Bedtime Stories reads to your child when you cannot. 44 illustrated stories, 9 lullabies and 6 sleep sounds, all on the device, all working offline.
READ IN YOUR OWN VOICE
If you have recorded a Personal Voice on this iPhone, Bedtime Stories can read with it. A parent who is away, working late or travelling still reads the story. The recording is made by iOS, stays on the device, and is never uploaded anywhere. Grant the app permission once and your voice appears in the list beside the others.
No Personal Voice yet? The app picks the best narration voice installed, and shows you where to download a free Enhanced or Premium English voice if you want a warmer narrator.
THE LIBRARY
44 stories across five shelves: Animals, Classics, Dreams, Fantasy and Adventures. Ten are retellings of public domain favorites including The Tortoise and the Hare, Thumbelina and The Elves and the Shoemaker. The other 34 were written for this app, for ages three to nine.
Each story runs around eight minutes over 16 to 18 pages, and every page holds the screen for about half a minute. The pacing is deliberate. A child has time to picture the scene before the next page arrives.
Nothing here is frightening. No peril, no villains, no cliffhangers. Every story ends somewhere quiet.
A PICTURE FOR EVERY STORY
Each story carries its own night scene, drawn on the device as you open it rather than loaded as a photograph. A sailing boat on still water, a windmill above a sleeping village, a lamp at the end of a jetty. No two look alike, and children recognize a story by its picture before they can read the title.
READ ALOUD, WITH THE WORDS LIT UP
Each word brightens as it is spoken, so a child learning to read can follow along instead of only listening. Turn narration off and read aloud yourself. Narration and music have separate volumes, and the reading speed is yours to set.
LULLABIES AND SLEEP SOUNDS
9 lullabies play as a continuous set with a four second crossfade. Alongside them are 6 sleep sounds: rain, ocean, wind, stream, night hush and deep noise. They are generated as they play rather than looped from a file, so they never repeat and never end.
BUILT FOR THE END OF THE DAY
• Sleep timer. Choose 10 to 90 minutes. Everything fades across the last 30 seconds instead of cutting off, and the countdown appears in the Dynamic Island and on the Lock Screen, so you can see how long is left without unlocking.
• Screen goes dark. After a minute without input the picture fades to black while the story carries on. No bright rectangle glowing in the bedroom.
• Ask for it out loud. Add the app's shortcuts to Siri, the Shortcuts app or the Action button, and start tonight's story, the lullabies or a sleep timer without touching the screen.
• Dark and light. Three night palettes for the bedroom and a Daybreak theme for the daytime.
FOR PARENTS
Every story is checked for calm themes before it ships. No advertisements, no account, no sign in, and nothing about your family is collected or sent anywhere. Works on iPhone and iPad.
FREE TO START
Two stories, two lullabies and two sleep sounds are free, along with the sleep timer, the screen off reading and the word highlighting. No trial period, no card required, nothing expires.
One purchase unlocks the remaining 42 stories, all 9 lullabies and all 6 sleep sounds, and keeps them unlocked. A single payment rather than a subscription, so it never renews and never asks again.
Terms of use: apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula
Turn the lamp down, pick a story, and let the room go quiet.
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