Disney American Presidents Review

Disney American Presidents is a impressive app for iPad which contains a great deal of information on each of the U.S. presidents in a way that is humorous and engaging, based on the Disney DVD series, The American Presidents.

Styled as the “Un-official Oval Office Scrap Book,” there is a page dedicated to each president and consists of a handful of items pertinent to these leaders that can each be tapped to learn more. Also included are fun sound effects and short written sections that include more information about each president or the time period in general.

A short sound bite is also included that can be heard with a tap, consisting of a few words that express what stands out most about each of these presidents.

By far, the best feature of this app are the videos included for each president.

I admire the use of multimedia within these videos, making them utterly engaging and oftentimes showing off a smart sense of humor as well as interviews from such knowledgeable people as Bob Woodward, Mo Rocca or Sam Donaldson.

Disney American Presidents is a terrific app for grade school children. I do appreciate that the good as well as the bad moments in office have been discussed, creating complex characters for kids to think about such as Richard Nixon, as well as unflattering details like the unpleasantness of John Adams, which will seem relevant and honest to children.

I also enjoy that the lesser known presidents are also represented here and given the same general lengths of time, this app doing their best to make the story of these presidents as interesting as the rest.

A few options are included, such as being able to choose music to coincide with the era a chosen president is a part of or a common theme song for this app, Battle Hymn of the Republic. One can also see as well as gain access to all the presidents laid out on a single page, arranged in order as well as color codes by era - a nice touch.

Adults may find the wit displayed in these videos familiar as Disney has teamed up with a producer from The Daily Show and Colbert Report to create these shorts which surpass the category of being solely for children, as my husband and I have really enjoyed these modern takes a great deal.

Some parents may raise an eyebrow, however at the mention of an inappropriate relationship with an intern during Bill Clinton’s video, but as this was an important detail leading to his trial for impeachment, this detail needs to be touched upon, which it is within this video in a delicate nature I was satisfied by.

It is worth noting that I have had problems with the sound portion of this app, as the music, sound effects and sound bites have at moments stopped working during my time exploring this app - a disappointment that I hope can be fixed in a later update. Luckily, the videos have not been affected, so there still more than enough content allowing me to easily recommend this app.

I would also like to note that although I really appreciate not needing an internet connection to use this app, but the size of this app at 1.02 GB is quite large - large enough in fact that some families may have issues downloading this app to their iPad in terms of space.

Although I find this app important enough in terms of wonderfully educational tool to make room for it on one’s iPad so that children can learn from this resource, I would love to see this app optimized in the future.

Only time will tell if this app is updated to reflect the outcome of the 2012 presidential election, an update I would love to see included in the future.