Quick Look: Pimpy

Quick Look posts are paid submissions offering only a brief overview of an app. Vote in the polls below if you think this app is worth an in-depth AppStorm review!

In this Quick Look, we’re highlighting Pimpy. The developer describes Pimpy as an app for fun photo decoration. It’s a photography effects app, and is fully connected to Facebook so users can take and share photos from their profiles.

Pimpy has more than 500 beautiful stamps for fast, fun decoration of your photos.

Read on for more information and screenshots!

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Pimpy Screenshots

Pimpy Screenshots

About the App

Here are the top five features you can expect to see in the latest version:

  • A library with 500+ stamps
  • Rotate, resize, flip and re-order stamps
  • Take and share photos on Facebook
  • Future updates with new stamps

Requirements: iOS 3.0+

Price: $0.99

Developer: Underplot Apps

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100 iPhone Apps for Kids

Anyone without children has a pretty difficult time understanding how a person decides to hand their $200 cell phone to a three year old, but the truth is iPhone’s can be an incredibly rich learning and entertainment tool for children. The directness of the touch screen interface means that children can easily figure out a number of different apps with very little instruction.

If your kids love your iPhone as much or more than you do, you’ll definitely want to take a look at the huge list below of great apps for kids of all ages. The apps are divided into multiple categories but are almost all educational and/or focused on encouraging creativity.

Music and Audio:

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Toddler JukeBox

Toddler JukeBox – “Toddlers love music and singing along to great songs. This app is all about great music. It is filled with eleven classic songs plus a new original song about reading.”

Children’s Animal Sounds HD – “A fun and educational app for young children (2-5 years) to tap and hear twenty animal sounds from all over the world! Watch farm, safari, and jungle animals zoom on your screen when tapped. Works on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Designed by a school teacher and tested by a 3 year old.”

a World of Lullabies – Lullaby your Kids – “With our application your baby will fall asleep faster then ever, this will give you some free time for you to relax. The main feature of the World of Lullabies application, is the fact that for each Lullaby we have, we also give you the Lyrics.”

Kidzongs – Preschool sing-along fun – “Nothing very hi-tech about this app – all music is played using acoustic instruments. The child you love will love listening to the songs with the vocal track or singing-along by themselves. The simple animated lyric pages adds to the fun.”

Sound Shaker – “This highly intuitive musical app is also incredibly amusing. It lets children create and play with chime, whistle, drum, barnyard animal and mystery sounds by simply tapping and tilting. Repeated taps generate new sounds, while longer taps grow sounds and trigger surprise animations. Tilting makes sounds spin and collide in whimsical combinations. ”

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Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Preschool Storybook Piano

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Preschool Storybook Piano – “Created by a preschool teacher and pianist. This interactive app encourages children to take a more active role in learning! It’s also a really fun way to introduce children to playing piano!”

Baby Classical Bach Vol.1 – “Baby Classical is an music appreciation app that sets out to familiarize children with some of Bach’s liveliest and most playful pieces, in a fun and interactive way. A great and effective application for a child’s music and brain development.”

Games:

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Bubbles

Bubbles – “For toddlers who need a fun distraction. Bubbles brings the simple pleasure of popping bubbles to your iPhone. Unlike other iPhone games, Bubbles is fun entertainment that’s great for little ones on up.”

PhotoMatchTots – “Whether you know it as Memory, Concentration, Pairs or Shinkei-suijaku, My PhotoMatch for Tots is the best, portable version of the classic card game, because you can make it your own!! With My PhotoMatch for Tots, you customize the game by using your own photos from your albums on your iPhone or iPod Touch.”

Cookie Doodle – “If you enjoy making cookies but hate the mess, this is the app for you. We provide the dough, a rolling pin, cookie cutters, your choice of frostings, sprinkles, and candies all in one easy to use package.”

MemoryBlock – “How good is your memory? Find out with MemoryBlock! Watch the computer carefully as it creates sequences for you to mimic. With 5 buttons to keep track of it’s harder than it seems! How far can you go?”

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Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom

Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom – “The Greedy King has taken the color crystals from the Crystal Kingdom and hidden them! Dora needs your help to ride on a magic shield to collect all the crystals and bring color back to the Crystal Kingdom!”

Itsy Bitsy Spider – “Created by parents, Itsy Bitsy Spider is a musical book based on the popular song, with fully interactive, original illustrations. Follow the spider through the captivating, inter-connected scenes as he goes up the water spout, comes down with the rain, and watches the sun dry up all the rain.”

Jirbo Match : Child Development Edition – “There are countless hours of fun to be had playing Match, the memory game where you have to match all pairs of animals!”

Giraffe’s Matching Zoo – “Your kids will have so much fun, they won’t even realize they’re learning. Giraffe’s Matching Zoo is a vibrant and exciting mind development game designed for children, but fun for all ages. Every adorable animal makes a unique and entertaining sound. Fun music, cute animations and special effects make this game a blast to play. ”

Elmo’s Monster Maker – “Elmo wants you to make a monster friend! It’s easy! Choose a monster body and touch its face to give it eyes, nose and a hat—there are lots and lots and lots to choose from. When you’re done, Elmo will dance and play with your monster! This is going to be so much fun!”

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Go, Diego, Go! Musical Missions

Go, Diego, Go! Musical Missions – “Shy baby animals are hiding all over the world and they won’t come out! There’s only one Animal Rescue team that can help – Diego and YOU! Help Diego to play soothing music on his Animal Rescuer flute in order to get the shy baby animals to emerge from their hiding places. Just tap the holes on the flute to help Diego play a song that will save the day.”

Apple Tree – Hangman For Kids – “With vibrant graphics and a simplistic design, your kids will be drawn to the challenge of trying to guess the hidden word before all the apples fall from the tree. Each incorrect letter guess results in an apple falling from the tree. The game is over when all the apples have fallen.”

Hide&Seek – “Not just for the backyard anymore! Now the whole family can play this fun favorite indoors. Hide from IT until the coast is clear, then head for home! But watch out! Getting home isn’t as easy as it looks… Players run and hide, while another player (IT) searches for them. When the coast is clear, or if they are discovered, they try to reach HOME safely, before IT catches them.”

Kidtivities – “100 fun and educational activities for you and your child to do together. Most of these activities are inexpensive (or free) requiring the use of nature and/or materials already found in the typical home. Help your child, 2 to 6 years, grow his/her mind, vocabulary, balance and strength with these easy but effective activities. Imagination, problem-solving, body building, confidence building and more.”

Grover’s Number Special – “Hello Everybodeeeeeee! It is I, Grover, your cute and lovable waiter, and I need your help. Charlie the cook did not come in to the restaurant today, and the Customer wants his lunch right away! Join me in the kitchen to catch—and count—ingredients to make delicious and nutritious meals.”

My first puzzles – “With 12 different puzzles, nice sound effects, beautiful graphics, this game will entertain your children while improving their motor skills.”

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Garfield Bird Crazy Free

Garfield Bird Crazy Free – “Garfield needs your help to catch as many birds as possible! Simply flick Garfield into the air then tilt your iPhone to control his movement and catch all those birds flying around. Tap Garfield to keep him in the air. Use the different bumpers to give him a boost and score big points. Don’t forget to grab the falling Collectibles while he’s up there. And if you are really lucky, you may even find a rare item or two… ”

A Ladybug Tree – Kids Bug Catching & Counting Game – “This game is very simple to learn, but nearly impossible to master. Tap on a ladybug in the tree and drag it into the jar. That’s all there is to it. There is no playing defense or complex puzzles to figure out. Kids love it! The number of ladybugs caught is counted out loud by a friendly child’s voice and displayed in an extra large font.”

DinoMixer – “Designed to please dinosaur fans of all ages, DinoMixer lets you mix and match dinosaur heads, bodies and tails to make your own crazy mixed-up dinosaurs!”

Monster Mix & Match – “Monster Mix and Match is an entertaining way for children to explore their creative side while promoting both critical thinking and problem solving. With 27000 possible monster combinations, Monster Mix and Match is an entertaining and educational diversion that will keep children coming back for more.”

Spider Jump for Kids Only! – “Who doesn’t love to jump, especially with an adorable spider? Finally, a platform jumping game specifically designed for young players – and we’ve got a SPIDER doing all the jumping! This game was designed to be more “forgiving” going from level to level so your child has tons of fun tilting the device left and right. Have a BLAST collecting points moving up and collecting spider webs on the way! Enter your name at the end and record your high score! ”

TowerSmash for – “TowerSmash lets kids build towers of blocks and knock them down over and over by throwing colorful balls at them, even while they’re sitting in the grocery cart.”

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VeggieTales Just For Me

VeggieTales Just For Me – “VeggieTales’ Bob and Larry are making iPhone magic using never-before-seen technology. “VeggieTales Personalized” is the first iPhone and iPod Touch application with name personalization. You will be amazed when the voices of Bob and Larry from VeggieTales sing and speak your name in this fun interactive experience. ”

Games for Kids: 9-in-1 – “With nine games in one app, “Games for Kids” is designed to be engaging, educational, and enriching. Developed by a team of early childhood and elementary educators, each game is designed to develop skills and knowledge that are crucial to your child’s development.”

Kids Jokes – Jokes For Kids by Kids – “With dozens of jokes sent in from kids and parents like you, the Kids Jokes app will keep you and your little one laughing and learning for hours. All jokes have been screened to ensure they are kid safe. Just swipe your finger to switch between jokes.”

Games 4 Kids – “If you want your kids to have FUN, this is the perfect challenge! Not one but SIX games in one. Games 4 Kids will keep everyone excited and laughing. Like Karaoke? Play your favorite instrument, sing along and listen to your great recording. Hide and seek fun….Want to learn how to hunt animals by hearing their sounds? Zoom to complete the puzzle before time runs out or connect the dots to bring to life lots of beautiful pictures. How about painting, become a great artist! Or challenge your memory in Sound Simon….”

My Baby Signs – ASL for toddlers – “Many toddlers try to express themselves, and you know they’re trying to say something, but you just don’t understand baby talk yet. Help them communicate with you! Use MBS to get the simple signs down, and let them tell you they are sleepy, or they need more drinks!”

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Fisher-Price: Little People Farm

Fisher-Price: Little People Farm – “Play, laugh & grow with Fisher-Price Little People friends on the farm! Oink-oink! Take a trip to the farm with Fisher-Price Little People friends! So much to see & do, with matching, Hide & Seek and so much more! Kids can even help clean up a piggy!”

iRiddles for Kids! – “With tons of great riddles, this fun application will provide lots of reading entertainment – that you can share together. iRiddles for Kids is easy to use, simply double tap a riddle to reveal the answer. Feel like a random riddle? Shake your iPhone or iPod touch!”

WHO AM I? – Animal Game (Free Version) – “This inquisitive flash card like app will present clues and let you guess the correct animal, similar to a traditional “Who am I game”. The app is designed to strengthen reading skills, memory, skills in associating pictures, words and sounds. ”

iToy – “This little toy will be interesting for everybody, starting from very little kids and up to adults. Babies as young as 9 month already love to play with this toy. It can be exactly what needed when you are on the train/in your car or waiting for a doctors appointment with your kid; or in any other situation when you need something to keep your baby entertained for a while.”

Feed Me! – PencilBot Preschool – “This simple, easy-to-use game can be enjoyed by children and their parents as they play along. Feed the little monster the correct “food” he is thinking of and unlock trophies for your trophy case! Feed the monster the wrong item and he might get sick. But don’t worry; you’ll have the chance to try the question again later in the game.”

Ike’s Workshop – “You want a car? Just go to Ike’s Workshop and place your order. You give him blueprints and he will assemble that thing for you. Help Ike the Inventor to assemble ordered things. Drag and drop parts on model contour and check it with blueprint. When you assemble parts right, model will be animated. ”

iAchieve – “iAchieve is a star chart used to track your achievements, or anything else you can think of – be creative!”

Analogy – “While Analogy (by definition) is nothing but a comparison that points out relationships between things that are different, cognitively for kids it plays a significant role in analytical thinking, problem solving, perception, spatial skills, memory, and creativity. They are often seen on IQ and placement tests as well. In this app, we present analogy questions of different types. Levels have been carefully chosen.”

Wheels on the Bus with Mango and Papaya – “The “Wheels on the Bus with Mango and Papaya” includes all your favorite verses in fun sequences that will challenge and delight your children for hours. Plus, the app includes a minute long video, “The Mouse on the Bus,” along with links to more videos from the in app store!”

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Little Colombo

Little Colombo – “Being a classic find-the-differences game, Little Colombo is intended mostly for kids. Every scene is made with love and features full of kindness graphics, cute animations, fairy tale music. Perfect to play with your kids before it’s bed time. Easy to learn, game is an adventure that helps kids focus and learn to pay attention to details.”

Hippo Blast – “Prepare to take flight! Hippo Blast is the latest craze to hit the App Store. Fire the Hippo from a cannon and see how far he can fly. Get to greater heights by throwing balls at the hippo, or by jumping off of jungle creatures.”

Blow Bubbles & Balloons – “Blow Bubbles and Balloons is an interactive game that allows you to interact with your iPhone like never before. This multi function application allows you to blow into your phone to create and pop bubbles and balloons.”

Animal Mix and Match – “Your child spins the dials until the picture is complete, gets an approving sound effect, and then can shake the device gently to get the dials to spin again. Every few matches your child gets some encouragement in the form of a congratulatory video from the Hippo Hooray cast of characters.”

Books:

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Read Me Stories

Read Me Stories – “A new talking picture book EVERY DAY teaches your child new concepts, new words and how to say them. Your child can practice reading – anywhere, anytime – while you’re driving, shopping in the grocery store, or having a quick coffee at your favorite cafe. ”

MeeGenius! Children’s Books – “Receive 12 beautifully illustrated and enhanced books featuring many of your favorite titles. Features include word highlighting, audio playback and automatic playback. (6 books come pre-installed with the app. 6 more titles are available to download for free).”

Children’s Audiobooks – Volume 1 – “Get ready for hours of enjoyment for your children as this app takes them to faraway places and exciting adventures! Ten of your most beloved children’s stories are wrapped into an easy to use, intuitive audiobook application. We selected some of the most treasured books that are appropriate for children and put them together in one place. ”

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Aesop’s Fables

Aesop’s Fables (239 Fables) – “These timeless stories are perfect for parents and children to read together. The morals at the end of each tale will spark meaningful discussions. With crisp, to-the-point tellings this collection could become a family treasure.”

A Story Before Bed – “A Story Before Bed lets parents, grandparents, and anyone with a special child in their lives record audio and video of themselves reading a children’s book into their webcam right in their web browser. Children can watch these recordings anytime they like. A Story Before Bed is a great way to permanently catch a great family moment when you’re reading to your child.”

Buddy the Bus #1: There’s Always Tomorrow – “Hop aboard and enjoy the ride with Buddy the Bus as you listen, read and learn. This charming story, introduces your child to Buddy — the big city bus with an even bigger heart”

How To Train Your Dragon- Kids Book HD – “iStoryTime brings the adventures of Vikings and dragons to the convenience of your iPhone/iPad/iPod® Touch in this entertaining kid’s book application based on the DreamWorks Animation movie, How To Train Your Dragon.”

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How The Grinch Stole Christmas

How The Grinch Stole Christmas! – Dr. Seuss – “The Grinch hates Who-ville’s holiday celebrations, and plans to steal all the presents to prevent Christmas from coming. But the Grinch soon discovers the true meaning of the holiday, changing his heart forever.”

Alice in Wonderland – “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit-hole into a world populated by peculiar and fantastic creatures. It is one of the most widely read stories of all time and around the globe.”

Elmo’s Birthday – “Now you can enjoy the beloved “Where is the Puppy” Book series from Sesame Workshop on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad! When Elmo sees a little black puppy on Sesame Street, he wants to find it a home – but first he has to catch it! Come with Elmo as he explores Sesame Street, meeting old friends, learning about the neighborhood, and looking for the little lost puppy. ”

400+ Fairy Tales – “This collection of the world’s most famous fairy tales features more than 400 stories by Aesop, Hans Christian Andersen, Brothers Grimm, and the anonymous authors of Arabian Nights.”

The Tortoise And The Hare – Kidztory animated storybook – “Hare, the big show off, is ready to race onto your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and thrill your kids with his epic race for glory against poor old Tortoise. Your child can read this app alone. Or choose the “Read to me” option for an engaging narration that will captivate your child. ”

The Big Brag – Dr. Seuss for – “The story tells of a rabbit and a bear, who both boast that they are the “best of the beasts”. The rabbit can hear far away, but the bear boasts he can smell even farther. However, both animals are humbled by a mere worm who looks ’round the world — right back to his own hill – where he sees the two biggest fools that have ever been seen!”

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Jack and the Beanstalk Children’s Interactive Storybook

Jack and the Beanstalk Children’s Interactive Storybook – “Experience Jack and the Beanstalk like never before in this wonderfully illustrated storybook, featuring over 30 pages of interactivity which your child will enjoy. This timeless tale comes alive with audio narration, read-along text, and interactive games and features. Each page contains a hidden surprise! Come and dive into the pages of Jack and the Beanstalk and join Jack in his adventure to defeat the giant!”

Curious George’s Dictionary – “The world’s most curious monkey investigates new words in this fully interactive picture dictionary for young children. Both entertaining and educationally sound, it features charming illustrations and reflects recent research in early childhood literacy. Children can navigate from A to Z with simple swipes and taps, through nearly six hundred words. ”

Math, Numbers and Time:

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MathTappers: ClockMaster

MathTappers: ClockMaster – “MathTappers: Clockmaster is a game to help children make the connection between hours and minutes and to help them become fluent in both reading and setting time on digital and analog clocks.
Special offer! Free until September 30, 2011.”

KidCalc Calculator For Children – “KidCalc Calculator for Children teaches number recognition and math to pre-schoolers, kindergarteners and elementary school aged children using beautiful and engaging artwork, animation and voice-overs. As operations are entered, KidCalc Calculator for Children animates the operation along with voice-overs by a child reading the equation.”

MathTappers: Multiples – “While flashcards have some utility in helping people memorize, they are best used after we have mastered a topic and need to build fluency – they are not magic and won’t support the development of understanding on their own. MathTappers: Multiples is a simple game designed first to help learners to make sense of multiplication and division with whole numbers, and then to support them in developing fluency while maintaining accuracy.”

Intro to Math, by Montessorium – “Created by a team of Montessori educators and parents, Intro to Math is a fun and interactive first step into the world of mathematics. It is easy to use, intuitive and, most importantly, educational! The Montessori philosophy of education is a one hundred year old proven methodology, now available to you as a universal application for the iPad & iPhone. Designed to engage children ages 2-6.”

Times Tables (Multiplication Tables) – “With timed quizes, highscores, and multiple difficulty levels, learning the multiplication tables (times tables) can become fun!”

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DotToDot number whiz

DotToDot number whiz – “DotToDot number whiz brings an old children’s favourite into the 21st century. Kids either touch the dots individually (great for accuracy) or drag their finger between dots (can be faster, but easier to make mistakes). When they’ve finished the puzzle, a colourful, original picture is revealed.”

Jungle Time – learn how to tell time – “Designed for the iPhone and iPod touch, Jungle Time is an incredibly easy, fun and interactive app that teaches kids how to tell time. Usability tested with kids ages 5 and up, Jungle Time has proven to be tremendously effective at teaching kids how to read and manipulate analog clocks. Kids go from being complete novices to experts within minutes! ”

Arithmetic Master – “Arithmetic Master will increase you and your kids’s interest of math! It provides a simple and exciting way to challenge your arithmetic ability, with very funny way and amazing graphics!”

Kid Klok – “Make time telling fun and easy to learn. Your children will love this educational clock because it is fun and has helped children world wide to master the art of time telling. The Kid Klok, praised by parents, teachers, and children, segregates the hour and minute components of time and creates a simple visual link between the numbers and the hands through size and color. This eliminates the confusion and frustration young students experience while learning and using analog time.”

Number sense – “Come and have fun in Math with Mathomatix: Number Sense – a brand new app specially designed for kindergarteners! Yes, you just read fun and Math in the same sentence. Mathomatix: Number Sense is first in a series of math apps designed to teach Number Sense to kindergarteners based on the National and California Standards. In case you’re wondering how we managed to sugar coat all that into one app.”

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123 Count with Artie

123 Count with Artie – “Based on popular counting and number activity books used in schools. Learn counting, colors and numbers with Artie the Anteater and his friends. The game display different color animals and ask the child to count one type. Each question appears and is read to the child automatically.”

Art and Coloring:

Kid Art – “Now with 2 additional themes! Go to school and under the Sea with Kid Art! Themes include more backgrounds to draw from and more animals and icons to choose from! You can even drop, move, and resize animals into your drawing! ”

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My Coloring Book Free

My Coloring Book Free – “My Coloring Book is a fun coloring activity for all ages. It has a variety of bright colors to use and show off your creativity. It will keep your children busy with a positive activity that fits right into the palm of their hand. You won’t have to worry about them crying over crayons or books that they have dropped and cannot reach. The touch sensitive screen is easy to pick up and play for both kids and adults. This is one iPhone/iPod app the whole family will be sure to enjoy.”

Finger Paint – “Now you can enjoy finger painting on your iPhone or iPod Touch, bring out the artist in yourself or your children. Finger Paint is fun for the whole family.”

123 Color Talking Coloring Book – “123 Color teaches numbers, upper and lower case letters, shapes, and colors, with voice-overs by adult speakers in English, Spanish, French, and German, engaging artwork, sound effects, music, and animation.”

Color&Draw for kids – “Color&Draw invites kids to draw, color and decorate drawings or photographs with voice over artistic invitations.”

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Glow Magic: Draw with Light

Glow Magic: Draw with Light – “Create beautiful glowing art in 12 different colors, using the best drawing tools available in any app of this kind. When you’re finished, add cool animations to enhance the fun!”

Uncolor for iPhone – “By rubbing their finger across the screen, babies enjoy uncovering the pictures beneath. When finished, there is a surprise to make little ones giggle.”

Coloring Book – “Now You can keep a coloring book in your pocket with the Coloring Book application for iPhone and iPod Touch! You can color with your fingers, select from twenty-four different crayons, zoom in for fine details, and save the results to your photo album.”

Draw with Stars! – “As you move your fingers over the night sky scenery, you create nice *animated* drawings with carefully designed stars that are glowing and spinning continuously. ”

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Learn to draw dinosaurs

Learn to draw dinosaurs – “Learn how to draw like an artist, from a professional artist. Begin by learning the fundamentals of drawing Dinosaurs with easy to follow interactive instructions. Free for a limited time!”

Coloring Book: Creatures – “Softick Coloring Book is a developmental painting game for children, even for very small ones. Simple and intuitive usage, merry design and amusing scenes will surely give your kids a great pleasure. Let them draw with their fingers, experiment with bright colors and create most unexpected color combination. You can save the results in the Photos application. ”

Neon Doodle – “Release your inner creativity with Neon Doodle! Doodle with a total of 8 different NEON colors and share them with the world! Create a masterpiece, make a shopping list, play games like hangman or tic-tac-toe, or even draw a picture and send it to a friend! Neon Doodle is a creative, colorful app that is a blast for all ages!”

Chalkboard Pro (Darkgreen) – “With the best UI design, chalkboard pro allow you to easily draw and sketch on your iPhone or iPod touch, you can quickly stroke numbers,notes,pages,or doodle whereave you can, then swipe left or right to review you great works with your finger and show it to your friends or kids.”

Alphabet and Language:

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ABC Animals

ABC Animals – “Letters, phonics and handwriting for preschoolers. It’s like having preschool in the palm of your hand! ”

Letter Tracer preschool letters writing practice – “LetterTracer is an educational tool that helps preschoolers and other pre-reading children trace and paint letter and number shapes. Early exposure to letters and numbers helps prepare children for reading and writing in grade school. LetterTracer’s three-way combination of visual letters, interactivity via tracing, and a spoken voice-over helps children learn and retain the alphabet.”

Baby Flash Cards – “All vocabularies in the new Baby Flash Cards are now organized into different categories: Animals, Objects, Food, Numbers, Shapes, Colours, and so on. You may turn on one or more categories with a simple and comprehensive setup menu, so to let your kids to learn any specific groups of words, that is entirely up to you to design the curriculum.”

Alphabets in the Zoo – “Alphabets in The Zoo features a charming new alphabet song, memory game, and talking educational flashcards, to help your child learn about letters and animals, as they play, look, listen and sing-a-long.”

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Bee Spelled

Bee Spelled – “Help a mildly overweight Spelling Bee to defend himself with word-powered attacks and abilities. Make the longest words you can to increase your score!”

ABC Dinosaurs by StoryBoy – “Young dinosaur lovers will enjoy learning and recognizing dinosaurs from A-Z in this interactive book. And they also get to learn how to pronounce the long toungue-twister names!”

Build A Word – “Enjoy WordWorld’s Build a Word app, based on the Emmy award winning television series on PBS KIDS. WordWorld is funded in part by the Department of Education and has been demonstrated to significantly improve early literacy skills, including: print awareness, letter knowledge and comprehension. WordWorld is just as it sounds: A magical world made up of words where fun rules the day.”

My first words: Animals – “The aim of the game is to arrange the letters in the correct order to make up a word. Letters are pronounced when touched. When word is completed, it’s pronounced and provided letters were arranged in the correct written sequence an animation is displayed.”

Spell Blocks with Sight Words – “Your child will learn over 200 Dolch Sight Words by spelling each one after it is spoken to them. Spell Blocks says the word and offers the scrambled letter choices for them to choose from. Your child then touches and moves each letter to the correct place.”

Sentence Builder – “Sentence Builder is designed to help elementary aged children learn how to build grammatically correct sentences. Explicit attention is paid to the connector words that make up over 80% of the english language. Sentence Builder offers a rich and fun environment for improving the grammer of all children.”

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Kid’s Spanish

Kid’s Spanish – “Kid’s Spanish helps toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners learn some basic spanish words. The intuitive controls and dynamic activities will keep children entertained while they learn. The multiple activities use sound effects and animation to keep children returning to the game to learn more.”

Spanish for Kids – “If you’re looking for a fun and easy way to introduce the beautiful and rich Spanish language and heritage to your child, we hope you’ll give our “labor of love” a try.”

Shapes:

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Toddler Teasers Shapes

Toddler Teasers Shapes – “Approved by teachers, parents and toddlers alike Toddler Teasers Shapes teaches while it entertains. With a focus on simplicity and full voice overs, toddlers play and learn without the need for extra help. The app displays colorful quizzes and offers positive reinforcement and fun rewards. The child-safe menu allows parents to customize game play and difficulty.”

Basic Shapes for Children – “A fun and educational app specially made for young children (1-3 years) to tap and hear shape sounds in English. Watch shapes zoom and expand on your screen when tapped! Designed by a school teacher and tested by a 2 year old. ”

GiggleTouch – “Tons of fun for your little one! Watch as they touch the screen as Shapes & Letters colorfully animate underneath their fingers. In addition, cute giggle sounds make it engaging for the little ones!”

My first Tangrams – “This game is an adaptation for kids of the famous Tangram game. Rules have been simplified (no rotation needed at all) to allow every kids to solve all the Tangrams.”

What Do Your Kids Play?

The apps above should be enough to keep your kids busy until they’re old enough to start asking to borrow the car, then you’re on your own.

The app store is overflowing with apps for children and this list barely scratches the surface. Leave a comment below and let us know what your kids are playing!

iPhone Game Friday: New Releases

This week’s Game Friday once again brings a roundup of the some of the best new games for the iPhone. We will be taking a look at the lovely Orbital Bombardment and Sim City Deluxe, among others.

Like always, if you have a game you want reviewed, please let us know!

Orbital Bombardment

Orbital Bombardment

Orbital Bombardment

On first look, the cute, cartoony graphics of Orbital Bombardment suggest a high quality game. However, I was somewhat disappointed to find that it was essentially a screen tapping frenzy. That’s not to say it isn’t a good game though, with 18 levels across 6 beautifully drawn landscapes and some great power-ups to collect, but it does, unfortunately, get boring quite quickly.

The aim is to stop the meteors from killing your little aliens by simply tapping on the rock before it hits them. Some meteors require more taps to destroy them than others and there are also 6 bosses to destroy. One to try if you like button bashing action.

Price: $2.99
Developer: Dueling Angels 
Download: App Store

Sim City Deluxe

Sim City Deluxe

Sim City Deluxe

King of the God Games, Sim City, makes it’s first appearance on the iPhone with this Deluxe version. Featuring 7 different scenarios from different locations around the world, you run a city, facing a multitude of challenges and natural disasters that keep you on your toes.

The control system is easy to use, allowing you to create fully customised cities, and the graphics are excellent. The only drawback for iPhone 4 owners is that retina display is not supported. Other than that, it’s a fantastic game for anyone who is a fan of the original series.

Price: $6.99
Developer: Electronic Arts 
Download: App Store

Kaboom's Paratrooper

Kaboom’s Paratrooper

Kaboom’s Paratrooper

A great pick-up-and-play game, Kaboom’s Paratroopers takes advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer to create a highly enjoyable app. The aim is simple, as your paratroopers jump from the plane you must guide them to the landing zone by tilting the iPhone left or right.

Each landing scores points for the accuracy, making hitting the top score something that will keep you coming back for more. With 50 levels, there is probably too much for one or two sittings, but it is great to dive into every time you have a spare 5 minutes.

Price: $1.99
Developer: Kaboom Apps 
Download: App Store

Pool Bar HD

Pool Bar HD

Pool Bar HD

Only available on iPhone 4, Pool Bar HD brings some simply stunning graphics to the table. Featuring 9 ball, 8 ball US and 8 ball UK pool, there are 3 levels of AI difficulty to choose from and also the ability to play a game against your mates.

The control system is intuitive, with a swipe system to both aim and shoot the balls and the balls physics have been excellently implemented. Unfortunately lacks a career mode, but is a great game to pick up when you need to kill some time. Pool has never looked so good!

Price: $2.99
Developer: Future Games of London 
Download: App Store

Sports Agent

Sports Agent

Sports Agent

Sports Agent is going to be one of those games you either love or hate. It’s a simple stock market type game where you are given $2million to invest in sports players, with the aim being to make as much money as you can over 200 weeks.

You have to have a fast eye to keep track of player’s values as they fluctuate pretty rapidly and in this game, timing is everything. It’s a bit of a one-trick pony though and some people may get bored of the simplicity, but for $0.99 it is worth giving it a go.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Cobra Mobile
Download: App Store

What Have You Been Playing?

We always appreciate your feedback and suggestions for other games so please let us know what you have been playing in the comments below.

The curious idea of ads in iBooks

Don’t worry — you won’t start seeing ads for tattoo parlors while reading Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Not yet, anyway. But there’s some interesting thinking going around the ‘net (kicked off by this article in the Wall Street Journal) about how advertising may soon try to conquer the last bastion of entertainment: books. When you go to the movies, you see ads, when you watch TV and browse the Internet, there are ads everywhere. But why don’t you see ads while reading a book? (I mean, besides the obvious conclusion that it’s annoying and invasive?)

In the past, it’s been because the lead time for books is a wild card. Unlike newspapers and movies, books have a longer shelf life, and different readers could revisit the same material over a period of years rather than days or weeks. You’d have to dynamically deliver ads in some way, and you’d need publishers with know-how and insight about their customers in order to sell relevant ads regularly. In short, you’d need e-books, and you’d need a company (says Snarkmarket) like, say, Apple.

Publishers may not have the ability to sell relevant ads to readers, but Apple surely does, especially since it seems to be sweeping up ad sales people as quickly as possible lately. And with prices becoming competitive in the e-book space, there’s incentive for both Apple as an iBook publisher and even authors (who want to supplement e-book sale numbers with iAd sales) to bring advertising over to the iBookstore at some point.

TUAWThe curious idea of ads in iBooks originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPad app dev sees 50% piracy rate

We’ve heard horror stories of piracy from iPhone developers before, but PocketGamer has news of an iPad developer also suffering from a surprising amount of customers who likely didn’t actually pay for their software. Qwiboo says that its iPad app, Aqua Globs HD, is seeing about 50% of its customers on the OpenFeint leaderboards have obtained the app illegally. Vladimir Roth says that the number of users who have actually submitted an OpenFeint score is double the number of legitimately sold apps so far.

Now, you can bring up the usual arguments against worrying about a number like this — that pirates likely wouldn’t have purchased the game anyway, or that many of them would pay if given the chance — but that’s a significant number, especially for a system that’s supposed to be as closed as the iPad. Roth also says that piracy has been higher for him on the iPad than on the iPhone, and that pricing plays a big part. iPad apps tend to be more expensive (he says that they often don’t provide extra functionality, though that obviously differs from app to app), and customers who prefer universal versions don’t like paying twice for the same app.

Still, the app in question is $1.99 — that’s hardly breaking the bank. It’s disappointing to see that even with all of the authentication and verification built in to a platform like the App Store, piracy is still a significant issue.

TUAWiPad app dev sees 50% piracy rate originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pinball Magic turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a tiny pinball machine

I still haven’t seen an actual iPad arcade cabinet for sale (all the ones we’ve seen so far have been made by hobbyists for themselves), but here’s a pretty cool case/accessory for your iPhone or iPod touch. Pinball Magic is a little device that you can slide your handheld into, and with the help of a free app, you can play a full pinball game live on a little miniature table. There’s a real ball plunger, flipper buttons, a full LED backlit display, and even a Tilt detector, so you can hit all the usual lights and gadgets (albeit in an extremely small form factor) without throwing quarters in at the local arcade. Assuming they still have those local arcades — I haven’t seen one around in a while now.

Unlike the cardboard iPad arcade units, this one’s on sale and ready to go — you can pick it up from Best Buy for US $39.99. Sure, that’s a little steep (especially since it only works with the one app), but it’s a small price to pay to take yourself back to those heady days of reaching for high scores while pushing a little silver ball up and down ramps. If you happen to pick one up and try it out, let us know how it works for you.

[via TouchArcade]

TUAWPinball Magic turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a tiny pinball machine originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Security Update 2010-005 now available

Gather up the kids and press the software update button: the latest Security Update (2010-005) for Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 is now on the prowl. The full list of fixes is below, but the headlines include a patch for an embedded font vulnerability, network interceptions, ClamAV antivirus bundled with OS X Server, malicious PDF and PNG file protection, and updated versions of PHP and Samba.

The 84 MB update (for 10.6.4 users) will require a reboot. Enjoy!

TUAWSecurity Update 2010-005 now available originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tapulous integrated into Disney Mobile, releases Katy Perry Revenge

Disney buying Tapulous was one of the most high-profile App Store acquisitions so far, and here are the first fruits of that partnership. First up, Disney reports that Tapulous has been integrated into the rest of the company — the studio is now fully part of the “Disney Mobile” division, so all future releases will come from the Disney Mobile name rather than the Tapulous brand. That contradicts with the actual App Store listing at the moment — there’s no mention of Disney in any of Tapulous’ app listings. But that information can take a while to change, so we’ll have to see if Disney updates those listings.

Second, the studio’s first game under the Disney banner is out now — Katy Perry Revenge is a Tap Tap Revenge-style title built specifically for Katy Perry songs. There are ten songs from the pop singer in the app, from “I Kissed a Girl” to “Teenage Dream,” and there’s lots of other fan-specific material, as well as a Facebook connection to share scores and updates. It’s available for US $4.99, the same price as Tapulous’ other artist-targeted Revenge titles.

So it sounds like things are both different and the same for Tapulous — they’ve been brought into the company as a whole, but they’re either cleaning out the queue of old projects (this new game easily seems as if it could have been done without Disney’s help), or continuing to work on the same type of app as before. We’ll have to see what Tapulous releases in the future now that they’re brought into the Disney Mobile division.

TUAWTapulous integrated into Disney Mobile, releases Katy Perry Revenge originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Man watches his home being robbed on his iPhone

The A.P. is reporting the story of a Dallas man who went out of town to visit relatives 1400 miles away in Hartford, Conn. While he was there he got an alert from his iCam app running on his iPhone that motion had been detected in the house — which turned out to be two intruders trying to get in, and eventually throwing a brick through a glass door to gain access.

He called 911 and the next motion alert he received was the arrival of police officers with guns drawn. It isn’t clear from the story if the burglars got away with any loot, but certainly iCam did work and relayed the message to the owner of the house.

We’ve reviewed iCam before. I use it to keep an eye on the house and pets when I’m away, and for the cost of US $4.99 plus a couple of webcams it really is a great low-cost security system. The software can be set to take a rapid series of still photos when motion is detected, so the police should get some shots of the burglars to help make a case when and if they nab them.

[via the Dallas Morning News]

TUAWMan watches his home being robbed on his iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ten One Design sponsoring Pogo Sketch iPad art challenge

Last summer, Ten One Design sponsored a contest for artists who were using the Pogo Stylus with drawing or painting apps on the iPhone. The contest was quite popular, and some of the entries were astoundingly good.

Well, things change, and now the canvas of choice is the iPad. Today, Ten One Design announced the 2010 Capacitive Canvas Challenge, also known as the 2nd Annual Pogo Art Contest. Grab an iPad, a Pogo Sketch, and your favorite drawing app, work up some beautiful art, and then post it to the contest site before 11:59 PM EST on October 29th. If you’re picked as the Grand Prize Winner, you’ll get a booq Boa squeeze laptop bag filled with $1000 worth of goodies (including $300 cash, a Twelve South Compass iPad stand, and the lovely DODOcase).

There will be four secondary winners as well, who will receive some goodies from Ten One Design, an iTunes Gift Card, and an iPad stand or case. You have to be at least 15 years old to enter, and you must use the Pogo Sketch for your iPad artwork. Finger painting is not allowed. The winners will be selected on the basis of Artistic Skill, Creativity / Originality, Realism, and Judge’s Choice, and you’ll see the works of the winners on November 5th on the Ten One website. Good luck to all who enter! Maybe we’ll see the work of some creative TUAW readers up there in November.

TUAWTen One Design sponsoring Pogo Sketch iPad art challenge originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Box.net’s iPad project at D7 Consulting: How the iPad works at work

Here’s another update from the folks at Box.net on how the iPad deployment at D7 Consulting is going. Through TUAW, Box.net found a company to give 20 free iPads to. Box.net helped D7 set up a workflow that’s built and run around Apple’s tablet and their service.

The first fruits of that collaboration are starting to grow, and as you can see in the video above, Box.net is getting some solid feedback from D7. Box.net is looking at using that feedback to develop future features for their software, including some methods for offline access. Another exciting forthcoming feature concerns more ways to share not only text and documents but also “rich content,” including drawings and audio notes about those documents.

CIO magazine talked to D7’s president Joseph Daniels, who described five lessons he’s learned in implementing the project so far. There’s a lot of good stuff in there, especially if you’re considering using iPads on your job. For the rest of us, what’s probably most surprising is that iPads can take all kinds of abuse without having issues. The one problem D7 has had so far is overheating; on a job in the deserts of Las Vegas, an iPad did overheat on them after being in the sun. But 20 minutes in the AC got it back up and working just fine. Another problem is a lack of enterprise support from Apple directly. Don’t forget that, while it has a lot of applications on the job, the iPad is still a consumer-targeted device, and D7 has bumped up against that designation a few times already.

It’s very interesting stuff. It looks like this collaboration is paying off for all involved, including those of us who are just watching to learn from the sidelines. We’ll continue to watch how the project is going, and we’ll provide you with another on-location look at the project here in a while. In the meantime, if you have questions for Box.net or D7, post them in the comments below. If Sean Lindo (of Box.net) or Terrell Woods (of D7) don’t reply directly, we’ll make sure to ask in the future.

TUAWBox.net’s iPad project at D7 Consulting: How the iPad works at work originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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QBooks bring kids’ picture books to life on the iPad

Acting on the suggestion of the always awesome Bruce Stewart, I recently took a look at several QBooks selections from New Zealand-based developers Kiwa Media. Picture books present a real challenge for app developers. They have to balance end-user reading abilities (which are usually quite limited) with enough application richness to make younger readers want to come back, again and again, to the same story. I think that Kiwa Media has done a surprisingly good job in delivering value for the app dollar.

Kids’ books, especially for younger readers, suffer from being very, very short. It’s common to sit down with a stack of a dozen books and easily read through them in a single session. So, how do you add compelling content to something so minimal in duration? Kiwa Media created the idea of the “QBook.”

TUAWQBooks bring kids’ picture books to life on the iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone users may soon be putting on their Google Goggles

If iPhone owners are sometimes susceptible to a wee bit of Android envy, one reason might be Google Goggles. If you’re not familiar with the Android app, Google Goggles uses pictures from your mobile phone to search the Web.

Point your phone’s camera at a Russian restaurant menu, and it is translated for you. Take aim at a landmark, and find out about the history of the place. Take a photo of a book cover, and you’ll get a summary of the contents, bookstores that carry the title, and pricing. Or there’s always the feature shown above — the Nearby Places Overlay — where you pan your phone’s camera on a street and see labels describing every business.

According to The Register, iPhone users won’t have to wait very long to put on their Google Goggles. Google Staff Engineer David Petrou, speaking at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford University on Monday, mentioned in passing that the app could be released for iPhone by the end of 2010. That, of course, assumes that the app makes it through Apple’s approval process — that’s never a sure thing, as the Google Voice team could share with their colleagues.

[via CNET Web Crawler]

TUAWiPhone users may soon be putting on their Google Goggles originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MacBook makeovers bring new life to a couple of old laptops

Last weekend provided not one, but two opportunities for me to do some upgrades to some “old” MacBooks to bring ’em up to workable condition. To start with, one client of mine wanted to get rid of an unused MacBook, so I decided to purchase it from her as a machine for training. The other client had one of the original 15″ Intel Core Duo MacBook Pros and doesn’t want to spend the money on a new machine. In both cases, the machines were running older versions of Mac OS X, had insufficient RAM, and had hard drives that were both slow and small. The following post is a textbook example of how you can bring new life to slightly old Macs by just spending enough money to upgrade the memory, OS, and hard disk drive.

For the MacBook, I decided that I wanted to max out its RAM, add more hard drive space, and speed up the hard drive while I was at it. I wanted to set up the machine with Mac OS X 10.6 and a Boot Camp partition running Windows 7, with an alternative external boot drive containing Mac OS X Server 10.6. The machine’s initial setup: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (Penryn) CPU, 2 GB of RAM, and a 160GB 5400 RPM SATA hard disk. I chose to max out the RAM to a total of 6GB, purchase a 500GB 7200 RPM drive for the internal drive, and procure a USB 2.0 bus-powered external shell for the existing drive. This MacBook was also running Mac OS X 10.5.8, and I wanted to update it to the latest version of Snow Leopard. Click “Read More” to find out how the upgrades went.

TUAWMacBook makeovers bring new life to a couple of old laptops originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook iPhone app has 105m users?

Facebook has posted some pretty impressive numbers regarding its mobile users recently, including a developer saying there are more than 150 million active mobile Facebook users. The site itself has more than 500 million members.

12 million are using the Android client
Nearly 59 million are using the Blackberry client
105 million are using the iPhone client*
– The rest are using clients built for Palm, T-Mobile’s Sidekick and more.

*Note these numbers were pulled at 11:20 a.m. EST and are updated frequently.

Wait a minute … 105 million? Steve Jobs indicated at WWDC in June that the 100 millionth iOS device (spanning iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) would be sold that month. With the flurry of iPhone 4 sales since then, it’s no surprise that there’s more than 100 million iOS devices out there in the wild. But are all of them really running Facebook?

You can log into multiple Facebook accounts from a single iOS device, and those probably count. The number provided by Facebook isn’t the number of downloads the app has had, but the number of people actually using it. The client itself is still ranked among the top 10 free App Store apps. Even so, a penetration rate hovering somewhere around 90 percent — if you take into account the number of iOS devices sold since June and the fact that there’s not a Facebook app for the iPad — is a little hard to swallow.

[via Mobile Entertainment]

TUAWFacebook iPhone app has 105m users? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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