Peekaboo Barn
reviews and complaints

I have had this app for about three years. My kiddos have loved learning about animals and have progressed to predicting the animals based on sound and reinforcing animal names. My Mao. Complaint is that the animals now look like they came out of an anime cartoon rather than a well drawn portrayal of the animals. Give us back the animals that more closely resemble their real life characters. Get rid of the google-eyed mess we have now. Other than the terrible looking animals, this is a great app and would have 5 stars.

My 3 year old loves this and the animation is pretty cute. However, my biggest complaint is that the little girl who says the animal names in English has pretty bad pronunciations. I mean I understand she is 2 and it's cute when kids talk like that- but it doesn't help my daughter at all. In fact, it's having a negative effect. She was able to correctly say these animal names before, but after playing this a few times, she is mimicking the little girl and dropping consonants...saying things like "seep!" instead of sheep.

This app is great - the screen only needs to be touched in order to go to the next event, and it has a wide variety of animals. It even has a language selection, so we use it to teach my toddler the Spanish names of animals. She can use this app independently and imitates the sounds they make. At the end all the animals are sleeping, so we can also use it as a bedtime activity during travel, where we may not have her full bedtime library with us. I highly recommend this app to anyone looking for an app for their baby or toddler!

In reading the reviews I decided to get this game to entertain our daughter in those "crisis" moments. She is 13 months old and she LOVES this game. I started showing her this game and others around 10 months, but this one is her alltime favorite. And now everytime she sees my phone she wants it to play this game. It is funny how quickly she figured out how to touch the screen to change the different animals. She can also say three of the animals names :) So cute. I just wish there were more versions of this game with more animals, or other things.

I'd give it 5 stars except for 2 issues.

1) The intro is too long. We liked it much better when it started quickly. Like others have said, when you're dealing with a toddler every second counts.

2) The voice in the app should pronounce words correctly. At our daughter's age it's important that she hear the correct pronunciation not just a cute voice.

All in all it's a very good app but I'd like to see those two thing corrected. Also, I'm looking forward to guided access in iOS 6 because she hits the home button all the time and we have to start the app over.

I have a busy 13 mo. old who has a trouble with keeping his little self focused for more than a few seconds at times. This app is perfect, as it's fun, Baby loves waiting to listen for the sound of the animal and then listening for the "toddler speak" before he can respond. He's learning self-control -- hurray! PLEASE DON'T CHANGE THE FEATURE OF THE TODDLER NAMING THE ANIMALS. Just hearing the sound of that toddler voice saying, "Peek-a-boo Barn" from the get go gets our baby excited. He clearly recognizes a peer's voice. That makes it a very appealing social necessity.

I got this because my 7 month old is interested in my phone. She loves it! She has already learned she has to touch the barn then the animal to start again. The barn is colorful, the animals large and interesting, and she loves doing the entire run. The sleep part is great, we play before her nap and she sees they sleep too. I have tried the other peekaboos but they are a little old for her. This is perfect for a pre-toddler. Other reviews said they want this to look like the other peekaboos but I think they are designed to progress- barn to fridge to Sesame Street to forest, etc.

I am a speech therapist in a private clinic. All my patients who are between the ages 1-3 love this application. It is a great way to have children who are language delayed begin imitating or expanding their sentences. Children who I have worked with for months are now imitating animal sounds, animal names, and requesting "more" in sign or vocalizations. Excellent application to expand children's utterances. Patients now imitate "Who's there?", "Open barn!", "Close barn!", or even "Nite nite pig!". Even children began saying the phrases modeled
independently.Children love this application and so do I!

My 1 & 2.5 year olds really liked the Lite version so we purchased full app. It was a waste of $2; only 10 animals, 2 very disappointed little girls & a really irritated mommy. If I had known so very few animals, I wouldn't have even paid $0.99. With so many other apps available at same price or cheaper, save your money here & get something worth spending it on. I've never felt like I wanted my $ back from an app until now. My girls would rather play Hatch, which was free, and look at the animals inside the eggs. If a 1 & 2.5 year old are disappointed in the full version of an app, well, that should say plenty about the app itself.

My two year old grandson absolutely lives this. He plays it over and over again. If he is having one of his "moments", all I have do is open the game. As soon as he hears the music, he stops crying and runs right over to the phone.

He is more adept at navigating an iPhone than I would have ever expected and although he has just turned two, he got the point of this game immediately, even to the point where he turns to me before he opens the door to see if I can guess who is inside.

I applaud your creativity and attention to detail...love the kids' voices... Thanks for all your hard work in developing quality material. Keep 'em coming!

Update: It is fixed! THANK YOU, PEEKABOO BARN! This is our favorite again!

—

Original review: My daughter came to adore this app! But after about two months it suddenly stopped working on both our iPad and my iPhone. It crashes immediately upon opening it. I have tried everything—reinstalling the app, updating iOS—and nothing works. I have tried contacting the developer through its website contact form, twice, but never got any response. Apple says there’s nothing they can do either. I just want Peekaboo Barn to work again—my daughter has various disabilities that make it hard to interact with many apps but she loves this one like no other! Help!

My 6 month old loves this and while she may be younger than the recommended age, it's a hit with her every time.

Since she is still figuring out her coordination and dexterity, she touches the screen multiple times. My only complaint is that if she touches the screen when the animal is being named, the name cuts off halfway through ("rabbit" turns into "ra" and "donkey" turns into "don").

This seems like a bug or design flaw to me. Just set up the software so the name finishes being pronounced and then close the doors. That will help with learning. Then she learn that it's a "chicken" and not a "chi" or a "horse" and not a "hor.". Other than that, a neat app.

Being an educator myself I was intrigued by the description of the application. However, upon downloading and playing with this app found to it be more entertainment and then edutainment. There are much better designed educational apps that have been posted that support reading and math skills. It would be helpful to not only have the sounds but the words appear, particularly after the sounds and have the user tap the words to hear it pronounced (ideally in either English or Spanish) before moving to the next scence. This version also seemed quite buggy (even with the fixes... I'm using the newest OS update). This was an interesting idea and has potential but not quite there yet.

This is so amazing! My 15 month old claps and jumps up and down when he hears the music start! The animals are so cute and the animations keeps my little man entertained! I would have spent any amount of money for this, after hearing him say chicken when he opened the barn doors and saw her sitting with her eggs. This after only seeing it a few times. This gives little hands the opportunity to learn cause and effect as well as animal sounds and names. A bonus...it's not terribly annoying and loud! Thanks peekaboo barn! Please make more like this. The only negative is the use of children's voices announcing the animal name, it could be clearer with an adult voice, as well as encouraging the correct pronunciations.

My 2.5 yo got tired of opening barn doors and he already knew all the animals. For $1.99 I would have expected better animation or at least a more accurate pronunciation in the child's voice. We've only had it for a month, at first he would replay a couple of rounds but now he no longer cares for it and would attempt to close it to load a different app like iWrite or Pocket God. On the upside it is still entertaining my 8 month old who just discovered how to open barn doors and load the next animal, and then he wants to eat my phone. I would say it probably is more suited to pre-walker babies until about 2 yrs old. Don't think I will be purchasing Wild nor Forest. Will stick to Fisher Price Little People books for my baby's animal education instead.

There is no true interactivity or creativity to this app. It’s just one tap per page, then you see the animal and its name, hear a typical sound, and hear the name. No options (such as don’t show the name so the child has a chance to say it, or don’t show the spelling). No exploring and getting different results. It’s almost as passive as television. I would never have bought the app if the description had been clear or if it had included a sample video.

I bought a peekaboo bundle as my first purchase to amuse a four year old, and I was so disappointed because it was a waste of money. I was fooled by the 4+ age rating, which I now guess is the youngest rating on the Apple store. I think any child over two would be instantly bored by this app. It’s not properly called a game, since the kid has nothing to do.

As people mentioned, the intro is too long and the little girl voice is teaching incorrect pronunciation.

Another simple fix: touching the screen interrupts each step too soon. Touching the screen while the girl is saying the animal name interrupts the voice mid-word. If a small baby tends to hold their hand on the screen, the voice is interrupted immediately after it starts - cow becomes "c..", pig is just "p..".

Developers: just set a minimum time each step should run. For example, the step where the kid's voice says the name of the animal should play through until the audio of the girl saying the animal name is finished, at least.

The effect if the baby holds their hand on the screen is that the steps cycle without any structure or meaning. The girl's voice tries to say the animals' names but is cut off after barely making the first sound.

Look at the app Peekaboo Wild for an example of an peekaboo app that avoids this problem. Simple fix, and this app would be one that infants and younger toddlers could use too - it would broaden the base of the app.

I really like this app. my daughter is enthralled by it, and at 15 months, knows all the animals. Therein lies the problem. I want my child to know the correct pronunciation of the animals names. It's a rooster, not a "wooster." It's a pig, not a 'piiiiig." It's a horse, not a "hause." It's sheep, not "seep." and at the end, it's everyone, not "everone." I know it's cute, but it'll teach your child the wrong way to pronounce the animals names, and that isn't a good thing. On a side note, if you're trying to teach your child spanish, then it is an awesome app. All the animals names are pronounced without any inflection or "lisping." I hope they fix this. It is the only thing stopping me from trying their other apps.

***Update***
If you have a young child, this is almost a "must have" app. With the 3.0 update, there is an option for an adult pronunciation of the words. In my opinion, that is awesome. There are a couple more animals too. I have now downloaded Peek-a-boo Wild as well. The developers listen to what the customer wants and responds in a timely fashion. Thank you.

Version 4.0 will not install in my old iPhone (iOS 3.1.3) Essentally, I have lost the use of this app. Be carful if you have to redo your phone. You will lose a lot of apps.

Every time I try and use this app it just force closes! I have deleted and reinstalled and it still doesn't work. Fix your app

The app opens then just shuts down and won’t play. I have tried to uninstall and reinstall but that doesn’t work either. Waste of money.

I paid for the full version of these apps and I can’t restore my purchases. Their website no longer exists. How can I get a refund or restore my purchases?

As an SLP working with little kids this is one of my favorite apps. However it crashes before it even opens. Both my iPad and iPhone are up to date. Disappointed

Please fix your app! It has been broken for almost two months now. We purchased and it stopped working same day. Based in the reviews it is obviously a major issue.

Purchased this app years ago & when we go into it now, it stays on the screen for a few seconds & then boots us out. No updates & I’ve restarted our iPad & its still not working.

My son loves playing with this, but I can't handle him repeating the baby talk-style pronunciation of the animal names. Why would a vocabulary game feature incorrect pronunciation?

After 12 years of playing this with my nephews, I finally have a daughter of my own and this app keeps crashing. She loves the lite version and we would love it if someone would fix this app.

I have an iphone 11 and we used this app for 2 months until it wouldn’t open any more. It opens and right when it says “peekaboo...” it closes out. I’ve tried deleting and redownloading but that doesn’t work

This game makes my 10 month old giggle and he really enjoys it. It does, however, boggle my mind that a game geared towards teaching kids new words has such incomprehensibly bad pronunciation of those words! “Goat” sounds like “go” — the “t” sound is nonexistent! What?

My Grandson love this app! The problem is it quits working upon opening and shuts down. The app had had zero bug fixes or updates in many years. It may no longer be compatible with iOS. I had deleted it and reinstalled, updated my iPad, did a hard restart and still won’t work.

I downloaded this on my phone for my grandson and it won’t even open. It gets to the title page and disappears. I deleted from my phone and re-downloaded thinking maybe there was a problem with the download, but it still won’t open. I know it’s not my phone because when this app wouldn’t open, I downloaded a different app and it opened without any issues.

This is one of my kids’ most favorite apps, and it just stopped working. First the app icon disappeared, and then it started crashing before we could even push the play button. I have deleted and reinstalled a few different times, but nothing changed. I see that the last update was a long time ago, but I wanted to share some feedback just in case someone sees it. I hope we can get it fixed!

The app is really good and is perfect to distract my son for a few minutes. The reason I am giving it one star is because of the child they used a child voice with a lisp. Kids will begin to imitate the voices and will then, in turn, talk in a lisp as well. They need to redo the speech to have proper pronunciations of words. This is coming from a former teacher who dealt with children with speech problems.

I'm not sure why people think its cute to use little lids voices to talk on these apps. The pronunciation of the animal names is either hard to discriminate because they are exaggerating the word (pig) or the child has a speech problem (seep for sheep or r distortions). As a speech therapist I feel that true apps are often used to teach vocabulary and every effort should be made to make sure the words are pronounced correctly. Using little kids is just a bad idea.