Optimize your iPhone for kids travel (w/giveaway)

This post covers how to make your iPhone work better on long trips with kids — at the bottom, you’ll get details on our free giveaway. RT this post to be included.

As many of you know, the iPhone is a game changer for traveling with kids. As a parent, you have the world of information at your fingertips (nearest bathroom app, flight schedule apps, Disneyland apps, etc) in a device that fits easily in your jacket pocket. Give it to your kids, and they can entertain themselves as well as practice flashcards, play music, etc.

As dads and developers of the Weetwoo! app (safe YouTube videos for kids 3+), we definitely understand.  Kids love to use WeetWoo! on long car rides, and when there is wifi on flights, WeetWoo! keeps the laptop with the parents, and away from the oozing juice boxes.

This post is about how to make this wonderful device work better for you and your kids.

Battery Life

As great as the iPhone is, the battery life is problematic.  You will run out of power most likely by 4pm on a day of important travel (or at least that’s the fear). So here are some suggestions.

- Take two charger cables with you, and keep one with you at all times. One in your pocket or backpack, and one, as backup, in the suitcase. When you can, charge the phone. Keep it charged.  You can buy a tiny USB plug to fit your cigarette lighter, and pop it into the rental car.

- Disable 3G. 3G is great for loading Safari pages, but it uses up  battery power. Change your network to 2G and you can survive for many more hours. Head to settings > general > network. The phone will lose its current connection and re-establish the new one usually under 20 seconds. You can go back to 3G just as easily. For apps that require internet connections, you may want to test performance on 3G and 2G to better understand each apps needs. For WeetWoo!, we’ve found that sometimes 2G works just fine.

- Screen brightness. Bring this one down as well, and you will gain some precious more time. You’ll find this on the main settings screen.

Headphones

Small kids may need special gear, especially if you want them to enjoy your  the music and sounds from the iPhone apps . Most airlines provide headphones that are too awkward for pre-schoolers.  When they fit somehow, they still loom two inches away from my child’s ears, and she ends up holding the earpiece with one hand and the phone with the other.  Many of the newer ear bud styles are also too big for the kiddos, and they just pop out. These days you can get some comfy padded over-the-ear headphones for under $20.  Califone and Sony have special kid-sized headphones, or your can try regular ones at their smallest setting. My kids love putting these in their own backpacks for these trips, so they don’t end up in our already stuffed carry-ons.

Protection Screen

I assume you have some type of protection on your glass-screened toy.  I used to have a detachable clear-plastic sheet that came with the silicon cover I bought for my iPhone. However, when apple sauce got spilled on the iPhone, I decided to switch to a sticky film which stops everything from coming in contact with the screen. Make sure your device is well protected.

Stand

These days you can buy a wide variety of simple, travel-friendly stands that keep your iPhone upright.  A search on Amazon brings up a bunch of different types, finishes, etc.  These stands will be great for viewing movies or WeetWoo! videos during a flight, and are also handy back at the hotel. We built our own using Popsicle sticks and a glue gun, and we travel with it all the time.

Blue Masking Tape

BMT is a must.  It may not have anything to do with the iPhone, but we keep one in our carry-on / backpack all the time. It’s great for cord management – two small pieces keep the headphone cords  from getting tangled up. We have used BMT numerous times to attach newspaper to the back windows and keep the sun out of our kid’s face.  On planes where you can’t turn off the build-in screens,  we cover these up with paper and BMT to let our kids sleep or play free of that distraction. Unlike duct tape, it’s super easy to take it off without leaving sticky residue behind.

Giveaway

What are your favorite tricks for making the most of your iPhone during travel with kids? Let us know in the comments and then tweet this article to your friends. We will will give away an iPhone stand on March 15th to a  randomly selected twitter follower, based on re-tweets. You can follow us at http://twitter.com/weetwookids

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