"Aside from having parents block all third-party apps, which neither Apple nor developers want, the only option is to have a "your kid could potentially access adult content" rating."
They could parent protect the data connection. I think this would work fine for younger kids who don't need to be on twitter or whatever, and for whom parental protection is the most important (presumably).
With the arrival of the 3GS, a 1st generation iPhone just trickled down to my 2 year old. I just put it on airplane mode, but I am guessing that trick is only going to work for a couple of years.
She watches videos, "reads" books (scanned images of picture books), plays games, listens to music and practices "typing". It's now a spare, so it doesn't have a calling plan. So just like a video iPod really.
I can tell you that multi-touch has been a lot easier to teach than mouse use.
Have had the same experience with multi touch interfaces and my kids: they instantly get it. They drag things around, stretch, move etc... all without being told.
Will be interesting to see what the future holds - perhaps the idea of a separate mouse to a screen will be seen as quaint one day.
The funny thing is the mouse should be a a very basic instrument - its basically point and grunt. But the dexterity required for kids is a bit of a step - touch seems to make it even more intuitive.
They could parent protect the data connection. I think this would work fine for younger kids who don't need to be on twitter or whatever, and for whom parental protection is the most important (presumably).
With the arrival of the 3GS, a 1st generation iPhone just trickled down to my 2 year old. I just put it on airplane mode, but I am guessing that trick is only going to work for a couple of years.