App of the Week – Little Digits

By Sarah Combs

There’s something surprisingly refreshing about an app that is simply well-made. A clean design, a straightforward interface, smooth transitions between different activities, and a touch of clever whimsy make Little Digits one of the most endearing and engaging apps that I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing.

Little Digits is an app created by Cowly Owl, a development team out of England that won me over with their first app, Makego. And I hope they make many, many more games with the same clean and surprisingly simple designs of these first two apps.

Within the Little Digits app, kids are taught their basic numbers in a super intuitive way – with their fingers! This is an ingeniously simple use of the iPad screen. As kids add and remove fingers from the touchscreen, the app registers how many “little digits” are present and shows an adorable illustration of the corresponding number. There’s also a quiz mode where numbers are shown and kids have to place the correct number of fingers on the screen in order to move on to the next number.

There’s an element of learning in Little Digits, but it isn’t the forced kind of reward-based games that are often found in educational apps for toddlers. It gives kids enough room to freely play around, explore, and add their own touch of imaginative play.

Golan Levin, a reviewer on the Little Digits iTunes page, sums up the appeal of this app exceptionally well:

“This app ingeniously prompts kids to experience arithmetic with their fingers -- I can't think of another app which gets kids using their brain, and all of their fingers, at the same time. More generally, the app is elegant and RESPECTFUL: one thing that this developer gets right, which seems astonishingly RARE, is that there are no shoddy advertisements, or trapdoor buttons for in-app purchases, that ruin the experience for the little ones. Ultimately it's educational -- it teaches adding and subtracting in a really engaging way!”

He, of course, gave Little Digits five stars along with this glowing review and I have to agree with him. Hands down, a stellar iPad app for your little ones.

Little Digits is recommended for Toddlers (Ages 1 to 4) for an adorable, simple way to learn how to count. Find screenshots, reviews, and family-friendly ratings for Little Digits and more of the best iPad apps at Famigo.com.

Developer: Cowly Owl

Compatibility: iPad (iOS 5.0 or later)

App Category: Education

Price: $1.99

Famigo Family Rating: 5 out of 5 stars