Looking for BabySmash on a Mac?

Tapotin, a toddler keyboard toy for macOS

BabySmash is a free toddler app that many parents met on Windows: the child bangs on the real keyboard, and every key makes shapes, colours and sounds while the rest of the computer stays out of reach. If you are on a Mac, Tapotin does that job, natively.

Get Tapotin on the Mac App Store

What your child gets

• Every key does something. Letters, numbers, arrows, the space bar, even Shift and Command. Nothing fails, there is nothing to get right.
• A keyboard that plays music. Every key plays a note, and the rows form scales: a small hand sliding across makes an arpeggio, not a racket.
• Nursery rhyme mode. Any key plays the next note of a familiar tune, so a toddler banging at random hears Twinkle, Twinkle come out of the Mac.
• Scenes that answer back. Seven animated scenes. The one nearest to each key reacts: a fir tree shakes off its snow, a snowman hops, bubbles rise.

How the Mac stays safe

Tapotin locks the screen with the kiosk mode macOS provides to every app. While your child plays, Command-Q, Command-Tab, Mission Control, the Dock and the menu bar stop answering. Your windows and files stay where you left them.

• To leave: hold Command and Shift, and type your exit word. The welcome screen shows it before the screen locks, and Escape or Command-Q bring up a reminder.
• Emergency exit: Control-Option-Command-Q always quits.
• No Accessibility permission. Tapotin never asks for it, so it cannot read what you type in other apps.

What it costs

Free to download. The Space and Winter scenes, the piano, nursery rhyme mode and the reacting scenes are free. Five more scenes and five more instruments are one-time purchases, behind a question only an adult can answer. No subscription, no ads.

Privacy

Tapotin collects no data: no account, no analytics, no tracking, and it works offline. Read the privacy policy.

For which Mac

Any Mac running macOS 14 Sonoma or later, Apple silicon or Intel. Tapotin speaks ten languages, including Arabic, Simplified Chinese and Japanese.

Get Tapotin on the Mac App Store