Niki Music

Review & Giveaway

Developer:  Alessandro La Rocca

Niki Music is a music player for your child’s iDevice – if your child loves music and you have a collection of their music in iTunes, then this app is well worth its current purchase price of $1.99.

An older child could use this app independently to select their musical favourites from their family’s music library, or parents can set up the player for their younger children, enabling their kids to easily play their own music choices.

When you enter Niki Music, you immediately go to the user interface. The add (plus sign) and edit (pencil) icons are initially greyed out – to unlock them, press the padlock and answer a randomized numerical question.

Tapping on the info button leads to this screen:

Adding songs from your music library is easy and once you’ve added songs to Niki Music it’s also simple to delete them or rearrange the order in which they appear:

You can leave the disc icons (as shown above) or, a feature I love for younger children or those that can’t yet read, hold and press the song to add a visual to it:

The above screen is now locked up so that nothing can be accidentally deleted. Your child can select whichever music they want to listen to and still use their other apps on their iDevice.

I love both the concept and the execution of this app – and in particular, the following features:

• The simplicity of the user interface – both for adults setting up a music library for their children and for the children themselves when using the player.
• The ability to add visuals to the songs to help kids identify them.
• The use of OpenDyslexic, a font that’s easier for dyslexics to read.

I would also like the developer to consider the following wishlist items when planning future updates:

• Lock up the information section as well as the add and edit buttons – especially because there are links to the internet and social media sites which most parents don’t want their children accessing inadvertently.
• Have a settings or similar section when the app is opened which contains all the locked content and remove all the buttons from the music player’s page. My kids perserverate on buttons, tapping them constantly even if they are unaccessible. I’d rather they just saw their song selections and the player.
• Currently images can only be added from the iDevice’s camera roll – it would be great if you could search for Google images directly within the app rather than having to do that separately.
• Separate, shareable playlists for different children. For this review I set up the songs shown for Owen on my iPad. I would love to be able to upload this playlist, together with the visuals I’ve chosen for the songs into iTunes and then download it directly onto Owen’s iPad rather than set it up separately on each his device.

Developer info:

Website

Facebook Page

YouTube

Giveaway:

Enter to win a copy of this app here: Rafflecopter giveaway – finishing February 9, 2013

App specifications:

Category: Music
Last Updated: 23 January, 2013
Version: 1.0.0
Language: English
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone

Disclosure: I was given a promo code for Niki Music in order to review this app at no cost to myself.