I haven't even mentioned yet that some of the instrumentation itself can quickly become painfully grating. I think here of the older woman with her vibrato-laden aria, or the bouncing frogs with their brain-pounding bouncy sound effects. As you listen to that same melody line repeat endlessly, the elderly woman shrilling away, you'll likely conclude--like me--that is the sort of technique the CIA might use to break enemy spies.

If you can get past the annoyance of Toca Band's infinitely repeated, too-brief melody, there are two other issues with the app: It doesn't require nearly the level of creativity that its other apps do, for one. Outside of tapping away to play an instrument's limited repertoire of in-key notes, there's not much for kids to do beyond drag and drop bandmates around. And the second flaw is one that's common to Toca Boca apps: It doesn't resume automatically. So if Junior accidentally taps the Home button, his carefully-assembled band is gone, at least for the 30 seconds it takes him to recreate the group after relaunching the app.

At the end of the day, though, as I've said: My kids love Toca Band. Yours probably will, too. But Toca Boca can--and often does--do better.