I’m trying to clean up our tablet because so many of the kids apps we downloaded turned into nonstop pop-ups, locked features or constant upgrade prompts. My daughter mostly likes creative stuff like drawing, designing characters or making little animations, so I’d love apps that actually let kids create instead of just tapping colors or watching ads every 2 minutes.
What free apps have genuinely been worth keeping long term?
Looking for free kids apps that aren’t packed with ads.
byu/RegularOk1820 inFrugal
Posted by RegularOk1820
8 Comments
Might help mentioning what type of tablet you have as Android and Apple stores have different apps! Good luck in your search!
Sorry, I can’t contribute directly to the topic but good and complex apps take time to develop and you can either pay for that by having apps or small payment. The only exception I can think of are educational apps sponsored through some educational institution that has secured other sources of funding.
Why not give her some arts supply instead? Not sure if you have access to any buy nothing groups or apps but if you ask people probably have stuff to donate for free.
If she is into programming there are programming apps for children like Scratch/ScratchJr and I think they are still free.
Crayola Create and Play is pretty good
Honestly most free drawing apps end up packed with ads unless a big company is backing them somehow. Aqua by Adobe is one of the few that actually feels usable for kids without constant popups. The AR features are surprisingly fun too. My niece spent forever scanning her drawings and seeing them pop up around the room.
I’d also look for apps tied to schools or educational programs since those usually stay a lot cleaner.
Subscription creep is real over here.
Paper, crayons, coloring books, colored pencils.
Nothing is free. You pay for it with a crap ton of ads
Test if any of your current games work on airplane mode. I don’t really put games on my phone but the couple that I do have (Charades and iLoveHue) both work fine with airplane mode on so no ads come through