Press kit

Their favorite toy is your keyboard. Hey Addie makes it safe — and makes it theirs.

Fact sheet

Product	Hey Addie!
What	A macOS app that turns the family Mac into a safe, escape-proof baby keyboard toy
Price	$9.99 one-time · packs $1.99–$2.99 · Everything Bundle $14.99 · no subscription
Platform	macOS — direct download and Mac App Store
Availability	Launching soon — press preview builds on request
Ages	6 months – 2½ years
Made by	Ericcorp — built by a parent for their daughter Addie
Contact	hello@hey-addie.com

The story

The origin story is true and short: a parent’s daughter, Addie, kept crawling into their keyboard mid-meeting — folders renamed, calls muted, at least one near-purchase. The laptop wasn’t competing with her favorite toy. It was her favorite toy.

The free fixes share one structural bug: they’re browser tabs, and a browser tab can’t block ⌘Q. (They’re still great for a two-minute emergency.) Eighteen years ago, Scott Hanselman’s BabySmash solved this properly on Windows — itself an homage to the old Mac app AlphaBaby — and it’s still maintained today. It just never shipped a Mac build.

So they built the homage BabySmash never gave the Mac: a kiosk-sealed play stage with a smash-proof double-ESC parent gate (an ESC that lands amid other keys is swallowed — babies smash in chords, parents tap), a refocus jail that pulls the app back when little fingers wander it away, and a personalization layer that greets the child by name and throws a confetti party when their name gets typed in order. Escape-proof? No software can overrule a power button — but short of that, the room is padded.

Why it’s a story

Escape-proof engineering. Kiosk mode seals ⌘Q, ⌘Tab, and ⌘Space while frontmost; the double-ESC parent gate survived contact with a real 14-month-old; a refocus jail catches wandering fingers.
The laptop is the toy. Every work-from-home parent knows the tug-of-war; Hey Addie ends it by handing the laptop over — safely.
It knows their name. The title screen greets the child, typing their name’s letters in order pops each one, and completing it throws confetti. Watching a two-year-old realize she made her name appear is the demo.
Calm on purpose. No strobing, a slow pastel color drift, hard caps on events per second — sensory play, not sensory overload.
Parent-grade ethics. $9.99 once, no subscription, no ads, no analytics, no network code at all; the mic mode is opt-in, on-device, and never records.

Screenshots

All ten are 1280×800 PNG — click any of them to download the full file.

Hey Addie title screen greeting the child by name — The title screen greets your kid by name.

Fruit friends dancing among particle bursts — the default visual style — Default style — fruit friends plus particle bursts.

The fruit visual style: hand-drawn characters on a pastel stage — Fruit style — the hand-drawn cast, front and center.

The abstract visual style: soft ripples — Abstract style — gentle ripples for the calmest sessions.

The parent settings overlay — Parent settings — visuals, sound, mic, session stats.

A milestone celebration showing a big friendly number — A big friendly milestone celebration every N presses.

The parent pause menu, opened by the double-ESC gesture — The parent menu behind the smash-proof double-ESC gate.

Confetti celebration after the child types their own name — The name game ends in a confetti party.

Night mode: a dusk palette for low-light play — Night mode — a dusk palette for low-light play.

The hidden developer panel listing feature flags — The hidden developer panel — every new feature ships behind a flag.

Assets & notes

Download the app icon (PNG, 1024×1024).

A 15-second vertical demo video is on its way — email us and we’ll send it the day it lands.

Boilerplate

Hey Addie! is a macOS app that turns the family Mac into a safe, calm, personalized play stage — a kiosk-sealed keyboard toy for kids aged 6 months to 2½ years that greets each child by name. It costs $9.99 one-time (optional packs $1.99–$2.99), shows no ads, collects no data, and works fully offline.

The five promises

No ads · No data collected · Fully offline · Mic opt-in, on-device, never recorded · Kids never see a store.