As it turns out there is well over 5000 educational apps available, covering different subjects from math, science, French to learning how to write. There is a great diversity of apps dedicated to different age groups, from toddlers to grad students.  The educational potential of iPads hasn’t gone unnoticed by educational establishments as more and more schools are using iPads in classrooms these days.

There is a huge choice of apps for toddlers such as bedtime story audio books, interactive touch books animated songs, nursery rhymes etc. One of the best apps for preschool children is iWriteWords. It is basically a game that teaches your kid handwriting. It is kind of crazy how many apps are there that can help your kid to learn how to tell time (check out this app: Interactive Telling Time), memorize time tables, learn how to draw or simply use iPad as a coloring book.

One of our all time favorite apps for older children and their parents is Google Earth. This app was meant to be used on iPad. It’s absolutely stunning! And how cool is it to be able to travel around the world by simply swiping your fingers across the screen. Geography will instantly become a whole lot more interesting!

Check out App store Education section and discover how you can turn iPad into your kid’s new tutor. Have fun learning!

Related articles

• Study finds kindergartners read better with the iPad (thenextweb.com)
• Report: iPad in the classroom raising Kindergartner’s literacy scores (9to5mac.com)
• iPad Helps Kindergarten Literacy (ezrasf.com)

We hope you will enjoy using Boomerang, it has been an amazing journey and we appreciate your support during this process. Once you have received your products, please keep in touch. We would love to see how you use Boomerang in everyday life, so send us your photos or videos and most of all have fun!

Here is why iPad makes all the difference. Unlike with most laptops and notebooks, battery life is simply amazing and as a result, iPad can guarantee you quite a few hours of great entertainment. So here are just a few ideas on how your iPad can make your next trans Atlantic flight pass by like a breeze.

There is literally a ton of different apps that can help you pass the time in the past few months, such as TED or Flipboard. What makes these two apps particularly travel-friendly is the off line mode- when you are stuck on a plane without internet connection, offline mode is essential. This is why TED is excellent since the app is designed to support a mobile lifestyle, which basically means you can download video and audio directly to the device so that you can  watch them on the plane.Similarly, with Flipboard you can save articles to read later thanks to Pocket which is a tool that allows you to “save web pages for reading later”.

Kindle is of course another must have and if you still have doubts about digital books, you really shouldn’t, Kindle is so amazing you will soon be hooked! Just don’t forget to bring your Boomerang along-it will make all the difference!

For us, a great video was essential. We have designed a product for iPad, which is by definition a very high quality product; so we wanted to show everyone that our product is the perfect fit for iPad. My background is in film graphics, so I was lucky to have friends from the industry, willing to work for free, otherwise this just would not have been possible. 

You also have to think about advertising. We used Facebook ads, but from the start we decided that we are only going to put so much money into that channel. We spent roughly 150 Euros, not very much, and in terms of the benefits of Facebook ads, our overall impression is that while it did not help massively, it didn’t hurt either.

What we did notice, was that as soon as we had traffic on our Kickstarter page, we had financial backers. So it’s critical to ensure you find ways to spread the word. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube are all essential, but they are also time-consuming to manage, so get someone to help you, you can’t do everything on your own. As you can see on the graph bellow, media coverage and traffic go hand in hand. As soon as a new article was published there was considerable surge in traffic and hence an increase in new backers! 

The overall benefits of Kickstarter are without doubt, very worthwhile.  Kickstarter offers a unique way to get a proof of concept, customer feedback and of course necessary funds to launch your project. But, it’s not all glory days. For all of us, it was a stressful month filled with sleepless nights. 30 days is a perfect period for a campaign. It’s difficult to keep up the buzz, your friends will get bored and tired of your incessant Facebook posts, but there is nothing as contagious as enthusiasm, and no better way to learn than carry a cat by the tail.

A second step is learning how to write a good sales pitch for contacting journalists. Without media coverage the chances of a successfully funded project are significantly lower.  Writing a press release for the first time can be daunting but keep in mind that you have an advantage there is  no one else who knows the project beter than you! Browse the web for tips on how to write a press release, there is a ton of articles  have a look at some of the projects on Kickstarter and try and find their press releases to get some ideas. 

One thing that we did which proved  extremely valuable was to prepare a strong list of people that we wanted to cover  our story. Try and learn  as much as you can about them, what they actually want to write about, be polite yet persistent.  Press coverage is essential, you will only get so far without it, and it helps build confidence for future investors, even after the Kickstarter phase has passed.

“I have been a fan of Kickstarter long before we launched our campaign for Boomerang – what’s not to love about a platform that enables people to support creative projects and be the first to get the final product? It’s simple to engage with and almost self-explanatory, however, it is the ability to bring the right people together which is crucial.”

“I was lucky that so many people were willing to listen to my ideas and then help me with their feedback. Entrepreneurs are stubborn, we have to be. But we also need sounding boards. Perhaps something sounds great, but hearing what other people have to say is so valuable. And being able to tell a good story is necessary if you want to get people to support you. If you can’t convince your friends, who, most likely, actually like you, you stand zero chance of convincing complete strangers to open their wallets.” 

One pick up truck fully packed with flyers, booth and plenty of Boomerangs and mounts can only mean one thing: CES 2013 road trip!!! On a sunny day in lovely L.A we started to pack at about 9 AM and at 8PM we finally hit the road. 5 hours later we reached our final destination: Sin City! The next morning we headed straight to the convention centre and started working on setting up our booth.

What seemed like a pretty straight forward thing to do back when we have first seen the plans turned out to be quite a challenge, sort of like an Ikea building project really… you are so excited about your new wardrobe until you bring it home…

Well, we are glad to report that on our second day, we managed to finish building our booth and now we are dealing with packaging for Boomerangs, making sure all the accessories are ready and trying to figure out how to connect Apple TV to our iPad (just in case we get bored during CES and need to catch up on Homeland). In other words, we are almost ready for tomorrow!!! We can’t wait!

Venture capital and a boost from a fantastic Kickstarter campaign have readied Boomerang for distribution in February. Xvida CEO, Uros Cadez will use the International CES to promote this tech triumph and to connect with new distributors.

Cadez said: “Vegas gives us a spectacular opportunity to showcase our ‘Boomerang’ range. With sale already spanning the globe, we expect CES to be the place we put some new partnerships in place. We’re really excited about the exhibition.”

“In November we raised $50,000, beating our own Kickstarter target in only 20 days. We exceeded our target by 25%, which is just one indication of the phenomenal uptake for Boomerang. We are now engaged in our first full production cycle, and our team is looking at a series of global production options, most specifically in Europe, the USA and China.”

But, the game isn’t over yet, with a couple of days still to run, the ambitious Xvida team are trying to increase their funding even though $40K is secure. If Europe is looking for an economic model to regenerate struggling economies, this is a story with every ingredient necessary.

Boomerang’s been an exceptional success, even by Kickstarter terms. Here’s how they did it.

“It took us five days of filming, in two very different cities, London, in the United Kingdom, and Ljubljana in our home nation, Slovenia, just east of Germany.”

“My first thought was that we should do something simple, but we couldn’t help ourselves, so we pushed the video concept quite a bit further from where we started. It would have been impossible to shoot the video without immense support from our close friends, family and colleagues. The filming of was demanding on different levels, but we wanted to get everything right, to the highest standard.” 

“Our whole process has been focused on a kind of natural conversation. We didn’t want the video to show big ideas, pretence, we just wanted to convey that we were really excited about this product, it’s something really useful and really beautiful,” said Cadez.

“In the Kickstarter video we had to first present our signature project Boomerang; the first ever mount and stand in one product. Boomerang’s characterized by a stylish, portable design so the video took shape around an explanation of the design process – it’s a great visual theme and largely self-explanatory when you see it. What we did, was to present the design in a very personal, human and emotional way. Basically, we were showing what was going on inside our heads, months of preparation and excitement revealed in just three minutes.”

For the past 18 months Cadez has been working with a team of experienced young professionals, leaning on their detailed knowledge of consumer design, plastics, mechanical engineering and manufacturing to develop the perfect iPad companion.

Boomerang is the first all-in-one mount and stand, but Cadez plans to open-source one side of Boomerang’s interface and in doing so enable others to develop and even sell their own mounts. The team are now preparing for CES Vegas, and the big-time.

Venture capital and a boost from Kickstarter have pushed Xvida’s tech triumph to the edge of production and the next step is to use CES Vegas to showcase Boomerang’s slick product design and to open new distribution channels.
Cadez unveiled ‘Boomerang’ with a smart Kickstarter video mid-November, and with just four weeks to raise $40,000, they are on target, in fact, they’re ahead of schedule.
“Boomerang combines two of the most common ways in which we use the iPad,” said Cadez, “It’s a superior iPad stand with three solid viewing angles; it can also act as a mounting system to other surfaces with its simple, magnetically detachable mount, which works a bit like the MacBook power cord.”

Cadez came up with the idea to develop Boomerang while working in London as a computer graphics artist, creating visual effects for TV and the movie industry. Although he had the expertise to visualize and animate, the turning point was when he joined forces with Luka Stepan, a talented friend from the Royal College of Art’s London Design School. Together, they began designing Boomerang.

For the past 18 months Cadez has been working with a team of experienced young professionals, leaning on their detailed knowledge of consumer design, plastics, mechanical engineering and manufacturing to develop the perfect iPad companion.

In two weeks, what is already a global project, will get an open source boost and Cadez will launch a new production network. One small click for man: one great product for mankind. Entrepreneurs, you can’t beat them, you have to join them.

Boomerang On Kickstarter- Video