Review: Milestone

Overview Milestone is a very simple app for logging the major events in a baby's early development. It's for parents, but not all parents. Primarily, Milestone is for parents who'd like to see how the development of their baby (or babies) compares to the average. Features You can add a baby's name (or several) to the app and then open it up whenever the baby hits a major milestone in its development, like smiling, grasping, sitting up and eventually walking, and add that "milestone" to the timeline. You can very quickly add a developmental event when it happens, or you can manually change the date if the event already occurred, and then close the app and forget about it until the next event occurs. Rotate the iPhone horizontally and you can see your baby's progress compared to the average age those events occur. It is important to note this app features no bells and whistles beyond what's described above. It only fulfills a very specific need for a parent. It is not, for example, a baby journal or a baby notebook. And, yes, for this review I decided to name my imaginary baby Rocky Balboa. Don't judge me. The Breakdown The Good It works as described above. If you have or are going to have several children the usefulness of this app improves because it gives you a simple way to compare the development of your various children. Nadya Suleman, for example, would probably benefit from this app the most. The Bad A baby journal app is an absolute must-have for every new parent. Unfortunately, that isn't what Milestone is and I don't know if that app exists yet. I've actually decided to hold off having kids until this app does exist. I'm kidding. Well, mostly. In all seriousness, the iPhone could easily be an amazing baby notebook. The App Store is in dire need of an app that could leverage all the tools the iPhone offers to track a baby's early development. Not just scientifically, as is done in Milestone, but emotionally, aurally, visually and physically. How about audio of your baby's first few words and a photo to attach to the memory? How about a foot print or hand print using the touchscreen to measure its size? The possibilities offered by the iPhone are truly astonishing for any parent or would-be parent. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be an app for that. Milestone certainly isn't that app. Milestone only does what it says it does: open the app up and mark when your baby hits a particular developmental milestone. I would've been super impressed with the ability to add your own events or the length or weight of a baby, but that's not here. Developer Response I contacted the developer and asked about the limited feature set. Rita from Ventio Technologies got back to me. In response to my complaint about the inability to add your own events to the app, Rita said, "we have to be careful on how to separate milestone events and user-added events, because some of the events added by users are not considered as baby development milestones." This reiterates the stated purpose of the app as simply a developmental milestone tracker. Rita also said adding photos is a priority. Conclusion If you really need a simple solution to compare your child's development to the average or you have several children and want to compare them to each other, then spend your money on this app. If not, use a note taking app to keep a journal of your baby's development and include whatever details you want. Alternatively, you could just send yourself an e-mail with the subject "Baby Development - Sat up first time" or "Baby Development - walked first time" and you've got a record of your baby's development for all time.

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