Daily iPad App: Kitty

Kitty is a US$4.99 virtual cat. Developed by Alex Komarov (that same guy who created that marvelous accordion application demonstrated at the iPad roll-out), Kitty provides an interactive virtual pet-ownership experience.

I am clearly not the target audience for this app. I have a daughter though, who loves cats and loves apps. I decided to test it out with her.

After spending a while exploring the app, my gradeschooler was quickly looking for some other game to engage in.

"It's a little annoying," she explained to me. "I don't like her purring. She just won't stop the [raspy gagging sound]." When I asked her to elaborate, she said, "At first, she really just seemed to hate me. She kept making [angry rawr sounds]. And then, it's kind of hard to wake her up."

In other words, the cat was acting like a cat.

This application is huge. It takes up 108 MB on your iPad, and works far better on the faster iPad 2 than the original version, as we discovered.

It also worked better for me as a tech demo than an actual application. The graphics are phenomenal -- your touches seem to interact with the fur, you can see Kitty breath in and out.

Unfortunately, the cat is a bit too realistic. Wake her from her nap and she gets pretty cranky. Unlike a puppy, she has absolutely no interest in socializing, being petted, or otherwise playing.

I suspect the target audience for this app is going to be quite small children, who don't mind that Kitty presents an interaction challenge.

As for this adult, my patience wore thin really quickly.

Love the accordion. Gonna pass on the cat.