My kids love to play with the computer. Unfortunately, they also have the habit of renaming my hard drive to "axlfkaj". So, I wrote AlphaBaby so they could safely use the Mac without inflicting too much damage! AlphaBaby lets even infants and toddlers have fun playing with the computer. Every time a key is pressed or the mouse is clicked, a letter or shape is drawn. Sounds can be played every time something is drawn. Your own sounds and pictures can also be used. AlphaBaby helps kids to learn letters, plus provides a safe environment for kids to have fun "typing" on the keyboard! Both an application and screen saver version of AlphaBaby are provided.
Version 1.7 fixes the problem where Expose and Spaces could still be activiated while running AlphaBaby. It also adds a few new modes and customization features. Version 1.7 continues to be a Leopard-only Universal Binary.
Version 1.6 is a Leopard-only release. It should address any Leopard compatibility issues. It will only run on Leopard (OS X 10.5 and up).
Version 1.51 is now a Universal Application. No other changes from 1.5 have been made. The following changes were made in version 1.5. Images can be loaded from iPhoto albums. There is a new drawing mode which allows different images, lines, and shapes to be drawn on the screen. New options to speak colors and match your own sounds to letters allow you to customize how letters are pronounced. Version 1.5 has been tested on Mac OS 10.3 and 10.4. It is not supported on earlier versions of Mac OS X - please use version 1.4 of AlphaBaby if you are running an earlier version of Mac OS X.
Download version 1.7 (June, 2008) LEOPARD ONLY Readme
Download version 1.61 (March, 2008) LEOPARD ONLY Readme
Download version 1.6 (March, 2008) LEOPARD ONLY Readme
Download version 1.51 (July, 2006) Readme
Download version 1.5 (July, 2005) Readme
Download version 1.4 (March, 2004) Readme
Download version 1.3 (January 6, 2004). Readme
Download version 1.0.
Note: If you are downloading from Netscape or Internet Explorer, and clicking on the Download link causes your screen to be filled with garbage, try control-clicking on the download link instead, and selecting "Save Link to Disk".
Any questions, comments, or feature requests can be sent to:
I've really enjoyed the feedback I've received from users, and reading stories of how toddlers are using the program. Some users have even been nice enough to ask if there was a way to support AlphaBaby. I have made donations to AlphaBaby possible through a store on Kagi. Although AlphaBaby will continue to be free, you can support ongoing development with a donation through Kagi. The Kagi web site is set up to accept multiples of $5 or $10 donations. Any donations are certainly appreciated!
As of the 1.4 release, the source code for AlphaBaby is being released under the GNU General Public License. Any questions, comments, bugfixes, or enhancements to the code can be sent to alphababy.mac@gmail.com . AlphaBaby is written in Objective-C, using XCode and the Mac OS X Cocoa frameworks. The source is provided as a compressed tar file.
Download source for version 1.6, built using XCode 3.0.
Download source for version 1.51, built using XCode 2.2.
Download source for version 1.5, built using XCode 2.0.
Download source for version 1.4.
If you are still having problems using AlphaBaby and iPhoto '08, download this version of AlphaBaby. It runs in a small window and writes lots of debugging information to the console, which can be viewed with the Console app in Applications:Utilities. I am unable to reproduce the iPhoto '08 compatibility problems, so if you could send me the output from this debug version of AlphaBaby, it would help me track down the problem. Thanks so much!