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Comment by hillel | Hacker News Reader

@jhancock you're right. we're working on an iphone reader so the site is more "bed-friendly". :)

So you sit on bed with your kids showing them the iphone?

IMHO it's best to be active and there while putting them to bed, and so you may as well read the story yourself. If you do it well, they'll ask questions, interact, and learn things, laugh, etc. I can't see this being replaced by technology any time soon, and I don't know why anyone would want it to be.

More like... your spouse/partner is on a business trip. Your child misses them and wants a story read by them. But they're not there to do it. You sit on the bed and show the child a video of the absent parent reading a story to the child.

I don't think we ever positioned the site as a replacement for a parent or grandparent who is there. That said, my three year old requests stories to be read to her "on the computer" where we record them together and then she watches them back sitting on my lap.

Hrm... maybe. There's still something kind of sad about it though. My two cents is that maybe this idea is not it, you're also close to doing something very cool - I think there is room to do some interesting things with kids and technology that help parents out and add to the fun and learning.

Or maybe this is it, and you need to add something happier about it? It makes me think of my daughters' grandparents who are quite far away, which is a bit depressing. The positive side of things, of course, is that 20 years ago they would have only got brief phone calls, and now they can do stuff like this even if it's obviously not as good as being there. So maybe some kind of positive spin on it? Target it more at grandparents? Just thinking out loud...

Why an iPhone? I see this as most useful for an absent parent (e.g. on a business trip / separated). What then is the chance of their being an unused iPhone in the house?

Why not a standard PC built into a teddy-bear, simplified and locked down for just this application? Sell it as a $500 dedicated device to the business (wo)man who's away from their kids on a business trip.

[EDIT] p.s. - wouldn't the iPhone screen make the text too small for the child to read along with the parent? Is reading along an important part of the experience?

Maybe when the apple tablet comes out? :)

Don't get too hung up on bleeding edge tech, there is money in $ALREADY_EXISTING tech.

Put all your focus on marketing now.

Think a little longer term. The iPod touch has a great chance to displace the Gameboy as the portable gameplayer of choice. You get way more processing power per dollar (and not much more expensive), a massive catalog of games, and services like this demonstrate other uses nicely. I would do the iPod touch version stat!

It's not a matter of 'longer term', it's a matter of suitability of the HW for the task at hand. The iPod touch / iPhone has small screen, which would not allow the book to be displayed in full glory along side the video, so no reading along for the child :(. Plus it doesn't support Flash, it would need to be a native app, hence taxable by Apple.

I'm not saying iPhone wont work at all, I'm saying there's probably an additional opportunity (maybe better) for a bigger device, designed specifically for the task, and sold at a healthy margin (people who go on lots of business trips normally have above average income).

iTeddy (Was on dragons den UK)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kwjYSn03-M

Original pitch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhMNipYqY5Y

Deployment on the iTeddy would be amazing as an option when paying. That thing has serious traction. OP should definitely test the water there.

Teddy Ruxspin (sp?) ?

Chumby seems like the obvious candidate.

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