Tech n Gadgets Blog: Christmas apps and accessories for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, iDevice Apps, Originals

iPhone Santa Claus It’s December, and the countdown to Christmas as officially begun. So has the release of Christmas-themed apps. There will be countless others of course, and we?ll be taking a closer look at some of the best throughout this month. In the meantime, as new Christmas apps and accessories are announced and old apps are updated?whether they?re games, greeting card generators, novelties or more?we?ll announce them here.

Apps

New - The Postcards From Santa app is aimed at making special Christmas memories for children across the globe. The app was built to help people into the holiday spirit and build the anticipation for Christmas by sending a customized postcard from Santa to someone special.
Light Year Software has announced Christmas Light Finder 1.0, a new app for iOS devices that makes it easy to find and preview nearby Christmas light displays. Christmas Lights Finder shows where to go, a preview of what’s there and community ratings to avoid over-hyped expectations. The app determines the user’s location and queries a central database for nearby light displays. They are shown on a map using light bulb markers, colored to indicate the average rating.
Outfit7 has announced the release of Talking Santa, a holiday-themed entertainment app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, just in time for the Christmas Season. Talking Santa is joined by the best-selling lovable characters from Outfit7?s Talking Friends collection, downloaded over 30 million times, to help ring in the most magical time of year. Users can create and share joyous 3D claymation greetings that will warm the heart of everyone on their wish-lists!
Hot Chili Apps is expanding their Christmas Card Edition. Christmas C@rds HD 1.0 are e-cards. The app allows anyone to design on the iPad in HD quality and in a complete new look, with a choice of various graphic elements for designing his own Christmas card to his individual taste. 36 brilliant C@rd templates are available in HD. They can be decorated on the iPad with personal photos or texts as well as one from 18 stickers.
Riptide Games has announced iLookChristmas 1.4.1 for iPhone and iPod touch devices. iLookChristmas is a free app that lets users add a holiday theme to any of their photos. Users can turn anyone in their pictures into Santa, Elves, Reindeer or snowman in addition to many other items available to make their photos more festive. Completed pictures can then be shared with family via Facebook, Twitter, email or saved to the device photo album for later.
i-Itch Inc has announced their Holiday update to Let’s Bead Friends, the popular app for iOS. Let’s Bead Friends allows users to create charming friendship bracelets with a personalized message. Added are brilliant Christmas, Hanukkah, and winter themed designs that will enable you to send Holiday Greetings with ease. The artisan may apply color and/or design to the bead shape chosen.
Viaden Mobile has introduced Christmas Shopping: Save your Money 1.0, their new bargain-seeking and penny-saving tool for iPhone and iPod touch devices. Released in anticipation of Black Friday and Christmas bargain hunt, this application will help experienced shoppers as well as neophytes literally find a sure way to their best buys this holiday season. Get the most reliable fresh information on sales, special offers and price reductions all over the neighborhood, state or even nationwide.
All Caps Apps LLC has announced Christmas ELF 1.0, their new electric light finder for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices. No more searching in the dark for those magical light displays. Let the Christmas ELF guide you on a tour of all the festive holiday lights. Along the journey, vote for your favorites and tag others that you find on your own. Christmas ELF uses GPS to accurately pinpoint the users current location. A fun holiday activity that the whole family can enjoy.
CodeArtists has announced iMagicSanta 1.0, their first title for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. iMagicSanta enchants everyone with an authentic Christmas atmosphere. Collect wishes from your loved ones on your iDevice using the iMagicSanta application. All the wishes will be delivered directly to your email inbox. This year, the wishes will be composed in a true Christmas spirit as your loved ones will get immersed in the warm atmosphere created by rich illustrations and genuine sound effects.
Moving Tales has released Twas the Night Before Christmas, a full colour, 3D animated Christmas special App of the classic American Christmas poem. Enjoy lovingly detailed three dimensional characters including St Nicholas, the Father, sleeping children, reindeer and mice; a stunning hybrid style of animation combining line work, textures and 3D animation. This innovative and richly detailed animated app presents the classic poem as you have never seen it.
Pairing wines with personalities for gift shoppers? There?s an app for that (and a web site). This holiday season, anyone can tap into Natalie MacLean?s expertise via her free web site and mobile app for iPhone. They help consumers with a whole new type of pairing: wine with the people on your Christmas shopping list. The app and site also pair wines to thousands of dishes, including holiday favorites, such as turkey, goose, duck, and even partridge in a pear tree.
Holiday decorating experts Kathy Harrison and Becky McCraney announce Show Me Decorating 1.2, for iOS. Follow their step-by-step instructions for holiday home decorating to create classic and festive home decor, or peruse “recipes” for holiday trees. Show Me Decorating is all about creating beautiful holidays for everyone to enjoy. Each selection comes with a recommended shopping list for ribbon, balls, floral, and ornaments in quantities determined by the size of the user’s tree.
Barcode Hero 2.0 has launched, just in time for the holidays. A next generation shopping app, Barcode Hero is far more valuable than just a price comparison tool. It lets shoppers research products they are thinking about purchasing, gathering comments from friends and experts on those products and alternate products before they buy. Users become part of a community, scanning the barcode of products they like and adding their comments, which can be passed along to friends over Facebook and Twitter. Those that really become engaged can become the ?king? or the acknowledged expert in a category.
Adamcode has announced Christmas Gifts List 2.0 for iPhone and iPod touch. An ideal companion for budget-conscious Black Friday consumers, Christmas Gifts List allows shoppers to input wish lists and budgets for everyone on their holiday shopping list and keep an eye on how close to those budgets they are getting as they check off purchased items. Version 2.0 includes a new Retina display optimized interface, in addition to full iOS 4 multitasking support.
Webvision Internet Services, LLC. has announced Slika 1.0 for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Slika enables anyone to create professional looking finished pictures and cards that they will be proud to show off to family and friends. Users have the options to save, email and print their creations to share. Perfect for the photography hobbyist, scrapbooker, parent or child. There are many themed templates featured in Slika, including harvest and Thanksgiving, Christmas, and more.
BCNmultimedia has announced Children’s Christmas 1.0, an Advent Calendar free app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Children’s Christmas is an Advent calendar for children of all ages. Starting on the 1st December, kids will be able to open the corresponding window every day until Christmas day. In every window you will find an illustration about a moment in the gospels on the Annunciation and the Birth of Jesus with a text and a quotation from the Bible.
TinyDesires.com has announced the release of XmasWish application for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Inspired by children?s tiny Christmas wishes, this mobile application was designed for those children who want to realize their fantasy of sending a letter to Santa. XmasWish app also helps children develop their basic ICT skills in the early childhood learning environments. XmasWish app is suitable not only for children but also for their parents, grandparents and relatives who want to get a clue of what the kids really want for Christmas.
IconsBerlin has extended its icon collection with new tab bar icons for iPhone apps with Christmas motifs. The standard icon collection includes 30 assorted categories, with the new “Christmas” theme including 9 Christmas motifs like an angel, candle, Christmas tree, Santa Claus, snowflake, and snowman. All 527 tab bar icons were made for the high resolution of the iPhone 4 retinal display, and appear at a size of 60 x 60 pixels.
Appventors LLC. has announced the release of Santa Mega Pack app, the most useful tool for holiday survival. It combines 10 high-quality apps in 1 and provides hours of educational fun via high-quality stories, coloring books, puzzles, holiday mazes, memory games, and—of course—talking to Santa. The app helps to manage kids’ Christmas lists, painlessly inform family members of gift preferences and to encourage angelic behavior having Santa call children to deliver a special message.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is now available on the App Store for an introductory price of only $2.99. This universal app can be used on the iPad and iPhone for no additional charge and includes special high-resolution graphics for Retina displays. Rudolph delivers the message that there are no misfits in life, for everyone has a special quality to share.

Games

New - The holiday season is all about giving and spreading joy, and no little girl loves getting in the spirit of Christmas more than Nickelodeon?s Dora the Explorer. So even though Swiper the fox has given her trouble in the past, Dora wants to help Swiper learn all about the meaning of Christmas in an entirely new realm: the digital world of the iPhone and iPad. Dora?s Christmas Carol Adventure is a fresh new storybook app that is sure to delight children with its exciting mini-games, colorful graphics, and Christmas cheer. Parents will also appreciate how the app teaches their kids the meaning of Christmas, reading and listening comprehension skills, and even a few Spanish words?all with fun and familiar characters like Dora, Swiper, and Santa Claus.
Fragger 1.5: Arctic Storm—with 30 challenging Christmas levels—has been released and can now be found on the App Store.
Twigsbury has announced Countdown to Christmas - Holiday Puzzles 1.0, their new interactive puzzle app for iPad. Featuring illustrations by the Kersten Brothers Studio, stroll through Santa’s Village to open rib-tickling picture puzzles. When complete, the puzzles become interactive scenes with animations and sounds that bring them to life. The app includes custom recordings of 12 classic holiday melodies.
Stefan Preuss has released Santa’s Xmas Mess HD 1.0 for Apple’s revolutionary iPad device. Santa’s Xmas Mess is a fun arcade style tap-the-right-item type of game. Let the falling presents safely land on Santa’s moving sleigh by controlling the speed of the presents. The beautiful Christmas theme and the easy game play makes Santa’s Xmas Mess a great game for all ages. Santa’s Xmas Mess is released in the Family and Kids category.
Collapse! Holiday Edition, the blockbuster puzzle series, is back with all new holiday-themed levels and graphics. The Collapse series of games have been downloaded over 175MM times, making it one of the top casual game franchises of all time. Players must rescue a winter wonderland from the frozen grip of a block of monsters who want to stop Christmas.
Robot Communications, Inc., has announced Stray Sheep: Poe?s Christmas, an interactive e-book App for the Apple iPad (LITE version available on iPhone and iPod Touch). Based on the tales of Poe, a beloved Japanese cartoon character, Stray Sheep: Poe?s Christmas sees Poe, a small, na�ve, independent, and curious ram getting into the most unpredictable situations during the Christmas holidays. The App, which offers a fun and entertaining interactive experience for people of all ages, also includes two games as part of the e-book experience: ?Spot the Difference? and ?Sliding Puzzle?, both of which can be played at various difficulty levels even after the story is over.

Accessories

Speck is getting into the holiday spirit with a series of unique CandyShell cases available only during the holidays at AT&T stores, wireless.att.com, and SpeckProducts.com. What was Speck?s inspiration for these cases? Well the big guy in red, of course! Speck was able to get an exclusive interview with the master toy tinker himself. The elves at Speck quickly got to work to create the perfect seasonal case to prevent future bumps and scratches. Sweet like Mrs. Claus, the CandyShell is a one-of-a-kind single-piece patent-pending design featuring a hard shell case with soft, rubberized interior lining and button covers. Available in four festive designs, including Mistletoe Green Santa and CherryIce Blue Snowman for iPhone 4 and Mistletoe Green Santa and Poinsettia Red Snowman for iPhone 3G/3GS, the cases feature jolly ol? Saint Nick or chilly, silly Frosty the Snowman.
iPhoneStyle.co.uk has announced a Christmas giveaway. With every purchase made at iPhoneStyle.co.uk, they are going to include a free Christmas gift with your order. These presents are a random selection of iPhone cases, iBends, iPhone Bumpers and screen protectors. You never know what you’re going to get, just as it should be at Christmas. So whether you buy the iPhone 4 Bold in White that cleverly turns a black iPhone 4 into its more festive snowy counterpart or an iPhone 3GS Frosted cover,you will receive in your order something extra.

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