Ok, I have to admit that I am mysteriously intrigued by people who can twist and intertwine balloons without popping them. Not only that but, I’m always surprised at how fairly representative they are of the real thing. As much as I am intrigued by balloon animals, I can tell you that my two and half year old son is even more so than I am! If you also have kids you love balloon animals… you will want to check out Balloonimals.

Balloonimals is an application that allows you to create, interact with and pop balloon animals. The app is perfectly built to entertain children.

The first thing you have to do is blow up the balloon. This is done by blowing into the microphone (or pressing the screen on an iPod Touch). Once the balloon has been blown up, it must be shaped. This is done by shaking the iPhone. Once the balloon animal has been created, it will interact with you! Which is seriously super cute! Each animal has a few different ways that it interacts. After you are done playing with the balloon animal, you can pop it and start over creating another one.

I always test applications for children on my children (I figure that will give me a pretty accurate assessment of the app). Balloonimals most definitely passed the test. My 2 1/2 year old son loved this app. He liked blowing in the microphone (which did take some practice to get right), he loved shaking the iPhone to create the balloon animal, he loved interacting with the animal and he liked when it popped.

Honestly, the aesthetics of the app are very good. The balloon animal are extremely well designed and the 3D graphics are awesome. The sound affects are fitting to the application and good quality (my son loves the dinosaur “roar”!).

I do have a few suggestions for the applications. First, the balloon animal needs to pop a little more quickly. My son got a little bored with tapping the button, maybe have the ability to hold down the button and watch the balloon animal grow until it pops. Second, it needs a few more animals. The app comes with seven animals (Dinosaur, Fish, Crab, Dog, Snake, Unicorn, Kangaroo). I will have to admit that my son didn’t seem to mind that there were only seven. He played the game for quite a long time and even went back to it later that night and played it for quite a while again.

Overall, a very good application that your kids will love and that will keep them entertained. Perfect for those times when a little entertainment is needed (restaurants, doctor’s offices, car rides) and makes the app worth the $1.99 price tag!

ScreenShots

App Store Description

Beautifully rendered Balloonimals spring to life when you blow into the microphone on your iPhone or press the screen with your iPod Touch. Watch the balloon inflate and then give your phone a shake to start constructing your Balloonimal. With each shake, your animal takes greater shape until… Voila! Your Balloonimal appears and is ready to play. Pet your Balloonimal to see what tricks it can do.

Great for kids of all ages, Balloonimals is packed with an entire collection of balloon animals, including a fish, T-Rex, and unicorn – 7 Balloonimals in all.

You’ll love Balloonimals for its great features:
- simple controls: blow to inflate, shake to transform, pet to see your Balloonimal spring to life on screen!
- a variety of Balloonimals that randomly cycle through each time you play
- amazing graphics that bring quality 3D renderings and animations to your iPhone
- fun sound effects that playfully squeak, quack and roar
- no need for a clown – now you’re in control! Balloonimals make a great addition to any celebration – fun for birthdays, family reunions, or any play date!

Check out Balloonimals in action on our website:
http://www.ideotoylab.com/balloonimals.html

Ok, iBlank has been out for some time now however, it has been a while since I have done a review of it. With all the iNav inspired themes lately, I thought it would be good to do another review of iBlank since it has had some updates since the last time I wrote about it. Most iNav themes seem to install blank icons or web clips when you install/activate the theme. Well, last night, I was settings up a slightly tedious iNav theme (which I will do a review of soon) that did not install blank icon automatically so, I had to use the iBlank application.

iBlank allows you to create blank icons. You can create 1 to 16 blank icons at a time. If you need more than 16 icons you can choose 16, wait for them to be created, choose 16 again, wait for them to be created and so on until you have as many as you need. What I really like about iBlank is that you can also quickly delete all your blank icons at once! If you create blank icons (they are technically web clips) using iBlank you can either delete them individually in “wiggle” mode or all at once using the iBlank application.

This makes setting -up and changing those iNav themes much faster and easier. If you find that you still have blank icons on your SpringBoard that were not deleted using iBlank, check out THIS guide on how to manually delete them.

ScreenShots

It is a program that you download to your computer, it creates ringtones and then you sync them to your iPhone via iTunes (see demo video and screenshots below). What is really nice about this application is the ability to customize your ringtones. If the multimedia file is longer than 30 seconds, you are easily able to choose the exact 30 second clip that you would like as your ringtone. If the file is shorter than 30 seconds, it will automatically convert the file into a ringtone for you. The application costs $14.95 USD. For more information head over to their website.

System Requirements:
Mac OS X 10.4 (”Tiger”) Or Mac OS X 10.5 (”Leopard”)
10MB Of Disk Free Space
iTunes
(I wish I could test it out for you guys…anyone have a Mac to donate?)

For Release On Or After:
July 1, 2008

New Software Empowers iPhone Users To Turn Almost Any Media File
Into Ringtones

San Diego, CA–July 1, 2008–Information Appliance Associates,
creators of industry-leading connectivity solutions, announces the
release of the PocketMac® RingtoneStudio for iPhone, a new tool that
gives iPhone users the power to convert almost any media file on
their Macs into a ringtone.

“We’re incredibly excited,” said Terence Goggin, CTO of
Information Appliance Associates. “The iPhone is great, and as more
people are using it, they want to expand the variety of ringtones
they can use on their iPhone. But it was either too expensive or too
difficult to do on their own. That’s where this software comes in.”

PocketMac RingtoneStudio works with sound files, iTunes tracks
you own, and any Mac-friendly movie formats to produce ringtones that
can then be automatically synched to an iPhone.

One of the many powerful features of PocketMac RingtoneStudio is
EditingBay, which allows users to select exactly which 30 seconds
they want to use at their ringtone.

Goggin added, “With the EditingBay feature, customers can select
whatever 30 seconds they want from the movies and music files.
Literally any 30 seconds from each file. The 30 seconds from the
beginning, the 30 seconds smack dab in the middle, or somewhere
towards the end. It’s visual, simple and completely up to the
customer what they want to choose.”

PocketMac RingtoneStudio works on OS 10.4.x and 10.5.x (Tiger and
Leopard) and retails for $14.95.

“This opens up an entirely new world of source material for
iPhone users looking to create custom ringtones. Using the powerful
but easy- to-use editing features of PocketMac Ringtone Studio,
iPhone users can now select up to 30 seconds from any of their
favorite music, movies or iTunes files, and easily make them into
ringtones,” Goggin continued. “This opens up new possibilities for
iPhone users.”