halloween posts

And while it's not a costume, reader JT says he spotted this Angry Birds cake in Singapore. Never have the birds and their enemies looked so darn ... edible! Thanks to everybody who sent pictures in. I didn't see many Mac-related costumes out and about this weekend during Halloween. There were lots of video game and comic book characters walking around Hollywood last night, but no Steve Jobs or Newtons to be seen. Did you see any fun Apple costumes?

Update: Here's some more reader Hanson created with his son.

While the little Trick or Treaters are out pounding the streets tonight in search of candy and mischief, we'll be scaring you another way -- with the TUAW Talkcast! Remember that you can also listen to past episodes on Talkshoe or subscribe to the Talkcast podcast in iTunes.

Why do I think it will be scary? Because there wasn't much news last week, so we'll be opening the mics to you, TUAW readers! We'll take your calls on Talkshoe and open up the discussion to a lot of Apple-related topics such as the Verizon iPhone, the problems with iPhoto '11 that were hopefully fixed with the update on Friday, and more.

To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, or you can try out the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 PM Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VOIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. Talk with you then!

Recording support for the talkcast is provided by Call Recorder from ecamm networks.

Happy Halloween! Apple has its own Halloween round-up on the App Store here, and I've been rocking most of the same apps I covered a couple of years ago. We've also got a few apps, costumes and interactive books on our Halloween tag page. A search in iTunes for "Halloween" will yield hundreds of apps... of varying quality.

I highly recommend Angry Birds Halloween, in both the HD and regular versions, as they deliver all the fun of Angry Birds with new levels, a spooky background and jack-o-lanterns. Doodle Jump, another addictive game, has been decked out for Halloween. A quick look at the store will show you that a good number of other games and apps have received similar treatment for the holiday.

Halloween apps fall into a few categories: games with Halloween themes, soundboards, photo apps which add masks and other costumes to photos, eBooks, and a variety of novelty apps that could be labeled toys. We won't go into many games, and I recommend using a soundboard app which allows you to record your own spooky sounds (as opposed to a once-a-year app), but if you're looking for a fun app to manipulate photos for the little spooks I think Halloween ~ Postage from RogueSheep is quite excellent.

Read on for some more iPhone and iPad app suggestions. Have your own suggestions? Leave them in the comments!

Happy Halloween weekend! This is my favorite holiday of the year, not only because it's a fun time for parties during my favorite season, but also because it seems to be an excellent time for developers to put a little something special into their apps -- like put them on sale. There are quite a few sales hitting the App Store this weekend -- Sega has some of their titles on sale again (including Ecco the Dolphin and the great Shining Force), and Namco Bandai is doing the same. You can pick up Bit.Trip Beat and the original Pac Man game for just a buck each, among a few other good deals.

PopCap has brought Plants vs. Zombies down to a buck for the holiday, and EA has a "Monster Sale" going on, too, with Wolfenstein RPG, Snood, and more on sale for just one cent less than a buck.

All treats, no tricks on this Halloween weekend. There will probably be a few more sales announced before the weekend ends -- we'll try to keep an eye out for them, and let you know when we see them. Want even more quick app sale announcements? Watch our Twitter feed -- we'll often post quick free app and sale app notices there.

In 2007, we saw the first generation iPhone in some comically large costumes (video on the next page). Last year we brought you the footage of Reko and John sporting giant TV screens with jailbroken iPhones powering the costumes. They used "updated" iPhones, but still sported square edges and no touchscreen interfaces. This year John Savio goes it alone with an updated, touchscreen iPhone 4 costume that's the best we've seen.

With a light on the back to simulate the LED camera light, a 40-inch LED LCD panel strapped to sandwich board and a 12-volt battery, the entire rig weighs 75 pounds. Quite a way to work off all that candy. Watch a painfully awkward yet strangely adorable video of the costume on the next page.

[via Switched and iPhoneSavior]

TUAW is giving away a gaggle of ghoulishly good gadgets over the next few days. Be sure to come back every day between now and October 30th for a chance to win. The good part of the giveaways? You don't need to wear a costume to win 'em.

According to the Dictionary app on my Mac, stabile is defined as "a freestanding abstract sculpture or structure, typically of wire or sheet metal, in the style of a mobile but rigid and stationary." Stabile is also the name of a rugged and sturdy iPad stand from Thought Out.

Using what looks similar to the base from an iMac attached to a set of padded metal "fingers," the Stabile is perfect for iPad owners who want a way to hold up their devices without wearing out their arms. I can see where the Stabile would be perfect for kiosk applications running on an iPad.

The Stabile comes in two finishes -- black solid steel (US$59.99) and silver solid steel (US$69.99). These things are incredibly well built, weighing in at almost 4 pounds. The base has a set of non-slip rubber pads on it, so it's hard to accidentally move the Stabile when an iPad installed. The center of gravity is low enough that tipping is out of the question as well.

As part of our Trick or Treat with TUAW promotion, we're giving away a pair of Stabiles to some lucky readers. To enter, just let us know what you'd use your Stabile for -- watching movies on your iPad, running a point-of-sale app on the iPad, whatever... Here are the rules:

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter, leave a comment telling us how you'll use the Thought Out Stabile stand with your iPad.
• The comment must be left before midnight on Sunday, October 31st, 2010, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Two winners will be selected. One will receive a black solid steel Stabile valued at $59.99, while the other winner will get a silver solid steel Stabile value at $69.99.
• Click here for complete official rules.

Good luck!

The guys at Scoopertino have the exclusive details on Apple's "next big product launch." According to them, "Apple is making a multimillion-dollar bet" that you'll want it, too. Apple is set to release their first ever clothing line, dubbed "iWear," which lets you dress exactly like Steve Jobs. The iWear line will consist of a mock black turtleneck, jeans, gray New Balance 991 sneakers, and a pair of non-prescription Steve Jobs-style glasses. Apple will push the new iWear clothing line with the ad campaign slogan: "Be Like Steve."

If you haven't realized by now (and I hope you have), this is just another joke from Scoopertino, a Mac satire news site. Click on over to their site to read the whole article; they've got some great "quotes" from Apple's PR people and have really outdone themselves with iWear mock-ups (including a really funny tag with care instructions for your iWear jeans). And fret not: just because iWear isn't real, it doesn't mean you still can't dress like Steve for Halloween.

TUAW is going to be giving away a gaggle of ghoulishly good gadgets over the next few days. Be sure to come back every day between now and October 30th for a chance to win. The good part of the giveaways? You don't need to wear a costume to win 'em.

As part of this week's Trick or Treat with TUAW series, our first giveaway will be handy for blasting the Halloween visitors to your home with all sorts of spooky music. The iMainGo 2 mobile speakers (US$39.99) are lightweight, powerful music speakers that also serve as protection for your iPod or iPhone.

The speakers don't include a power plug or rechargeable batteries, but you will get upwards of 30 hours of musical enjoyment from four AAA batteries. To use the iMainGo 2 speakers, you just unzip the case, plug in your device using the standard 3.5 mm connector, zip it back up and keep your device protected from sun, sand, splashes, and spills while the tunes are blasting out. You can even connect the speakers to your iPad or MacBook for added musical fun.

iMainGo 2 features titanium high-output speakers, so it pumps out a surprising amount of sound. Be sure to take a look at some of the reviews on Amazon.com, which reiterate just how good the iMainGo 2 mobile speakers really are.

Now, for the giveaway. To enter, leave a comment telling us what you'll use the iMainGo 2 speakers for. It can be anything -- listening to tunes, blasting out the soundtrack for a movie you're watching, even using them with a headset and your Mac as a PA system. Here are the rules:

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter, leave a comment telling us how you'll use the iMainGo 2 speakers.
• The comment must be left before midnight on Sunday, October 31st, 2010, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
• You may enter only once.
• One winner will be selected and receive an iMainGo 2 mobile speaker setup valued at $39.99.
• Click here for complete official rules.

Good luck!

I played Disney's Alice in Wonderland way back in February of this year, and back then, I wasn't super impressed. It was a little too much before the movie, and for US$4.99, it was a little too common for a platformer. But the app has just gone on sale for Halloween, and for $0.99, it's worth another look.

The game did have some fun innovations in it, with four different powers and the ability to use the iPhone's GPS to unlock some items. Especially for kids, it's a solid platformer, and at the sale price, it's worth seeing what Disney puts on display here (of course, this was before they picked up Tapulous and put them in charge of the mobile division).

Just in time for Halloween, Oceanhouse Media introduces two more of their excellent interactive children's storybooks. Both of them are spooky, but certainly not scary, being targeted to the four year old and up crowd. Both are about acceptance and teach a gentle lesson about not judging a book, an empty pair of pants or a pumpkin by its cover.

The first is a short book by Dr. Suess titled What was I Scared of? (US$1.99). It only runs 22 pages so it's priced a dollar less than most of the Oceanhouse Media titles. In it, a very brave furry little guy meets up with a pair of empty pale green pants in the woods that keep popping up wherever he goes. He winds up being not as brave as he thought he was as he becomes more and more frightened of the disembodied pants. It turns out the pants were as scared of him as he is of them, and this is the beginning of their friendship. This book originally came out in 1961, and I have fond memories of reading it to my children. The soundtrack is terrific and as usual, tapping on objects highlight and speak words. The difference I noted between this and the other Oceanhouse Media books is that if you choose the Read To Me option, the young reader must turn the pages by themselves. In the other titles I've seen, this was done for you. The same is true with Spookley and I think was a great design choice.

Authors note: I'm wrong on this last point. All the Oceanhouse Media books work the same way. I mistakenly confused the Read To Me with the Auto Play function. The Auto Play function does turn the pages automatically.

Just like Doodle Jump, another big-name App Store game is getting in the Halloween spirit. Angry Birds Halloween is now available on the App Store. It's a US$0.99 "special edition" of Angry Birds with 45 Halloween-themed levels, which are complete with "scary" backgrounds and pumpkins for you to smash.

Unlike the Doodle Jump "Doodlestein" update, Angry Birds Halloween is a totally separate app from Angry Birds, so even if you own the original Angry Birds, you'll still have to pay $0.99 for Angry Birds Halloween. But considering how much fun Angry Birds is, another buck for 45 new levels isn't a whole lot to ask.

I know I'm extremely late to the game, but I only just downloaded and started playing Doodle Jump two weeks ago. Since then, I've become addicted to it, both on my iPhone and iPad.

Doodle Jump has been updated to version 1.24, which introduces a new Halloween theme: Doodlestein! The update includes new monsters (zombies, vampires, and witches among them) in the Halloween theme, plus broken bone platforms and a broompack (a jetpack made from a witch's broom).

Doodle Jump developer Lima Sky also announced that the next version of Doodle Jump will support Game Center. Now the only thing I'm waiting for is an iPad version of the app. Version 1.24 of Doodle Jump is free to those who have already purchased the app; for everyone else, Doodle Jump is US$0.99 in the App Store.

OK, this is a little weird, and a little gross, but if you're as big a fan of Total Recall as I am, you'll love it. One of the characters in that movie, named Quatto, actually lives in the stomach of another character, and rather than recreate the creepy effect with puppets or makeup, YouTube user minimatefactory just put some high resolution video of the character on his iPad, and then he strapped it to his shirt to wear around.

The effect isn't completely realistic, of course (it looks like he's got a video screen on his stomach), but it is a clever Halloween costume, and clever goes a long way after a few drinks at a Halloween party. Just stay away from bobbing for apples -- you don't want the iPad getting wet or falling into someone's candy bag to take home.

[via Cult of Mac]

Several TUAW readers have tipped us to the fact that many Apple Stores were in the Halloween spirit last night, handing out treats for ghouls, goblins, and Mac nerds who wandered by.

However, it sounds like Apple was playing the anonymous homeowner to Charlie Brown, who always got a rock instead of candy in his bag. The Apple Stores were not giving out sugary treats to the tots with their parents in tow, but they did get bookmarks. Yay.

The bookmarks are pretty cool, though. Printed in a beautiful turquoise color, the iPod nano-sized bookmarks have magnets on the inside tips so you can fold them around a page and they'll stick. Apple design savvy strikes again!

Apple fans apparently "ate up" the bookmarks; the post on iPhone Savior mentioned that one store was out of them by 7:30 PM. I'm thinking that we should use Apple's use of a bookmark as a giveaway as a hint about the legendary iTablet / ebook reader...

What do you think Apple should have given out to the costumed crowds last night instead of bookmarks? Leave your comments below.

[via iPhone Savior]