Apple has released a new application for tvOS that’s designed to help children improve their reading skills.
iBooks StoryTime takes advantage of a new feature called Read-Aloud to play a pre-recorded narration of a book, while simultaneously displaying on-screen subtitles — in a similar way to a karaoke system — to make words as easy for kids to decipher as possible.
The application also has support for a handful of other nifty features that children are guaranteed to enjoy, including sound effects and automatic page turning. If parents are having trouble getting their kids to engage with the story, they can hand them the Siri Remote to use as a wand to turn the virtual pages.
As it’s a brand new service, the selection of books available to purchase through StoryTime is fairly limited, which likely has something to do with the optimization required to display a book on the big screen. More titles are expected to be added over the course of the new few weeks, though.
The full list of books currently available for use with StoryTime can be seen below:
- Green Eggs and Ham
- The Little Red Hen
- Goodnight Moon
- Chicka Chicka ABC
- Big Brother Daniel
- The ABCs of Cookies
- Meet Tracker
To promote the application’s launch, Apple is offering customers a complimentary download of Dora’s Big Buddy Race Read-Along Storybook. To get their mitts on it, users simply have to download and install StoryTime through the App Store, then sign in using their Apple ID. It’s that simple.
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