Comparison

PLAY vs Care Bears

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

PLAY

This app uses virtual Play-Doh to teach children the alphabet. Kids can trace letters, learn new vocabulary, and create custom Play-Doh scenes. It also includes letter matching games and progress tracking for parents.

Highlights
  • Virtual Play-Doh letter tracing
  • Vocabulary association with letters
  • Customizable Play-Doh creations
  • Play-Doh scene building
  • Letter matching games
  • Progress tracking for parents
Features
Read full description

“Top 20 Best Apps of the Week” - The Guardian UK “The perfect blend of nostalgia and learning opportunities” - About.com “Fun, mess free way for learning”-Yahoo Voices “Well-thought out, educationally beneficial, colorful”- The Learning Treehouse “Completely transforms the way kids interact with technology” - Appshappens.com Learn your ABCs using ‘virtual’ PLAY-DOH modeling compound with this delightfully interactive educational app! PLAY-DOH Create ABCs application is designed to help children develop the essential skills required for reading and writing. Using this app, children will learn to: recognize letters, write letters using proper stroke order and associate letters with sounds. WRITE AND CRAFT! Learn how to write letters of the alphabet by using ‘virtual’ PLAY-DOH modeling compound. Discover new vocabulary words that start with the same letter. What starts with the letter A? An alligator! But be careful, it’s ready to chomp! When you successfully complete each letter, you are rewarded with a ‘virtual’ PLAY-DOH treat that you can create and customize. Want to change the color? Go ahead! Want to squish it? You can do that, too! CREATE AND SHARE! Build your own PLAY-DOH scenes with your PLAY-DOH creations. The PLAY-DOH gallery is just a click away on the ‘create and share’ button. There you can enjoy all the animated, colorful objects you make as you work your way through the letters of the alphabet. Select your favorite background and then bring PLAY-DOH scenes to life with custom PLAY-DOH pictures. Save your creations on your phone or tablet and share them with others! LETTER MATCHING Click on the ‘match’ button and you can enjoy a new activity: matching letters with the PLAY-DOH creations. The ‘match’ feature reinforces initial letter sounds by matching letters with objects that start with the same sound. A letter select screen allows you to play the activity on any letter you choose. Can you match the letters of the alphabet to the different PLAY-DOH creations? Give it a try! PLAY-DOH Create ABCs includes: -Tracing of uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet -Exciting ‘virtual’ PLAY-DOH treats -Poem and animations to re-enforce learning letter sounds -‘Squishable’ PLAY-DOH animations! -A matching activity to match letters with pictures -A letter select screen that allows children to choose any letter to play -A creativity zone, the PLAY-DOH gallery, where kids design custom PLAY-DOH scenes -A save-to-camera feature where parents can save and share their child’s colorful creations -Curriculum developed and reviewed by preschool education expert
s -Multiplayer profiles that allow more than one child to play and save their progress -Parental reporting to show progress PLAY-DOH Create ABCs will help children develop: -Language and pre-reading skills, including letter recognition and phonemic (sound) awareness and knowledge. - Fine motor skills and coordination -Their creativity via ‘learning by doing’ NOTE: Before you download this experience, please consider that this app contains in-app purchases that cost money. Additional content cannot be unlocked without spending money. ABOUT PLAYDATE DIGITAL PlayDate Digital Inc. is an emergent publisher of high-quality, interactive, mobile educational software for children. PlayDate Digital's products nurture children's emerging literacy and creativity skills by turning digital screens into engaging experiences. PlayDate Digital content is built in partnership with some of the world's most trusted global brands for kids. Visit us: playdatedigital.com Like us: facebook.com/playdatedigital Follow us: @playdatedigital Watch all our app trailers: youtube.com/PlayDateDigital1 HAVE QUESTIONS? We'd love to hear from you! Your questions suggestions and comments are always welcome. Contact us 24/7 at info@playdatedigital.com

About

Care Bears

Children aged three to seven can learn and play with over 100 interactive games. This app enhances skills in letters, numbers, colors, and shapes through a progressive difficulty system and a rewarding experience.

Highlights
  • Over 100 interactive learning games
  • Develops conception, perception, math, memory, and creativity
  • Progressive difficulty levels
  • Reward system with stars and prizes
  • Focus on letters, numbers, colors, and shapes
  • Supervised by child education specialists
  • Parental control
Features
Read full description

Care Bears™ Fun to Learn, in which children three to seven can enjoy and learn while playing games and stimulating education. The Fun to Learn app offers over 100 interactive games that enhance conception, perception, math, memory, and creativity skills for children alongside the widely recognized and beloved Care Bears. APP DESCRIPTION Play and learn with the Care Bears! • Choose your favorite Care Bear as an avatar and start playing. • Follow the Care Bears into houses of letters, numbers, colors, and shapes. • Solve the games and collect stars and prizes as you progress your skills. • Learn gradually and move forward with the help of a progressive difficulty level system. • Have fun with short, intuitive and highly encouraging games. LEARN THROUGH PLAY AND GAMES Letters: Begin your journey toward reading and writing one step at a time. First learn the vowels, then consonants and syllables, before moving on to spelling and language games. Numbers: Complete all the number games and learn to solve simple addition and subtraction problems. Colors: Learn the basic colors and how they combine to create other colors. Have fun painting in the Care Bears art studio. Shapes: Learn to identify regular and irregular shapes, and build your own structures using the geometric shapes. CURRICULAR CONTENT Language: vowels, consonants, syllables, vocabulary, foreign languages. Math: numbers, counting, series, ordering, additions, subtractions. Colors: basic colors, primary colors, color composition, drawing, painting and coloring. Shapes: basic shapes, regular shapes, irregular shapes, structures. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS • Highly visual and intuitive design. • Supervised by specialists in child education. • Encourages learning through a reward system. • Educational activities arranged into difficulty levels. • Parental control. • Available in English and Spanish. • Free app download including open content and in-app purchases. For more detailed information about Care Bears Fun to learn App, please visit: http://www.taptaptales.com Free download only allows access to some app sections, extra app sections may be purchased individually. Tap Tap Tales also has other applications such as Hello Kitty, Maya The Bee, Smurfs, Vic The viking, Shaun the Sheep, Tree Fu Tom, Heidi and Caillou. In Tap Tap Tales we care about your opinion. For this reason, we encourage you to rate this app and if you have any comments please send them to our e-mail address: hello@taptaptales.com. Web: http://www.taptaptales.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taptaptales Twitter: @taptaptales Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/taptaptales Our Mision Bringing joy to children and contributing to their development through the creation and publication of amazing interactive adventures full of fun educational activities. Motivating and helping the kids to accomplish the tasks of the educational game. Learning and growing with our users, adapting to their needs and sharing happy moments with them. Helping parents and teachers in their educational and caring endeavors with young children, offering them top-quality, state-of-the-art learning applications. Our Privacy Policy http://www.taptaptales.com/en_US/privacy-policy/

Screenshots

PLAY4 screens
Care Bears4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: PLAY at none against Care Bears's shown. PLAY also leads on update cadence (every 2 months vs every 15 months). Care Bears's advantage is iOS requirement (11.0 vs 13.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. PLAY sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and Care Bears sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.4 for PLAY against 4.4 for Care Bears. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 25 and 19 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 51% of PLAY's written reviews are positive against 50% of Care Bears's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

PLAY ships an update every 2 months, Care Bears every 15 months. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
PLAY versus Care Bears: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPLAYCare Bears
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (25 ratings)4.4 (19 ratings) — better
Positive reviews51.2% of reviews — better50.0% of reviews
Number of ratings25 — better19
Update frequencyEvery 2 months — betterEvery 15 months
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS13.011.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size243 MB118 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPlayDate DigitalTap Tap Tales, SL

Customer experience

PLAY

All ratings25 ratings
Positive84.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative16.0%
Written reviews84 reviews
Positive51.2%
Neutral2.4%
Negative46.4%

Care Bears

All ratings19 ratings
Positive78.9%
Neutral5.3%
Negative15.8%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%

In-app purchases

2 purchases

PLAY

One-time2
  • Remove Ads$1.99
  • Unlock All Alphabets$3.99
5 purchases

Care Bears

One-time5
  • Maths$1.99
  • Language$1.99
  • Colors$1.99
Show 2 more
  • Shapes$1.99
  • Care Bears Fun to learn - Buy all$4.99

Questions

Is PLAY free?
PLAY is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Care Bears free?
Care Bears is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, PLAY or Care Bears?
Care Bears is rated higher. PLAY averages 4.4 out of 5 from 25 ratings, while Care Bears averages 4.4 from 19 ratings.
Do PLAY or Care Bears have ads?
Care Bears shows ads; PLAY does not.
Which is updated more often, PLAY or Care Bears?
PLAY ships an update every 2 months, and Care Bears every 15 months. Most recently, PLAY was updated on October 15, 2026 and Care Bears on October 22, 2026.

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