, you can take little snapshots that can be emailed or used as profile icons. I just discovered this 4-up “burst” mode that will take four shots in rapid succession. When I say “rapid”, I mean it. The shots are taken just a second or so apart. A real photo booth gives you time to prep for each shot, but with Photo Booth, you have to be fast.

In Seattle, I challenged Charlotte (11) to a face-making race. “Straight, sad, happy, mad,” I said. It’s really hard to do when the camera is going off so quickly. We probably did 20 takes before we got the one on the right that was satisfactory, with much hilarity. When Emily (18) and I got back to Portland yesterday, we played the same game with the same hilarious results.

Aunt hack ratings:
Age group: 7-18
Duration of activity: 30-45 minutes
Cost: none (if you have a Mac)
Child/aunt fun ratio: 50/50

I apologize to the non-Mac-owning aunts–I couldn’t come up with any Windows equivalent for Photo Booth. If you know of one, please share in the comments!

Perusing the shelves, I spotted Stardust, starring Claire Danes and Charlie Cox (a cutie I hadn’t seen before). The movie caught my attention because it also stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro. I remember seeing a preview in the theater, and mistaking it at first for The Golden Compass — it’s got a similar visually fantastic style.

I tried to decipher the review blurbs on the DVD case, knowing that to be a fool’s errand. And then I remembered I had that ultimate aunt tool with me: the iPhone. I quickly called up the Internet Movie Database, and found that Stardust had received a rating of 8.1 out of 10 from IMDb users. That’s high, and so I felt encouraged.

(High School Musical 2 just came out on DVD, but I knew better than to suggest that. When I asked her yesterday if she’d seen the first one, Charlotte sniffed, “Yes. Boring.” That’s the difference between an almost 12-year-old and a 9-year-old like Violet.)

Charlotte picked up “Christmas with the Kranks“. I seemed to remember hearing that it was terrible, but I didn’t have to convince Charlotte to take my word for it. Again using my trusty iPhone, I learned that it had a 4.6 rating. Not good. As I said to her, “I don’t trust these IMDb ratings 100%, but I do think a movie that has been rated twice as high will probably be better.”

Stardust was even better than that. It’s very funny and exciting. There’s swordplay and witches and amazingly imaginative sets, like the pirate ship dirigible captained by De Niro. “Princess Bride” meets “Pirates of the Caribbean”. It features some amusing cameos, including a fun one with Ricky Gervais which will please fans of the original British version of The Office.

It’s rated PG-13. I do think some of the violence would be too intense for Violet and Dash. A lot of knifing and stabbing and gutting of animals… There’s also a whole riff on pirates and cross-dressing that would probably go over their heads–and that’s one of the funniest parts.