"Very good but" ****

“Very good app. Been using the lite version & bought the full version as my young uns enjoy it. But, should be using swipe gestures and slighty better graphics. Having the English voice is a godsend though ”

By: bavster (UK iTunes store, 7 June 2009)

Many thanks for your kind words and suggestions.

My development plan over the summer is to deliver my second app (dot-to-dot), get both apps ready to take advantage of some of the new features in the next version of the iPhone OS, and then start to make some big improvements to PocketPhonics.

Specifically, I am planning on looking again at how to improve navigation, and introducing more interesting graphics.

On why swipe gestures aren’t used, the reason is that having investigated how swipe scrolling is implemented, I’m not sure it would work well when children are trying to write some letters with their finger. For instance, the letter “F” has two horizontal lines in it, I think if the child tried to draw these horizontal lines, it would look like swipe scrolling.

I do though get the point that the next and previous buttons can be too small for some children. It’s something I’ll review again in the next major release. I have been surprised by how young some of our users are, and they are definitely younger than the children I did the usability testing with. Thus their motor skills may not be as developed.