Apple / games / MY TALKING TOM
REVIEW
My Talking Tom on iPhone is a thirteen-year-old pet that still refuses to retire.
Outfit7's virtual cat has outlived three iPhone redesigns and a generation of its own players. The iOS version is the cleanest place to meet him.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 11, 2026 · 4 MIN READ
Tom is older than the iPhone 6. He launched in 2013, on a 4-inch screen with a 30-pin connector, and he has been on the App Store top-grossing kids charts more often than he hasn’t ever since. Outfit7 has built an entire franchise around him — Talking Angela, Ben, Ginger, Hank — but the original cat is still the one most parents end up installing.
The iOS version in 2026 is the cleanest place to meet him. The animation runs at 120 Hz on a ProMotion display, the voice-mimic latency is short enough that toddlers register it as the same trick adults do, and the in-app-purchase plumbing is whatever Apple’s StoreKit currently looks like. What hasn’t changed is the loop: feed Tom, bathe Tom, dress Tom, watch a thirty-second video to claim a coin chest, repeat.
Whether that loop still earns thirty minutes of a child’s attention in an era of YouTube Kids and Roblox is a fair question. The answer this review lands on is yes, with a parental-control asterisk the app has never quite caught up to.
Tom hasn't changed; the iPhone around him has, and the app has spent a decade catching up to each new screen.
FEATURES
The loop is the same one Outfit7 shipped in 2013. Feed Tom, bathe him, put him to bed, poke him until he reacts, and watch him repeat anything you say back in a chipmunk voice. Coins earned through play unlock outfits, room wallpapers, furniture, and a wardrobe of accessories that has been quietly expanding for years.
The iOS build leans on the hardware. Microphone capture for the parrot voice is tight, the front camera drives a face-tracking mode where Tom mirrors your expressions, and haptics fire on every pet and tap. Dynamic Island shows a small Tom status when he's hungry or tired, and the app supports iPad's larger canvas with bigger room layouts rather than a stretched phone UI.
A rotating slate of mini-games — Bubble Shooter, Planet Hop, Happy Connect, and a handful more — sit behind the main room and pay out the coins that fund customisation. iCloud keeps progress in sync across iPhone and iPad. There's a paid VIP tier that strips ads and grants a daily coin allowance, sold as a weekly or yearly subscription through the App Store.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The animation craft is still the strongest part of the app. Tom blinks, fidgets, reacts to a poke on his belly differently than one on his head, and the voice-mimic latency on a modern iPhone is short enough that small children read it as cause-and-effect. That feedback loop is what has kept the franchise alive across thirteen years and a billion-plus downloads.
Outfit7 has also kept the iOS version visually current in a way most of its peers haven't. The art has been redrawn for Retina, then for the larger iPhone Pro screens, and most recently for ProMotion — the 120 Hz idle animations are noticeably smoother than the Android build at the same moment in the loop.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The ad density is the honest problem. Between every mini-game round, after most level-ups, and on a timer when the app is simply open, an interstitial or a rewarded video sits between the child and the next thing they wanted to do. The pacing is calibrated for the kind of session length that drives mobile-game revenue, not for a parent handing a phone to a five-year-old for ten minutes. The VIP subscription removes them, which makes the free experience feel like a demo of the paid one.
Parental controls are still thin. There's an age gate, an in-app-purchase warning, and a link to the privacy policy, but no per-account spend cap, no session timer, and no easy way to lock out the store entirely without using Apple's Screen Time. Kids' apps from Sago Mini and Toca Boca have done this better for years.
CONCLUSION
My Talking Tom on iOS is the most polished version of a thirteen-year-old idea, and it's free, and the animation work genuinely holds up. Install it for a young child with the understanding that the free experience is built to sell you the VIP tier, and turn on Screen Time's in-app-purchase block before you hand the phone over. If you want a pet sim without the ad scaffolding, Pou and the older Tamagotchi reissues are quieter neighbours.