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Any parent of a toddler these days know the trouble that can be caused by leaving your smart phone within arms reach of your little one. From password changes to expensive app downloads its amazing what those little fingers can accomplish in the time it takes to get a glass of milk.  For Android user there is now a solution that allows toddlers to use a parents phone worry free and assists in monitoring a preteens first device.

 

Toronto App developers Martin Dravashkov and Renat Gataullin are co-founders of Kytephone, an app geared towards parents of young children available at the Google Play Store for Android phones and tablets. Kytephone : Parental Control can be used to control childrens access to sensitive or inapropriate content on the phone/tablet or on line.  Turning the device into a kids phone with full parental control and a new home screen that is password protected and cannot be exited by the child provides a new parenting tool.

 

Other features included are the ability to limit game time played. Remote monitoring from any device (Android or not).  Full app control allowing parents to choose what applications children will have access to.  GPS tracking as well as call and text message restrictions top the list of capabitities of Kytephone.  Perhaps the most interesting feature is called photo sync, allowing curious parents to view all pictures taken with the device from a synched cloud based account.

 

While the point of this endeavour was to help parents protect both their phones and children some unexpected feedback from users has put a new spin on Kytephone’s potential uses.  Parents of children with disabilities such autism have found the simplified user interface useful in the child’s ability to use the device.  Drashkov calls Kytephone “a great tool for parents with kids with disabilities”.

 

The broad range of  potential users of Kytephone has yet another layer.  Seniors may also benefit from a simplified device.  Techno challenged as many are, less options and fewer controls make today’s Smart phones a usable possibility for many seniors.  The original idea behind Kytephone was actually to simplify modern phones specifically for seniors but as ideas developed the parental control version became the new focus.

 

Over 10000 downloads in the first month of availability shows the potential of such an app. Kytephone is yet another in a long list of Canadian contributions to the application world.

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2 Responses

  1. Andrew Mitchell

    A follow up on the above issue. I have cobbled together a workaround. NOTE The Kytephone app actually causes the installed phone to not work as well ie black/blank images.

    The workaround involves two apps being brought together to replace the photo monitoring functionality of the Kytephone app. They are CameraMX and Dropbox. Add Dropbox with autosyncing of photos and CameraMX from Playstore and disable the Kytephone camera inside the parent control.module.

    Ok so its not perfect, but you can see the photos taken in the “dropbox camera uploads” folder and the rest of the Kytephone stuff on the Kytephone web interface. Anyhow it all works for me and I am now happy to continue using the Kytephone app, as the user effectively sees no difference and has a few more fun editing/effects tools to play with, courtesy of CameraMX.

    Andrew – Victoria Australia

    Reply
  2. Andrew Mitchell

    This is a very good App BUT it has a problem with the Camera interface on Motorola Model MB 525 running Android 2.2.2, which apparently they cannot currently fix. This is characterised by black images when using the built in Kytephone camera app. Obviously test your phone once installed to check that you do not have this problem. Other than that it is well executed and well thought out.

    Andrew – Victoria, Australia

    Reply

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