Walt Disney’s newest app may be named after a Web Site, but Disney.com is so much more than an app portal to Disney’s online content. In fact, other than having similar sections, Disney.com is nothing like the actual Disney.com, and that’s not a bad thing.
For anyone who has kids that occasionally need to be entertained, or with kids who already have their own iPod Touch, Disney.com is must have. The app is free, but that’s just scratching the surface. There is so much to see and do within the app that it’s impossible to describe all the highlights within my allotted word count.
Of note, Disney.com is experimenting with augmented reality. Through Click2Life, users are instructed to find an image on the actual Disney.com. Snap a photo of the image with the iPhone, and a short animation of a Disney character appears on the iPhone. Then you’ll be able to insert your own picture into a Disney frame. It’s a lot of work for relatively little pay off, but it’s the type of thing that kids should find cool.
There’s access to music videos, streaming Radio Disney, quizzes, games (Tigger Bounce is addictive) and Disney news. In the characters section, users can create personalized voice greetings from characters. This is one area that I had a problem with: Its name database seems very small — it couldn’t say Kathryn, Sam, Sammy, Nick or Matt. But Katie, Samuel and Nicholas were a go. If your child’s name is in the database, you’ll be able to surprise them, but if not, better to keep this feature a secret.
But even with a few glitches and the tiny name dictionary, Disney.com has so much content that any user should find something appealing.
