I’ve just had a rather nice email from Ted Beatie:
“While kayaking down the Ou River in Laos yesterday, we stopped at a small village, Ban Huihang, for lunch. Being lunchtime, all of the kids of the village were home from school, and as one might expect in such places, we were swarmed by them. Of course, they were interested in having their pictures taken, and they were entranced by the white ‘falang’ visiting their village.
While we ate our lunch, their gazes never left us. I decided to offer them their own distraction, and laid my iPhone on the ground, with Bloom set to ‘Create’. While the children were intimidated by the simple camera of the iPhone, ‘Bloom’ spoke for itself with just a few taps from me to show them how it worked. Â It not only provided distraction from us eating our lunch, but it was satisfying to watch the understanding of how the completely intuitive UI and repeating patterns fell into place.”
Children in Laos playing with Bloom
One of the greatest joys in releasing Bloom has been seeing how young children have taken to it. Sometimes, really very young indeed. We set out to make Bloom as intuitive as possible, but it’s been a pleasure getting so much feedback from parents who’ve been able to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet (even if they never get to see their iPhones again.)
You can read more about Ted’s travels on his blog. Having just got back from a Bed and Breakfast in Cromer, where I’d locked myself away to work on an App idea, I don’t feel I can really compare as a traveller.
It was quite windy though.
Thanks for the shout-out, Peter! Struck with a language barrier, Bloom was the first thing that came to mind that could engage the children, and it was a pleasure to watch them.