KinderTown releases search data: what parents want in educational apps

Educational app-store-inside-the-app-store KinderTown is releasing data about which educational apps parents want for their kids, based on over 120,000 parental app searches.

The most surprising results? Parents want apps for very, very young kids. And they very definitely want iPad apps … not iPhone.

KinderTown is an iPhone/iPad app that’s also a store. Basically, it’s providing a service that Apple can’t … or won’t. The team behind the app searches for the best educational apps for kids, which they then run through educator tests and parent reviews. Only apps that pass the requirements for usefulness, educational quality, and value enter KinderTown.

With 17 million iPads and 26 million iPhones sold just last quarter, KinderTown has plenty of potential customers — including many who haven’t even entered school yet.

In fact, of searches that specified age, nearly all of them included kids under the age of five, and almost 40 percent were for kids age three and under.

Above: Age range of educational app searches. Numbers sum to more than 100 because parents can choose ranges.

Image Credit: KinderTown

Additionally, though vastly more iPhones have been sold than iPads, and iPhone’s 650,000 apps outweighs iPad’s 250,000 by an almost 3-to-1 margin, most parents are looking for iPad apps, not iPhone.

Almost three-quarters of searches are for iPad apps alone. Only 6.3 percent are for iPhone-only apps:

Above: App parents search for by iOS platform

Image Credit: KinderTown

Apparently, iPads are parents’ default choice for educational apps. That makes some sense — I have three children myself, and I’m much more likely to hand over the iPad than my phone, which is for work and business and personal information.

Finally, and this will be of particular interest to app developers, of those searches that specified subject area, math and language were by far the most popular, both coming in around the 35 percent mark. Art came in at almost 15 percent, and science and social studies brought up the rear.

Above: Subjects by popularity

Image Credit: KinderTown

One more chart, for those who might be considering building an educational app for kids. KinderTown further breaks down subject area data into categories. Here are the top 1o:

Above: Top categories on KinderTown

Image Credit: KinderTown

Looking for more details? View the entire report here.

Image credits: Serhiy Kobyakov/ShutterStock