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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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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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

The MagicSolver sales team are in Cologne this week at GDC Europe and GamesCom, ready to provide you with great advice on boosting your app downloads.

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With the arrival of Britain’s newest Prince or Princess imminent, we take a look at the Best of British Royal Baby apps!

1)    Baby Royals by Angelsong Creations

While the Prince or Princess of Cambridge will most certainly be getting the royal treatment, Angelson Creations have designed an app that allows you to do the same for your little one*! Simply snap a photo of the wannabe future Queen or King and click to add regal jewels, clothes and headwear. With razor sharp graphics and everything from traditional crowns and tiaras to Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh outfits to choose from, this fantastic photobooth is a royal winner!

*Don’t have a baby to beautify? Why not crown your dog, cat or friend? It’s hilarious!

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A week after we celebrated the 4th birthday of MagicSolver in our offices, Apple were celebrating the 5th birthday of the App Store and a load of developers decided to join the party by making their apps free for the celebration.

So with our team obviously loving fantastic free apps, we felt obliged to share the best of the bunch with all of the people who use FreeAppMagic on iOS. And, according to our download numbers, the three apps below came out as the most popular. Check them out!

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So we’re proud to celebrate our 4th anniversary in charge of a company creating the best apps for iPhone, iPad and Android for our 30 million users in over 120 countries.

The tens of thousands of positive emails, reviews and feedback from our users has been our best reward, helping our team of 20 talented app Magicians feel proud to be selecting the best apps every day for you in both http://www.freeappmagic.com/ and for our renowned seasonal calendars.

We’re also glad to have worked with a number of fantastic partners, from the best indie developers looking to get their apps discovered through to the top gaming companies and the best digital advertising agencies.

So thanks again to our 30 million users, the 600 talented apps developers we have selected apps from and all the Magicians on our team who have helped to make this all possible.