We can officially start getting excited about Christmas! Well we can from this Saturday, 30^th November, when our annual Advent 2013, 25 Christmas Apps app launches. This year’s iOS and Android app is even bigger and better. Users still get to discover and download a new, free, top quality app everyday until 25^th December but this time we’ve cranked up the production values and fun quota on the mini games.

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Christmas is a busy time for MagicSolver, not least because we are readying our Advent 2013 calendar app. While we are poised to launch our festive app next week, around the same time shoppers in the U.S will be gearing up for the post-Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza known as ‘Black Friday’. For those unaware of this special day, it is where retail outlets slash the prices on their goods and wares and American citizens go crazy trying to pick up amazing bargains to put under the Christmas tree.

Shopping via mobile is already on the rise but this year the smartphone will play a big role in the way people buy gifts for Xmas, according to a survey conducted by technology protection specialist Asurion. 58% of smartphone owners said their device will be very important to them on ‘Black Friday’, with 49% claiming they will make purchases via the device.

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We know that Apple and its trusty iPhone transformed the smartphone landscape and created an unrivalled app ecosystem but have you ever wondered what goes behind making one of the most popular phones in the world? The sprawling infographic below, commissioned by FinancesOnline.com,  goes into some detail about the iPhone’s supply chain, the cost of making one of the iconic gadgets on the planet and the widgets and electronics fitted under the bonnet to make it purr. It makes for a very interesting and occasionally eye-opening read.

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What do you want for Christmas? An iPad? iPhone? iPod? It appears the Apple’s devices are top of the list, not just for adults but for children as well. A survey by SuperAwesome, a leading discovery platform for kids and teens in the UK, showed that iDevices, especially the iPhone and iPad, are streets ahead of gaming electronics such as Nintendo, Xbox and PS4 as the Xmas gift du jour, while old school goodies such as football, make-up and surprisingly, Lego, are way down on the wish list.

In fact just to hammer home the uber-popularity of Apple’s touch army with the kidz, SuperAwesome has created a rather cool word cloud. If you like more fun options, just follow these steps.

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This week The Independent newspaper in the UK published a list of its top travel apps.  You can see the top 10 here.

Far be it for us to disagree with such a learned publication, but we honestly felt there were so many good travel apps that it would be worth adding five more to their list that tickle our fancy and help us when we are out and about.  So below you can find our additional five travel apps for those that are hungry for the best and easiest experiences on the move.

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The App Show returns again for another edition just in time for a couple of news stories that could make big changes to the mobile industry.

The first is, of course, the launch of the iPhone 5C and 5S by Apple. While it may have sold 9 million of them in under a week, Keith Andrew; Editor in Chief at Pocket Gamer Biz, talked us through his concerns with Apple’s latest devices and about his belief that it may be the end of their innovation leadership.

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Can you believe it is British Food Fortnight?  The Brits are not renowned for their culinary genius, but have given the world such delights as the Full English/Irish/Scottish Breakfast, Fish & Chips and even Deep Fried Mars Bars!  Despite these ‘gifts’ to the world, the UK is celebrating its cuisine and culture with not one but two weeks of festivities.

At Magicsolver HQ in Cambridge, we have more than 20 different nationalities working in our team and we celebrated this earlier this year with a picnic that brought together food from as far apart as Italy, Japan, Venezuela and, er, France.

To celebrate all things gastronomic and to salute great British food, here are the top five apps for gourmets the world over:

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It’s time again for another App Show and we managed to escape the confines of Cambridge again to head out to Cologne for GDC Europe. There we caught up with a number of interesting people from the apps industry showing off their wares.

We had Anders Jepsen from Blackberry explaining to us why Blackberry OS should be considered by developers, even with the company’s difficulties. Alistair Aitcheson, an indie guru and developer of Greedy Bankers, chatted to us about multiplayer tablet games. And Andrew Smith of Appy Nation talked to us about the reboot of legendary App Store game Transport Tycoon.

But that wasn’t all we found out about on this month’s show. We chatted to Richard Bates of Kick it Out! who talked to us about how the anti-racism organisation is hoping that cloud based apps will help fans to report racist abuse.

And, of course, we had time for the mainstays of The App Show: all the news from the app world this month, reviews from our resident critic Beth about the best apps for Summer and the all important Free App Magic Chart.

Check the show out at 9pm tonight on http://www.star107.co.uk/resources/radioplayer/ or catch up with the podcast tomorrow http://bit.ly/msappshow

MagicSolver, the app discovery and user acquisition specialists, have been named one of Mobile Entertainment’s Top 50 Mobile Innovators in the UK for 2013.

The ME Top 50 has been going for three years and recognises excellence within a number of mobile specific sectors. MagicSolver has been recognised for its continued success in the Apps sphere after it amassed more than 30 million downloads for its portfolio of mobile app discovery platforms.

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