Hairy Maclary comes to iPad

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 29 July 2010 13:11

Your IT - Entertainment

Around 15 years ago there was a surge of talking books for children that ran on Macs and PCs. Are we about to see a resurgence of the genre, this time on the iPad? Hairy Maclary may be the vanguard.

Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy is a well-loved children's book by New Zealand author Linley Dodd, and it is now available as an iPad application.

Produced by Kiwa Media Group using its QBook format, the iPad version of Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy is read by David Tennant.

The $A9.99/$US7.99 app can be used in auto play mode (sit back and listen) or at the listener's pace. Features include touching individual words to hear them spoken or spelled out, and the ability to record another person (eg, Mum or Dad) reading the story.

There's also a paint function to rework the illustrations.

According to Kiwa officials, future QBooks for children will include animation.