First, who are we? As a team AppGrade believes in collaboration, that it brings both success and satisfaction and we were ready for some joint project. So when I met Nathalie Van Ee, a mother and a wonderful blogger who reviews kids apps, when Nath and I understood that we share the vision of what kids industry needs and we are pleased to communicate, we decided to give our idea a try. 2 moms, a blogger and a developer, united to bring their idea to life.

Being overwhelmed with the enormous amount of apps, being unable to rely on the existing ratings system only (The lack of reviews doesn’t necessarily mean that the app is bad. The app might be just new. And an abundance of reviews doesn’t mean the app is good…) we believed that creating a curated database app will help. Many catalog apps claim that they are curated, but they appear to be a kind of smorgasbords of apps of different quality and have no original content – just descriptions from the AppStore.

At AppStar Picks we managed to use the tech advantages of the iOs devices combined with the insightful reviews from independent and respected sites to help people find the best apps. The sites are Fun Educational Apps, Digital Storytime, Applicable4You and Teachers With Apps. Now most reviews come from Fun Educational Apps as others joined little later, but we look forward to add more their reviews and several other sites have already asked to join!

We look forward with excitement and optimism and wait for the feedback from our dear users.

We love beautiful images of Clever Tales and want to make choosing the tale a joy itself. When you turn your device into horizontal position the “Cover Flow” new mode will allow you to enjoy big pictures flowing! Tap the picture and you get to the fairy tale!

As many other people we are waiting for the iOS 5.0 and while waiting we make some preparations so that our apps look good on it too.

And of course we did our best to keep polishing the app, make little improvements that are not very visible but make our friendly app even more friendly.

…and was a #4 What’s Hot iPad Books in US App Store.

“Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it.”

Well… Firstly, I want to ask: where was my dear Mr. Bon Jovi, when the “music industry” of the 19th century (for example :-)) was destroyed? (Oh yeah, I’m sorry he was not born yet.) How about a foretaste of the visit to the Philharmonic, the only place where you can really touch the beautiful, where you can hear the pure sound of instruments in the hall with perfect acoustics? Where are the memorable soiree, when the hostess would have had definitely opened the piano to let her guests enjoy her playing? All this had been “killed” by the opportunity to buy some soulless black “pancake”, put it into the device like an evil creature from a fairy tale, fell on the sofa and listen to the creak and crack, which is a pitiful semblance of beautiful sounds, do it alone, maybe munching a sandwich at the same time! Isn’t it terrible? Doesn’t it “kill” the art? “Emile Berliner you bear personal responsibility for it, you scoundrel!” – Bon Jovi would have probably said.

Second, if Steve would kill “music industry” in the form that it has now, personally, I’ll tell him thank you twice! For being able to buy (not steal) the music I love, that cannot be found in any music store of the capital city of my great state. And my second “thank you” goes for his store and distribution system, that gives to independent musicians, to whom music is above all a genuine sublimation of their own thoughts and feelings, and to the ones like Mr. Bon Jovi – star millionaires with the image of rockers, for whom art is just business – equal (almost equal, the world is cruel and wild, but “almost” means a lot really) rights and opportunities.

So maybe that’s what the author of the aim is afraid of?

I do not understand Apple in this case. Surely, there should be some reasonable explanation for such discrimination. Does anyone know?

…and # 19 (iphone) and #21 (ipad) Top Paid Books in the US!