Are You Covered?

First off, this isn't one of those sponsored posts telling you to get your insurance increased for the festive season, or anything like that. It's not a sponsored post at all, which is rather a shame, because the money would come in kind of handy right now, as you'll see.

Despite being something of a klutz, I've always managed to look after my phones pretty well.  I've never left one on the roof of my car, never dropped it in a pint, and always have a case to protect it as best I can.  Aside from one incident when a very young Squeaky decided to flush my phone down a hotel toilet, the only problems I've ever had with phones have been because the phones themselves have been rubbish (Orange SPV, I still haven't forgiven you).  So I've become quite complacent, and as a result I've not bothered to insure my phone.  I look after it, see.

Or so I thought.  My phone fits fairly well into the pocket of most of my jeans, but there's one pair that you really can't persuade anything bigger than a 2p piece to fit into.  I forgot that, and put my phone there, sort of.  And then there was a split-second where my phone decided to test the forces of gravity in my work's car park.  I know.  Oh dear would be the polite way of saying it.  My beloved phone, home to all my photo editing apps, every phone number I've ever had, zillions of photos of my lunch, and most importantly, Frozen Freefall now had a whole lot of crushed glass in the top corner, some lovely great cracks across the screen, and was kind of misbehaving when I tried to do anything.

Obviously, this is the kind of catastrophe that demands I turn around and leave the office for the relative safety of the local phone shop.  And whimper pathetically at the very understanding staff member, while she tried not to laugh at my total lack of priorities (I was on level 172!).  No insurance, and not close enough to an upgrade means I've got to pay for the phone to be fixed.  Sent away, snatched from my trembling fingers, and sent to someone who knows about these things.  ARGH!!!!  And they won't give it me back until I give them crazy sums of money.  (I am crying here)

Then came the moment where I had to admit to Daddy that I shouldn't be trusted with expensive electronic gadgetry, and had in fact mangled my phone.  His reply?  Have you phoned the insurance?  Errrr, I don't have phone insurance.  No, the household insurance.

I checked the policy, and discovered that yes, my phone is actually covered on my household insurance.  Less an excess, of course, but covered all the same.  Apparently I can take things out of the house, break them, and still have them covered.  Which is not encouragement for me to do so, but a rather pleasant surprise and a bit of a relief.  I wonder how many people are already covered for things like their mobile phones breaking & don't realise it?  Check your policy, it might be a pleasant surprise.

(And if anyone wants to give me a new phone, I'd really appreciate it!)

Read Write Phonics App Review

I mentioned before that I am now somehow the owner of a phone that's considerably smarter than me.  So much so that I'm still having difficulty working out how to answer calls, and only discovered yesterday that it wasn't set up to receive picture messages.  This gives you some idea of my phone-related talents.

Typically of a 21st century child though, Squeaky has no such concerns.  My old, non-functioning dumb-phones (the opposite of a smart phone) hold no interest for her any more.  Mine is fascinating.  I don't really want to encourage her to see my phone as a toy, it's on a 2 year contract & I'd kind of like to get to the end of the 2 years without wrecking it.  But there are times, supervised, when a phone is a rather good distraction.  I'd like the distractions she gets involved with to have some sort of educational value, rather than just cartoons.

I was really pleased to be offered the chance to review Read Write Phonics, a new app developed for Android phones (an iPhone version is being developed to be released later in the year).  The app is designed for children aged 3-6 years, and aims to help teach them the 44 phonic sounds that make up the English language (and you thought the alphabet was just 26 letters!), write basic letter shapes, and how to blend the different sounds to make words.

B-A-T. Bat.

At 2, Squeaky is still a little bit young for the finer points of the app, but that didn't stop her trying.  She loved the sun logo at the start, and was fascinated by the voice reading the letters and words, and did start to copy the words after a few attempts.  While she is playing on her own in this photo, she can't actually operate the app herself yet, so we play together.  That makes it a great bonding activity, as we can talk about the words as well.

The app was developed by parents Simon & Seema, eager to encourage a love of reading in their son, and to help him on his way before starting school. They found there wasn't an app on the market that did this, and so they made their own!  They researched phonics programmes used in schools, and created an app that works alongside these, using the correct sounds, and encouraging children to do the same.

The app is voiced by a friendly sounding female voice, which is lovely and clear, without an accent.  Squeaky liked the voice, and enjoyed starting to copy her in the Read and Phonics sections of the app.  The Read section has beautiful, simple, illustrations of the words, and this is the section we've spent the most time with so far, as she's able to recognise the pictures, and to start to recognise that the written word means the same thing as the picture and spoken word.

The Write section is still far in advance of Squeaky's capabilities at this stage, but in the interests of a full review, I tried it out myself.  I liked the little green pencil that traces the letter shapes before you take your turn, it really reminded me of the "magic pencil" in Words and Pictures on tv when I was in school.  I found tracing the letters well enough to get a 3 star result quite difficult, though that might be because my sausage-fingers are too big and I couldn't see where I was going. As the app is designed for children, with smaller hands, I suspect they would find it much easier.  (Also, I have appalling handwriting, that might have contributed.  This is a blog and not a handwritten diary for a reason, you know!)

I really like the fact that the app does work on different levels, there are simple words and longer ones, and the three areas of phonic learning, meaning the app can grow with the child. I think that represents great value for money, rather than purchasing an app that concentrates on a single aspect, then having to look for another as your child progresses.

Take a look at this video, which shows the app in action.



Read Write Phonics is available from Google Play for £1.49.

I was provided with a free download of the Read Write Phonics app for the purposes of this review. I was not told what to write, and all opinions are my own.  I am not a member of any affiliate schemes or programmes, links are provided for your convenience, I will not receive any reward for their use.

How smart is your phone?

I've got a confession to make. Until a couple of weeks ago, I had what I politely termed a "stupid phone". The opposite of a smart phone. It could make calls, send texts, take photos, and that was about it.  But when the touchscreen sensors all moved about an inch to the right and I couldn't press half the buttons any more, I decided it was time to join the 21st Century, and got myself an Android phone.

Evi

I'm still learning the ins & outs of having a phone that can do more than my first computer could.  (To tell the truth, it can probably do more than my current computer, as soon as I download a spider solitaire app!)  To help me, I've added Evi.

Evi is an artificial intelligence app that takes the hassle out of searching.  The artificial intelligence reviews and learns from information gathered in searches, giving you more accurate & useful results, and compares facts to derive new information.  You can feed back into the database if you think an answer was particularly useful, or if it didn't return what you were hoping for, which means that future answers will be all the more accurate as Evi learns from her hits & misses.

Click to enlarge

Ask Evi where to go for a coffee, and she'll use GPS information from your phone to work out where you are, and then give you a list of nearby coffee shops, with their addresses and contact details. Evi understands natural language too.  If you fancy a coffee, with a traditional search engine, you'd need to search "Coffee shops in Merthyr Tydfil", with Evi I can just say "I need a coffee", and interact with her as though I was talking to a friend.  She talks back, search results are shown on screen, and read aloud (if Evi finds a list, she reads back the reply, not the whole list) Bear in mind though, that like any "find my nearest" type app, Evi can only find places that have registered with one or more online directory. She can't see that nice new shop round the corner that just opened last week & isn't listed anywhere.  You could tell her about it though.

According to Evi HQ, around 250,000 of her users have been asking Easter related questions recently, and Evi has put together a top ten list of Easter Egg recipes, including Easter Egg popcorn balls, Easter Egg bread, and my favourite, Caramel Easter Egg Muffins.  Oh my, I feel a spot of baking coming on.  Evi has got loads of recipes at her virtual fingertips, and will even make suggestions of what to try - I asked her for an omlette filling, and she suggested a lovely sounding ricotta filling, which I'm dying to try out after I've done the shopping.

If you're stuck for ideas to entertain the family over the Easter break, Evi is a fab source of ideas.  You could make me some of those muffins (hint, hint!) or loads of other tasty treats, or ask her for nearby easter egg hunts, craft ideas for your easter egg boxes and tinfoil, or just the nearest place to buy some headache tablets.

In case you're wondering, Evi can't tell you who will win Britain's Got Talent.  In her own words, she can't see into the future.  So that's my money-making scheme down the drain.  But she's answered almost all the rest of my questions, I finally stumped her with "Why is Davina McCall so annoying?"

Evi is free to download for Android phones from Google Play (the new name for the Android Market), or 69p for iPhones from the App Store, and was developed by Cambridge-based True Knowledge.