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LAPP – The Library in Your Lap

LAPP. The Library in Your Lap

LAPP is a groundbreaking children’s literacy app that transforms reading from a passive activity into a deeply personal adventure. By placing the child at the heart of every story, using their name, photo, and personal details, LAPP makes young readers aged 3 to 8 the heroes of their own tales. Red C Mobile partnered with LAPP to design, build, and launch the full product across iOS and web, from concept through to App Store release.

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The challenge

LAPP’s founder, Jason, a former Royal Marine and father from Bristol, had a bold vision: an app that would make every child feel like the star of their own storybook. After 18 months of developing stories and working with literacy experts, he needed a technical partner to bring the product to life.

The challenge was multi-layered:

  • Deep personalisation at scale: Every story needed to dynamically incorporate each child’s name, pronouns, and even their face, composited into illustrated scenes. This had to work seamlessly across dozens of stories with multiple page layouts.
  • Inclusive by design: The app needed to represent every child. That meant supporting multiple skin tones, gender identities, and pronoun sets, all reflected accurately in both text and illustrations.
  • Accessibility for all readers: With a target audience that includes children with dyslexia and varying reading abilities, the experience had to be carefully crafted for readability and engagement.
  • A content pipeline for non-technical creators: LAPP’s team needed to create and manage an ever-growing library of personalised stories without writing code, requiring a purpose-built content management system.
  • Passwordless authentication: Parents setting up the app with a young child in their lap don’t have time for complex account creation. The onboarding flow had to be frictionless.

The solution

Red C Mobile delivered a complete, end-to-end product spanning a native iOS app, a Laravel-powered backend, and a bespoke web-based content management portal.

Native iOS App — SwiftUI

The iOS app was built entirely in SwiftUI, using a clean MVVM architecture for maintainability and testability. Key features include:

  • Personalised story rendering — Stories are rendered with dynamically generated illustrations using SVG assets. Each child’s captured photo is composited into scenes using AI-powered head extraction and precise positioning, rotation, and scaling.
  • Smart camera onboarding — Parents capture seven different poses of their child (smiling, laughing, sleeping, silly face, and more), which are then used throughout the story library to bring characters to life.
  • Age-appropriate library — Books are organised by three age ranges, with word count indicators to help parents choose the right level. The dashboard greets each child by name and displays personalised cover art.
  • Multiple reading modes — Children can read independently, listen to AI-narrated audio, or experience a guided story mode — catering to different learning styles and reading abilities.
  • Passwordless magic-link login — Authentication is handled via email magic links, eliminating the need for passwords entirely. A single tap confirms the account — no typing required.

Web Content Portal — Laravel & Vue 3

To empower LAPP’s content team, we built a dedicated Laravel 11 web portal with a Vue frontend:

  • Visual book builder — Content creators can compose multi-page stories with a drag-and-drop interface, managing page order, text content, and illustration placement without any technical knowledge.
  • Interactive pose editor — A custom Vue component allows precise positioning of character face overlays on each page illustration, with controls for scale, rotation, and placement.
  • Dynamic skin tone system — Rather than storing separate illustration assets for each skin tone, the system programmatically swaps colour values within SVG files at render time — a single asset serves all variations.
  • AI text-to-speech — Story narration is generated using OpenAI’s TTS engine with a carefully tuned voice profile (calm, composed, empathetic) optimised for children’s storytelling at a gentle pace.
  • Analytics dashboard — Charts and reports track user registrations, profile demographics, book completion rates across reading modes, and engagement trends — giving LAPP data-driven insight into how children are using the platform.
  • Serverless deployment — The portal runs on Laravel Vapor (AWS Lambda), providing automatic scaling and minimal operational overhead.

Backend & API

A RESTful API built with Laravel Sanctum serves as the bridge between the iOS app and the content platform:

  • Token-based authentication with magic-link flow
  • Presigned S3 URLs for secure, direct-to-cloud photo uploads from the app
  • On-demand image composition — generating personalised page illustrations by combining story backgrounds with each child’s extracted face photos
  • Content delivery with temporary signed URLs for audio and image assets

Key Features

For Children & Parents

  • Personalised stories featuring the child’s name, face, and pronouns
  • Seven expressive photo poses captured during onboarding
  • Three reading modes: Read, Listen, and Story Mode
  • Age-appropriate book recommendations (ages 3–8)
  • Dyslexia-friendly reading experience
  • Visualisation stories that help children prepare for new experiences like starting school, making friends, or trying new activities

For Content Creators

  • No-code story builder with drag-and-drop page management
  • Visual pose positioning editor for character illustrations
  • One-click skin tone variation from a single SVG asset
  • AI-generated narration with custom voice profiling
  • Real-time analytics on reader engagement

The result

LAPP launched on the Apple App Store and was featured by BBC News, highlighting how a Bristol father’s vision became a reality — an app that makes every child the hero of their own story.

  • Full product delivered — iOS app, web portal, and API from concept to App Store launch
  • Scalable content pipeline — LAPP’s team can independently create and publish new personalised stories
  • Inclusive representation — Six skin tones, multiple gender identities, and configurable pronouns ensure every child sees themselves in the stories
  • Frictionless onboarding — Passwordless magic-link authentication and a guided photo capture flow get families reading in minutes
  • BBC News coverage — The app’s launch attracted national media attention, validating the product’s impact and vision
  • Beyond reading — LAPP doubles as a visualisation tool, helping children build confidence and resilience by seeing themselves overcome real-life challenges in story form

What the Client Needed, What We Delivered

LAPP came to Red C Mobile with a clear mission and a library of stories — but needed the technical expertise to turn that vision into a polished, scalable product. We delivered:

  1. A native iOS app that feels magical to children and effortless for parents
  2. A content management portal that puts creative control in the hands of non-technical storytellers
  3. A personalisation engine that makes every child feel seen and represented
  4. An infrastructure that scales automatically and costs nothing when idle
  5. A product that earned national press coverage on launch day

We’re a multi-award-winning team