The process of developing a mobile app is very complicated and requires a lot of devotion and energy put into it. The whole experience from the starting point to finishing it can be very challenging, especially when your app is supposed to target a specific part of the population.  Developing mobile apps for children for instance requires a lot of research. Developers have to know and understand their audience, find out what children  like or dislike to better target them, making the apps appropriate for different ages of children, etc.

Apps are an important part of children’s life nowadays and they have a huge impact on them since most kids not only entertain themselves by playing them, but they also get educated.  Most children own a mobile phone these days and they are pretty much used to downloading different apps and trying new things every day. But in some cases, parents are the ones who prefer to download their children’s apps and getting their hands on different apps first in order to protect their kids from downloading inappropriate apps that are in a way untrustworthy.

Parents are starting to become more aware of what apps their kids are playing, because not all apps are suitable for children, and not all of them are a source of appropriate education. That is why the work of developers nowadays has become even harder. Their target children, but they have to keep in mind that parents are also using kids’ apps to check whether the app is appropriate and trustworthy.

Last year a 7-year-old boy went missing after installing an app called ‘Talking Angela’ which is a part of the Talking Tom and Friends app. The mother of the missing boy found out from the police that several children had gone missing after installing Talking Angela app. The news got viral on social networks and it was believed that a pedophile was “able to watch and engage with a child from behind the virtual cat character using the device's camera and prompt children into revealing personal details and behave in questionable ways,” according to this article. 

All series of Talking Tom and Friends apps are not only played by kids, but also by adults and since 2010 have been downloaded more than 1.5 billion times. Currently the apps are used by 230 million people every month.

When creating apps, developers have to find a way to make their apps fulfill the requirements of children and also their parents.

According to this article by Ryan Daws, “a wall should be implemented to check a parent has seen and agrees with how their child will use your application. One of the most-efficient ways of doing this is to verify the person authorizing its use is of a certain age through their credit card information or a small in-app purchase… In order to comply with data protection you must have the authorization of a legal guardian to store information about a minor until they are of responsible age to provide their own consent.”

(Picture Source: http://coolkidscan.com/top-8-alphabet-apps-for-kids/)