Pixar, one of the largest and most popular filmmakers in the world is honoring one of the world’s most popular CEOs, Steve Jobs. The Emeryville, California based computer animation film studio is naming their main campus building after Jobs, calling it the “The Steve Jobs Building”. Pixar’s blog, The Pixar Times notes that the building is one of the main centers in its entire campus and that the Late CEO Steve Jobs actually participated in the designing of the building. Jobs helped design the structure of the building so that employees could not lock themselves in their office all day and would have to come out to converse with each other.

Steve Jobs holds a massive portion of shares of Disney, after the giant acquired Pixar back in 2004. At the time, Jobs was CEO of Pixar, and was paid only $1 a year. Jobs also held up the film studio for years with his own personal money, putting in millions to help keep Pixar alive until it was acquired by Disney. Samad Rizvi, writer at The Pixar Times mentioned Job’s influence and how much of an impact he had on Pixar.

“He came up with the idea that the building should be centered around a large atrium, which would lead to accidental collaboration that may not occur if everyone was stuck in their individual offices. I find this to be the perfect way to honor the legacy of Steve Jobs. Placing his name above the main building not only reminds those who walk through the entrance of his importance to the formation of the studio,” Rizvi wrote, “but is also a meaningful representation of his influence on the famed building.”

This is only one of the many influences that Jobs has left on the world, including the hundreds of small design changes and products that he left behind at Apple. Pixar dedicating its campus building to Jobs appears to be the right choice as the company was transformed with the money and vision of the late CEO.

{Via AppleInsider}

Finding Nemo Storybook Deluxe

For those of you that have downloaded any of the Disney Storybooks before you know that you are in for a treat as they bring the books to life on the iPhone and iPad.

Across the 28 interactive virtual pages of the book you can either read the story, have it read to you by the narrator or record the words and have those played back. This is great for your children to practice and listen back to their reading of for a parent to ‘virtually’ read the book to thier child when their not around.

Each page is beautifully illustrated, animated and can be interacted while the narration is clear and easy to listen too.

The storybook also includes additional activities including a matching game, 6 puzzles of increasing difficulty, 6 paintings and a talking Dory which acts similar to the talking animal games that are available.

At $6.99 it’s not cheap but it is an engaging way to re-live the Finding Nemo story.

Finding Nemo Interactive Comic

The Finding Nemo Interactive Comic re-tells the story of Finding Nemo in a panel by panel comic book. You can either have the panels automatically appear or tap and swipe the screen to move through the story.

For your creative children you also get a step by step guide to how to draw the four main protagonists and you can either draw them directly onto the iPad or use the skills you learn and draw them elsewhere too.

Finding Nemo Interactive Comic is a universal app and is available from the App Store now for just $1.99

Disney recently released the classic story of Dumbo as an interactive app for the iPhone and iPad. For children young and old the story of Dumbo is an endearing classic and while this interactive story book to the original story and artwork it also and features such as coloring pages, puzzles and a musical instrument in the form of a Calliope straight from the pages of the book.

The story itself is beautifully recreated in its electronic form and has well delivered audio to so that your child can listen to the story as well as read it. The pages come to life with animated action too which brings the story to life even more.

One if the most impressive features though is the ability to record your own audio of each individual page. You can do this one page at a time and when turned on the narration will be you voice and not the origami voice. This will be awesome if for any reason your going to be away from your child as this can be one way to stay close.

The three additional features are fun too. Playing the Calliope is fun and sounds very authentic. You can either freestyle or follow the tutorial to play along with the tune. The puzzle provides 3 virtual jigsaw puzzles for you to put together and each has 3 difficulty levels which increases the number of pieces in the puzzle.

Also pulling from the pictures in the book are the coloring pages. In these pages you have a paint brush, pencil and a palette of colors to color in the picture. You can save your handiwork if you want to come back to it later or email your completed masterpiece.

A nice added feature is the ability to personalize the splash screen of the app, not only with your child’s photograph but also their name which you can either type in or write in using your finger or stylus.

It’s no surprise that Disney would produce such a great app but it’s good to see it come to fruition.

This universal app cost $1.99 and is available in the App Store now, whether you are wanting to relive the story from your childhood or enjoy it with your child or grand children this app is a great way to do it.

What we like

• The great looking storybook
• Ability to record your own narration
• The interactive features
• The personalization

What to know

• More of the same please

A morning does not start off well without my daughter starting the day with 20 minutes of Mickey Mouse Club House so when I received Minnie Bow Maker to review I knew that I had the perfect person to help me review it.

The premise of Minnie Bow Maker was ideal too, my daughter already enjoys building cookies, cupcakes, popsicle and many other items on her iPod touch so making bows should be just what mouse ordered!

The first thing to be noted is that Minnie Bow Maker is much more than just a bow making app, it’s also a storybook, fashion show and photography app and they all compliment each other beautifully.

Beautiful is how the app looks too, the full Disney polish has been applied to this app with high quality graphics, all the appropriate voice acting and music that children know and love. They will feel perfectly at home in Minnie Bow Maker and that’s even before they’ve started!

The first of three options is Story Mode where you can join either Daisy, Millie and Melody or Cuckoo-Loca along with Minnie and help design a bow for the disney characters. You can read along with the sub-titles or just listened to the voice acted dialog as you have to make a bow for the different characters for a special event.

The story mode doesn’t take long to play though but it’s a nice compliment to the main bow making part of the game and it also lends itself to the Big Bow Show part of the game as its the creations that you’ve created during story mode that can be viewed during the Bow Show.

Making the bows themselves is a three step process, first you choose your material, then the color and then a pattern before finally choosing the style of bow that you wish to make. At that point you get to drag the material to the bow making machine before turning the handle to see your creation drop out.

You then get a chance to select who should wear your bow, you can choose Minnie of course and place the bow atop her head which is cute, however it’s more fun to add the bow to a photo of someone by either selecting a picture from your camera roll or by taking a picture. You can then resize and position the bow to display on the picture. Both options allow you to output the results to either your camera roll or out via email for all to see!

The only downside to the app, although only noticed by me and not my children, was the sluggishness of the app which was running on my iPhone 4S.

If you’ve got a young daughter who’s into her cartoon Disney characters then she’ll certainly enjoy this, although even though it’s a universal app the $3.99 price tag puts it on the expensive side compared to other iOS apps that could entertain your children.

What we like

• Quality Disney franchiase
• Easy to create bows
• Appeals to young children

What to know

• Sluggish performance

Now though Disney have decided to make the most of the popular puzzler by combining it with one of the most popular cartoon characters at the moment in the form of Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb.

Nothing much has changed but it will still appeal to both players of Where’s My Water and new players to the game especially those who are familiar with the popular cartoon as the sites and sounds of not just Perry, but also Dr. Doofenshmirtz are used throughout the game to great effect.

80 levels are spread across four different environments and your challenge in each of them is to provide enough water to enable Perry to slide through his underground tubes. This is achieved by clearing a path through the dirt to Perry and on the way unlock the three gnomes that are placed throughout the level.

These gnomes provide the 3 gnome ranking required to complete the game at 100% but in 6 of each level there are hidden items which unlock additional ‘secret’ levels including 4 that introduce you to Dr. Doofenshmirtz’s childhood ‘friend’ Balloony!

The physics of each level is well designed and you will not only find yourself using the water to unlock and open switches and levers but you also need to avoid hazards that will attempt to suck the water away preventing you from having enough to push Perry on his way.

If that wasn’t enough challenge you will also have to change the state of the water to open, unlock and rescue certain kind of gnome that can only be rescued by either water or steam. This all adds up to a great variety of challenges and a very enjoyable game.

The game is a universal app which is currently available at just 99 cents from the app store and while you can play through all the levels for no additional charge by completing them all in order you can also pay to unlock them via in-app purchase if you don’t wish to wait, or get stuck.

As you would expect from Disney the graphics and sound are great and for anyone that has watched Phineas & Ferb before you will feel perfectly at home here. The great thing about Where’s My Perry though is that it stands up as a quality game in it’s own right too.

What we like

• Over 80 fun, challenging levels
• Great use of the Perry lincense
• Easy to play

What to know

• No appearance of Phineas or Ferb!

On Tuesday, a report from Bloomberg suggested that Apple Inc. (AAPL) and parent company of ESPN, Disney, were in talks to bring the popular WatchESPN app to the Apple TV. The report mentioned a statement from ESPN executive Sean Bratches that the deal wasn’t imminent and is currently being hashed out between the two companies.

If AAPL were given the go ahead to bring the app over to the Apple TV, subscribers of select cable networks or subscribers of ESPN would be able to stream live games through the app. The WatchESPN app is currently available in Apple’s App Store and can be streamed on the iPad and iPhone as well as on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming console. Bratches, the executive interviewed by Bloomberg also cleared up the negotiations between Apple and ESPN and explained the benefits of such a deal.

We’re a platform-agnostic company. To the extent that in the future there’s an opportunity with Apple to authenticate through the pay-TV food chain as we’re doing with Microsoft, that’s something we’ll participate in.

This wouldn’t be the first application pertaining to accessing live streaming sports on the Apple TV but would be one of the first major collaborations between the two companies. Currently, the Apple TV allows users to access NHL Gamecenter, MLB.tv and NBA League Pass.

If Apple strikes this deal with ESPN and brings the WatchESPN app over to the Apple TV, the company will likely be setting up for its rumored television set, which may incorporate an App Store of some sort, personal assistant Siri, as well as integrated features from the current Apple TV.

{via AppleInsider}

After the passing of former CEO and Chairman Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has made transitions to appoint a new Chairman of the Board, as well as a new addition to the board. Apple’s new chairman is Arthur D. Levinson, co-lead director of the board since 2005, and also chairman of Genentech.

While Levinson settles in his new roles and begins to grasp his new responsibilities as Chairman, the board receives a new member, Disney CEO Bob Iger.

Iger worked with Steve Jobs, and Tim Cook in the past and as a good relationship with AAPL. Both Levinson and Iger will now take part in larger events at Apple Inc. and will both serve on the board’s audit committee. Apple CEO, Tim Cook welcomed the Chariman and boardmember, saying that Disney’s CEO would be “a great fit for Apple”.

Bob and I have gotten to know one another very well over the past few years and on behalf of the entire board, we think he is going to make an extraordinary addition to our already very strong board

“Art has made enormous contributions to Apple since he joined the board in 2000,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “He has been our longest serving co-lead director, and his insight and leadership are incredibly valuable to Apple, our employees and our shareholders.”

As CEO of Pixar, Steve Jobs was the largest shareholder of Disney and kept very good connections with the company over the years. Disney and Apple Inc. have also worked together on numerous occasions, on both iTunes releases as well as a presentation from Bob Iger during the introduction of iAd. Under new leadership, Apple is progressing towards a bright future, and releasing products that are a big hit with customers. With Levinson and Iger, Apple is looking forward to a long successful journey.

{via TUAW}

Interesting news from the world of all things Mickey Mouse, namely Disney with the movie company all set to release its own smartphone in Japan. Set for a release in February, Disney’s handset will be powered by a modified version of Google’s Android OS and will essentially be a rebadged Sharp Galapagos 003SH.

The Galapagos’ specs stack up well; powered by a 1GHz processor and sporting a 9.6-megapixel camera, the Disney phone certainly won’t be under-specced.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the release is the use of Android. With Apple’s Steve Jobs on the Disney Board and the Cupertino company’s frosty relationship with Google many will be surprised that Android is the OS of choice. The question is: what else could they have used?

When released the handset will be available with a choice of 6 custom Disney cases and will offer buyers their own Disney email address along with other content.

No news yet on a worldwide release – Would you buy one given the chance? Let us know in the comments!

{via electronista}