iTikes Piano

I brought this for my 4 years old daughter because my wife wanted to send her to piano class that's going to cost about $50/hr? For that kind of price, I rather have this and be able to teach her the basics. Will probably save me at least 10-20 sessions worth! But with all these negative reviews, I really didn't expect much.The free app is 212mb, so while the ipad was downloading it, which took some time. We were getting familiar with the piano. This piano works like any other toy electric piano w/o the ipad/iphone. It is decent all by itself. It even have the letter/name of the key emboss of the key itself, so you know which key you're pressing, like C flat, C sharp, etc. Each key you press, it lights up. You can record and playback. There have "stepper" button where a tune comes out and it would intentionally pause and lights up the next key, you would have to press it before it continues for a few more notes and so forth.With the free apps, it made this piano so much better and whileworth. Once the app is installed, you place your ipad on the piano slot and launch the app. If it doesn't detects your piano, its saids "waiting for device" and 3 other options. 1. Play without the toy 2. Terms and Condition 3. Privacy and policy. That's exactly what I got, so I thought may be those parents are right, this isn't ready for prime time. Then I power it on...and Voila. Device detected. I'm not sure how but it does. I thought it was through the bluetooth, but my ipad bluebooth was disabled. There's no physical connection between the ipad and the piano. I doubt it is the wifi connection, but anyway, a new screen came up with 8 games or type of lessons to choose from.One of the game teaches you to play a song one note at a time, so you have to follow it. As the note comes up on your ipad screen, the key that you suppose to press lights up! How? I really dunno. And when you press the piano key, the corresponding ipad notes lights up. I even took the ipad off the slot from the piano and it works! I'm thinking it has to be bluetooth, but as mentioned, my ipad bluetooth is disabled to prolong battery life plus I didn't even link the piano to the ipad. Anyway it worked and I'm happy. The others games are similar, designed to teach the kids how to read notes and associate them to the keys on the piano. So a note would come out appear of the "C" line and you suppose to press the C key, etc. I'm sure it's gonna take an avg kid hours and plenty of lessons and practice for them to know and remember the 2 main octave of the piano, which is what this piano has. After about 10 minutes with this toy, my music reading ability from elementary school is creeping back. I remember the "FACE" technique now.If I truly invest the time to teach my daughter, which I intend to, I'll save myself at least $500-$1000 in piano lessons or much more. Even sending her to piano class, you'll still need a piano at home for them to practice. This iTikes piano and app is interactive which makes it fun and easy to learn. It will out lived its usefulness when your kid is able to play a song just by reading a simple sheet music. How many sessions will it takes for a kid to do that?While I love this toy piano and think its worth every penny, it isn't perfect and improvement is needed, but there's nothing like it out there. The sound could be better, but it is not terrible. Lets be realistic, this is a toy, so lets not compare a toy to a professional instrument or the speaker from a $500 ipad. But I too thought I had a broken one b/c only static came out when I turn it on until my daughter dial up the volume while I was trying to read the instruction. Duh!Another negative is while playing the notes to the song the app was teaching my daughter, sometimes you have to press it really hard otherwise it won't registered and thinks you missed the key. This is my only gripe. This probably has something to do with how the ipad and the piano is connected.Anyway, if you want a good sounding quality piano that your kids will pound on it a few time and will get bored quickly because they don't know how to play it because there's no interactive apps or instruction to guide them, then get a real keyboard, not this toy piano. But if you want a toy piano that can actually teach you or your kids hours of instruction and interactive games and fun, this is for you.

The sound quality of this keyboard is NOT good. It sounds like the speaker is malfunctioning. It crackles, distorts and has kind of a tinny sound. I like that the keys light-up, BUT when it lights up the key it wants the child to hit, the two keys on either side also glow bright enough to be confusing for a little kid.There are a handful of games (once you plug in your iPad/iPhone etc) that you can launch from the Piano app (free app associated with this toy). Some of the games within the app (there are 10) are just play, others require knowing/learning the note names and others don't seem to do much at all. The ones that teach music notation are well-intentioned but really do not provide a whole lot of instruction. If a child can already read some music, this might be OK --but it does not seem to really be teaching a lot to help give kids what they need to successfully play the games.The biggest issue for me was the sound quality. If the keyboard sounded anything like a keyboard (there are free apps that sound better), I would have kept it. I'm sending it back to Amazon. I am convinced that something was wrong... there is no way the company could have meant it to sound the way that it did. However, I did see another review that said something similar... maybe there is bad match out there.

I started looking at this toy when I saw reviews on it on one of the parenting blogs I read. They gave it great reviews. On Amazon I saw there were low reviews so I hesitated to order it. When it came on sale after Christmas, I bought it.I think one thing parents fail to realize when buying this it that IT A TOY. Its not meant to be a grand piano that teaches your child Mozart in a day. My kid (3 yrs) plays with this all the time, with or without his iPad. He love music and this toy is great for him. He reads the notes on the screen and matches them up to the letters and lights on the piano. The on caveat I do have is that it is difficult to leave a game in the app when he's using it with the iPad. Im sure it in the directions, but I threw those out.

Really liked the idea of this... but, it still has yet to work while connected to the ipad app..... my kids played with it for the first few days, now I can't get them to play with it anymore..

My son loves to play on it. With the ipad it is a real learning tool. The only con i would have to say is the sound quality... not the best but will do. Wouldn't pay full price for it but i got a steal of a deal.

We bought it for my 4yo girl.. Greatly enjoyed by all my kids, 2y, 4y , 6y and 8y.. While many complain that the sound is rather plain piano sound, I like it cos it responds when simultaneous keys are pressed at the same time like a real piano.. Works well with my iPad too.. I don't have a problem connecting them.

He is having a ball with this

Excellent deal and great product

old product. low in volume. try to cheat? r wasting our time?