Tag: Santa »

Those of us of a certain age and demographic will remember the holidays of yore, spent poring over the fragile, tear-prone pages of the Sears catalog, dreaming of all the things Santa might bring. Looks like Amazon is looking to recreate the magic with its latest app, Amazon Santa.

With the tap of a finger, kids and their parents can explore by product category or type a search to find the perfect gift and instantly create a Wish List. Parents can review and edit the Wish List as needed, and easily share each child’s list with grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, and family friends. Wish Lists shared via the Amazon Santa app can only be viewed by family and friends who receive the Wish List link. The list shows recipients wished-for items, including those that have already been purchased, helping to eliminate duplicate gifts.

This week at 148Apps.com, we got into the holiday spirit with a review of a gadget that might be on many people's wish lists this year - the iRig Keyboard. Site editor Rob LeFebvre writes, "IK Multimedia might be trying to take over the music peripheral world. The company has a wide range of apps, instruments, and support items that could, in theory, be used to build a band entirely out of iOS instruments. The latest offering from this prolific manufacturer is titled iRig Keys, a super portable iOS keyboard with 37 velocity-sensitive keys, modulation and pitch wheels, low power consumption, and core MIDI compliance. The iRig is aimed at the portable musician, the composer on the go, the backpack virtuoso, and as such, it succeeds brilliantly."

Think you might ask Santa for this? Check out Rob's full review at 148Apps.

The upcoming holidays were also on our minds at GiggleApps.com, as Amy Solomon reviewed Ice is Nice: All About the North and South Poles. Amy says, "As the name may suggest, Ice Is Nice does indeed give a lot of great information about the earth’s North and South Poles, as well as animals found in these areas that children and their adults will enjoy a great deal.

As with the other titles from this series, go on an adventure with The Cat in the Hat, Dick and Sally as well as Thing One and Thing Two, who are all here to learn such topics as the harsh temperatures found at the Poles or why there are six months of darkness or perpetual sun."

Learn more about the poles in Amy's review on GiggleApps.

Finally, 148Apps.biz writer Carter Dotson explored the improvements made in Tapjoy's latest SDK: "Mobile advertising service Tapjoy has announced version 9.0 of their SDK for iOS and Android. The purpose of this update is meant to expand out and improve their current set of features to improve user engagement with their ads, and to integrate daily rewards, a popular feature that developers can now easily implement. These are meant to provide advertisers ways to developer targeted ads in a better way, and for developers to generate revenue even from non-paying users through incentivized ad viewing, service signups, and app installs."

Want more info? Read all about it at 148Apps.biz.

And that sets us up for a week of pre-Thanksgiving hysteria here in the States. Join us on Twitter and Facebook to keep track of holiday app sales, news and reviews across all of our sites...and do yourself a favor and start thawing that turkey now.

Remember making Christmas present lists as a kid? In a way, it was the most exciting part of Christmas. All that anticipation of working out exactly what deserved to be on the list and the preciouse hope that Santa would buy all of the items.

Pen and paper seem to be increasingly going out of fashion, but now people can create personalized Wish Lists to share with friends, family and Santa via Amazon Santa! Yup, Amazon is so popular, even Santa is using it for some gifts.

Amazon Santa offers all the functionality of the Wish List feature on the site but in a simplistic way that's ideal for children. Kids can browse more than 500,000 family-friendly toys, games, books, music, video games, movies and TV shows, adding items at the tap of the screen.

Parents can then review and edit the Wish List, sharing it via email with anyone they want such as grandparents, siblings or family friends. It's secure too, with Wish Lists only viewable by the contacts that parents select.

Amazon Santa is a modern interpretation of a tried and tested part of Christmas. It's out now for the iPad and it's free.

Super Mega Worm is such a wonderful guilty pleasure that you can be excused for wanting to dig back in once again. Well now you can as Dead Pixel has announced that the world-destroying worm is returning to wreak a terrible vengeance on none other than Santa Claus himself. That's right, it's Super Mega Worm vs. Santa, and the North Pole is no longer safe.

The new title will be a separate release from the standard Super Mega Worm and will retail for 99 cents. The game features 15 new North Pole themed levels alongside 15 new items to eat, three new super powers and two different game modes. Oh, and did we also mention you're trying to eat Santa? I mean come on now what is there not to love about this?

It's pretty funny how Dead Pixel has decided to get into the same Christmas spirit that seems to be popping up in several other App Store titles these days. While most other games have you celebrating the holiday this is a game which finds players trying to actively destroy it, much to their glee. "Well I'm sorry you didn't get that bike you wanted Little Timmy, but a giant worm attacked the North Pole and ate Santa. Now, now, don't cry! The horrible monstrosity is heading this way to devour us whole as well, so we might as well make the most of what little time we have left." Or does it turn out that if Super Mega Worm eats Santa he then assumes Ol' Saint Nick's powers and becomes the new bringer of gifts? So now children will burst into the living room on Christmas morning to open acid-spit soaked presents as dad fills in the "Christmas hole" Wojira created to tunnel into the house and leave the presents under the tree. Oh the joy!

Super Mega Worm vs. Santa is out this week, so prepare yourself for some holiday-destroying fun.

I had decided a while ago that I wasn't going to post any reviews of Christmas (or any other) holiday apps. They are all just to trite, simple, and down right annoying. Especially so to a grinch like me. But then, I saw Earthscape Santa Tracker and my heart grew three sizes that day.

Ok, maybe it only expanded 1.5 sizes. But this is still a great app. Earthscape Santa Tracker is a holiday photo viewer and 3D Santa tracker based on Earthscape's great 3D earth platform. If you have kids, it will be extra special on Christmas eve. Here's the description from the developer:

Ho Ho Ho! Follow Santa as he makes his way around the world this Christmas Season! See where Santa is, or will be, on Christmas Eve and explore thousands of beautiful photos of the holidays being celebrated around the world. Learn how to share your own holiday pictures with the rest of the planet for a very special Christmas!