Price: $4.99 Score: 10/10 Category: Books
To coincide with their tremendously popular “Shark Week” television schedule, Discovery has launched the Ultimate Sharks iPad app, which is sure to be a perfect companion for the week-long event. Ultimate Sharks educates users on various types of sharks, through videos, interactive 3D animations, and a ton of information.
Curious kids will love manipulating the sharks with their fingers and seeing the sharks in action, while adults will find plenty of data to sift through. The amount of content and ease of use makes Ultimate Sharks the perfect resource for amateur thrill-seekers.
Ultimate Sharks opens with an intuitive navigation screen. From there, you can select from nearly a dozen different types of sharks. Within these individual shark pages, users can then view a massive amount of information, from feeding habits and habitat information, to basic stats and measurements. Of course, for those who like the grizzly stuff, you can also read about significant attacks.
Back at the navigation page, users can skip the individual shark information and head right to the media center, which contains piles of videos and photographs. Now, the success of Discovery’s Shark Week probably has little to do with education and more to do with the thrill of shark attacks. Knowing where their money is made, many of the videos deal with shark attacks or simply ramp up the predatory nature of the various sharks. However, there are plenty of great educational videos as well, dealing with shark information outside of the gory realm.
The data and videos included with Ultimate Sharks is easy to find and the menus are a breeze to navigate. So simple, in fact, that my four-year-old is able to locate the content he wants easily and without help from me. The videos are fascinating and we’ve spent a great deal of time huddled around our iPad combing through the content. If you’re looking for a great educational tool for you and your child to use together, Ultimate Shark may be the ticket; as long as neither of you are freaked out by the occasional shark attack video.
Bottom Line: A wonderful companion to their Shark Week event, Discovery’s Ultimate Sharks is an entertaining and educational app that shark lovers of all ages can enjoy.
Ultimate Sharks is compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.