There was a certain grim inevitability about the fact that I would become a Victorian Dad as soon as my own child was exposed to technology.
I’ve spent much of my semi-adult life staring into various screens. It would be rank hypocrisy for me to hide the family iPad on a high shelf and pretend it has vanished every time my three-year-old asks for it.
So, naturally, I have done exactly that. I’m not alone in this. None other than Steve Jobs was highly reluctant to let his youngsters anywhere near iPads – preferring they read books.
It’s perhaps not a surprise that Apple hasn’t led the way in child-friendly tablets – toddlers aren’t really a good fit for the most expensive tablets out there – so Amazon’s cheaper, uglier Fire tablets have forged ahead.
The new Kindle Fire HD Kids’ Edition takes that idea and runs with it, with rubber screen guards built in for good measure.
The six-inch, £100 (R1 922) Android tablet is designed purely for children. Most parents will be won over instantly by the fact that Amazon will replace the tablet, no questions asked, after any breakage in the first two years.
The cast-iron parental controls mean you can rigidly police what the children do, and snoop on them afterwards.
You select which apps, films and books your child has access to (it can store profiles for several children) and, unless they guess your password, that’s all they’re going to see. For me, that puts this head and shoulders above iPad – you dictate what they can see, not what they can’t. It’s like being a deity for a day. Just the way I like it.And that’s essential – no alcoholic has ever gulped a glass of whisky more feverishly than my son prods at endless Fireman Sam videos in YouTube.
And you swiftly realise that (on a regular tablet) it is but a short series of steps from “Related Links” in Fireman Sam to utter, mind-boggling craziness on YouTube.
On Kindle Fire HD Kids, YouTube doesn’t exist unless I specifically allow it to. In my day, the worst that could have happened was that I switched to Channel 4 by mistake.
– Daily Mail