According to new data released from KinderTown, an educational app finder for parents of preschool and kindergarteners, Apple’s new iPad mini showed a drastic increase in usage among its app’s install base after the holidays, suggesting that many parents purchased the new tablet for their young kids this season.

The data was recently pulled from the app’s over 200,000 users, which is decent sample size to draw some insights about the new devices, in terms of their use by children. KinderTown’s app, for those unfamiliar, offers an alternative Apple’s App Store that only features kid-friendly apps vetted for their educational value, and which can be further refined by age, category and price. Because parents use it to find and buy apps for their kids, it’s generally installed on the device the child or children in the family use.

Although normally, the percentage of KinderTown users on a specific device rarely changes week-to-week, the holiday period following Christmas was not what you would call a normal week, the company tells me. After the year’s biggest gift-giving day, the iPad mini showed a drastic increase. Of course, this would be expected upon any new device launch.

In further examining the data, it was clear that the iPad mini wasn’t the only big gainer – the latest iPod Touch (4th or 5th gen) and the new iPad (4th gen) also saw big boosts during this time. But of the three, KinderTown’s parents were clearly choosing the iPad mini over the new iPad for their kids. The company notes that there’s also some indication that older iPads are passed down to the kids as mom or dad get their own new devices, as evidenced by the increase in iPad 1 usage after the holidays.

In the chart below, you can see that KinderTown’s users still preferred the latest iPad over the iPad mini, in total. The post-Christmas breakdown was 5.8% and 4.9% of users, respectively. But since the iPad mini’s usage increased by 270% after the Christmas, compared with the iPad 4th gen’s 190% increase, the company says it believes the minis are being purchased at a faster rate.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

KinderTown, the startup behind the educational iOS app store for parents (and honestly, a personal fav) is expanding its focus today. According to feedback from its users, the number one complaint was that KinderTown wasn’t available for older children. Now that changes, as the service will bump up its supported age range from 3-6 to include children ages 7 and 8 as well. To kick off the launch, 125 new apps aimed at older children have been added to service, and more will be added every week.

The company is also starting to see some growth, doubling the total number of users in April. In fact, KinderTown reports that it added more users in April than it did in the five previous months combined.

Returning users also increased by 300% during this time, KinderTown CEO (and DreamIt Ventures co-founder) Steve Welch says.

While the startup doesn’t offer raw download numbers or active user counts, it does attribute the bump in usage to its newly launched social sharing integration. A recent update allowed parents to share a list of their favorite apps for kids within the KinderTown app and then post that list via a link to social networks like Facebook and Twitter. When other parents click the link, they’re directed to the user’s “My Apps” page where they can then download the recommendations.

For those not following the ‘kid app” space, a refresher. Launched back in November, KinderTown is one of the first companies to build an app store within an app that’s sold in the app store. (Ha!) That is, the company filters through the 600,000+ iOS apps (iPhone/iPad) to surface just the educational apps that are designed for children. It then further curates the selection by vetting the apps for quality of content. The staff includes former educators, who review the apps prior to having parents test them. Only when both groups agree the app is worthy, does it get accepted into the KinderTown store.

The result is an easy-to-use alternative to searching through iTunes for age-appropriate (not brain-rotting!), apps and games for the kids. The company says that users pay an average of $2.65 for an app when they buy through KinderTown, which redirects them to iTunes. To date, the company has driven 100,000 downloads in the iTunes App Store.

As someone who cared not one bit for kids until I had one, KinderTown has been a lifesaver in helping me fill up the kid’s iPad with better content. I had no idea what was out there, what was good, or what other parents would recommend. I was always googling for app reviews and ideas, and jotting down the occasional personal suggestion from parents I bumped into while out and about.

Apparently, this is par for the course for new parents. As Welch explains, “one of the first things parents do when they buy a new iPad is ask their friends what apps to download. With KinderTown, parents can now just send a link,” he says. Welch also notes that the company is starting to see teachers using the app as a resource to inform their students’ parents about what apps to download at home.

The updated app is expected to roll out to iTunes today. You can get the current version here in the meantime.

Thanks to KinderTown, one day – I swear – I’ll have enough new apps that the kid won’t notice when I delete Talking Tom and Talking Ben. One day! 

Article courtesy of TechCrunch