Over the last couple of months, I have had the opportunity to check out a few Disney Digital Books. I have always been very impressed with what I have seen. My four year old daughter, Sadie, has absolutely loved them, as well. Of course, none of that is a big surprise, considering Disney’s reputation for high quality content, whether it be film, print, or digital.
As much as Sadie loves the others in the series that we have tried, there are two things that she definitely enjoys even more- princesses and stickers. Well, this week we found the perfect Disney Digital Book for her. In honor of Friday’s Royal Wedding in London, England, Disney has released a 2.0 update to their Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book adding several new features. As soon as I saw this announcement, I knew it was time to call my little assistant into action once more.
The app includes seven different Disney Princesses: Cinderella, Ariel, Aurora, Snow White, Jasmine, Belle, and added in this update, Tiana. Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book presents a little bit of narrated story with text, and then let’s the user dress any one of the seven famous Disney princesses for their own wedding days. Sounds like a very fitting time to check out such an app, don’t you think?
I’ll have to be honest and admit that most of what I know about Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book has come from Sadie, as I haven’t seen a whole lot of my iPad since I brought it home for review. From what I gather from her, though, it’s pretty much the greatest app ever coded. Here is what I’ve been able to piece together.
First off, there isn’t a whole lot of story in this one, as each princess gets three brief, but nicely drawn and narrated slides.
But, when you have stickers, who needs story, right? That is definitely the case in this app, as the sticker book portion of Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book is the star of the show.
When you get to the third story page for a given princess, a hangar icon appears on the screen. Tapping this icon will take you to the sticker page, where you can help the princess ready for her big day.
The bar on the left has a plethora of dresses, tops, bottoms, shoes, jewelry, purses, and other accessory options that can be accessed by scrolling with your finger.
The different items can be mixed and matched at the user sees fit. You can even layer different choices on top of each other, if you choose.
No princess would be ready for a wedding without her crown or tiara, right? When it is time to adorn the head of your chosen princess, just tap the necklace icon in the top right corner to zoom in for her fitting.
In this mode, the bar on the left is filled with various crowns, tiaras, necklaces, and hats to complete you princess’ look. When you are done, just tap the same icon again, which is now appears as a dress, to get back to the dress mode.
When you have completed your princess’ wedding day look, you have two options. There are two icons located at the top of the bar on the left. The book icon will discard your work and go back to the story.
The familiar iOS options icon takes you to a menu where you have a few options for saving your handiwork.
First, your last several creations are stored in a scrapbook that you can flip through, with your current creation at the center. You can then tap Add to Photo Library to save the scene to your device for viewing in the Photos app and syncing to you computer.
Second, you also have the option to Email the picture to instantly share it with your friends or get it off of your iPhone or iPad without syncing.
I sat and watched as my daughter spent over an hour mixing and matching different outfits, and working on different princesses. She was completely in her element. And for anyone with concerns about letting a four-year old play on an iPad for that long, you have to bear in mind what this app does. It isn’t just some mindless game. This is geared toward bringing out the creativity in a little girl, and it does that brilliantly. Sure, apps can’t replace real coloring and sticker books, and they don’t in our house. Sadie still spends plenty of time with those. However, few coloring or sticker books are as versatile or offers as many options as this app, so there is something to be said for it. Sadie was totally in her element playing with Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book and I thoroughly enjoyed watching her.
So that was our first night with Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book. I knew Sadie would love the app as it stood, but I held one feature in reserve to give her a little surprise on day two. And this is a killer feature that really helps to take the experience to another level. The app allows you to use a picture of your choice, either taken with the device’s camera or from the photo library, to superimpose over the faces of the seven princesses.
Wow. Talk about the icing on the cake. Well, if you’re a four-year old girl who loves princess stuff and dress-up, it is. It certainly was for Sadie. If the app wasn’t already, this feature definitely made Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book her favorite of all time.
She had even more fun the second day, and I had a blast watching her and seeing what she came up with.
For those of you who will be watching the Royal Wedding on Friday, and have some little girls in your household who are into princesses and dress-up, this app is a great way to encourage some creativity and get them engaged in the event. Even if you aren’t watching, for $3.99, any little girl interested in such things should be in possession of this app. All of the Disney Digital Books apps that I have tried have been excellent, but Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book is the best one I have tried for what it does. It accomplishes its purpose with style and polish, and has enough variety to bring little ones back again and again. Don’t take my work for it though. Sadie is the real expert, and she gives it an enthusiastic two thumbs up.
Disney’s Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book is available as a universal app for $3.99 in the App Store here.
Disney provided a promo code to iPad Insight for the review of Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
Tagged as: disney digital books, Disney Princess, Disney's Princess Dress-Up: My Sticker Book Review, iPad Apps, princess apps, Princess Books, Royal Wedding, Sticker Books
