The camera is the only way to add a picture. The app
cannot open the photo library on the phone, and never asks to.
Faces are covered before a picture is saved. The phone
looks for faces and paints a solid block over any it finds. This happens on
the phone, with nothing uploaded to do it, and a solid block cannot be undone
the way pixelation sometimes can.
The picture is shrunk and re-saved from scratch, at most
1600 pixels on its longest side. That drops what the camera attached to it:
where it was taken, when, and on which phone. The original is not kept.
There is no account and no sign-up. The app never asks
for a surname, a birthday, an email address or a location.
There is no server of ours. The collection is stored on
the phone and, if the phone is signed in to iCloud, copied to your family's
own iCloud account. Nothing in the app sends it to us.
The notes your child writes never leave the phone. They
are kept in a separate place that is not connected to iCloud at all, so they
cannot travel to a friend, or even to your child's own other devices.
No ads, no analytics, no crash reporting, no tracking,
and no code from any company other than Apple.
Showing it to a friend
Kids want to show people, so the app can do that. Not on its own
initiative, though, and never as a message.
Sharing is off when the app is installed. The invite
button is not on the screen at all until a grown-up switches sharing on in
Settings, past a question written out in words rather than digits.
Invitations go to named people, one at a time. Your
child picks a friend from Contacts or types their phone number or email
address, the app checks that an Apple Account uses it, and hands back a link
to send. A forwarded link does not let anyone else in. Nothing is searchable,
browsable or public.
A friend can react with one of six symbols (❤️ 🥰 🤩 😮
😂 😎) or make a trade offer. That is the whole list. Your child can point
friends at one of her squishies to say "look at this one"; that carries no
words.
There is no chat and no message box anywhere in the app.
A friend cannot write to your child. The only words of theirs your child ever
sees are the name they picked for themselves and the names they gave their own
squishies.
The only thing about your child that a friend sees is a nickname
your child chooses, up to 20 characters. Everything else on the screen is
about a toy.
Trading, if you want it
Trading is a separate switch, also off until a grown-up turns it on. A
friend can offer up to three of their squishies for one of your child's that is
marked as up for trade, and your child says yes or no. There is no money
anywhere in the app and no prices, and an offer carries no message: the
pictures and the names your friend gave her own squishies are the whole of it.
Saying yes is only an answer; any real swap happens between two families, in
the real world.
Notifications
There are none unless somebody asks for them. The switch sits behind the
grown-up question, in both directions: turning them on and turning them off
both need the sum. When they are on, they arrive batched into one message and
only ever report something a friend actually did. No streaks, no reminders,
nothing built to pull a child back in.
What a child actually does with it
Adds a squishy in five short steps. Only the name is required; every
other step can be skipped.
Rates it and tags it, from the lists below.
Picks a favorite, and a number one.
Keeps notes that are theirs alone.
Looks at the whole collection as a grid, searches it, and filters it.
The ratings and the tags
Almost everything is a tap on a fixed list, so there is very little to
type. The only words that are her own are the squishy's name, its brand if it
is not on the list, its type if it is not on the list, and where it came from.
Eleven ratings, each out of five stars, half stars allowed
Overall. All things considered.
Satisfying. How good is it to just keep squishing?
Squish. Does it squish easily, or fight back?
Softness. Firm, or pillowy?
Stretchy. How far does it stretch?
Texture. How does the outside feel?
Sound. Pop, slap, crunch, or silent?
Smell. Does it smell good, or like paint?
Cuteness. How cute is it, honestly?
Tough. Will it pop?
Rare. How hard was it to find?
The tags, every one of them
Type: Dumpling, Nee-Doh, Taba, Mochi, Butter, Smushers,
Squishmallow, Other. She can type a kind that is not listed.
Smell: No scent, Chemical / painty, Strawberry, Fruity,
Vanilla, Candy, Marshmallow, Butter, Chocolate, Something else.
How it's holding up (as many as are true): Like new,
Popped, Has a hole, Gone hard, Went flat, Sticky, Turning yellow, Cracked,
Dirty, Fixed it, Made over.
Up for trade, a switch on the squishy's own page, which
only matters once a grown-up has turned trading on.
Where it came from, and when: a shop, a friend, a
birthday. Her own words.
Limitations
The parts that are not tidy:
Face detection finds most faces, not every face. A face
in profile, partly hidden, very small, or in a reflection can be missed. The
app says on screen when it has covered one, and it is worth a look at the
picture before saving.
Turning the sharing switch back off does not take back access
already given. It only stops new invitations. To take a friend off,
open "Who can see it" on the Mine tab, tap their name, and tap Remove Share.
The app says so where the switch is.
The copy in your iCloud is yours to delete. Deleting the
app clears the phone, including every note, but the copy of the collection in
your own iCloud account stays until you remove it there.
A grown-up can export the whole collection to a file,
including the notes, which is exactly why that screen is behind the grown-up
question. Where the file goes afterwards is up to whoever made it.
