macDazzle: magic tricks for your Mac

I'll cop to being a magic trick geek. I'm no good at performing them, but I love the mechanisms, and used to try to create new tricks and presentations as a kid (and, OK, later in life as well). I'm surprised it's taken this long for there to be a software-based trick for the Mac, or at least, one that really was worth using. But macDazzle is offering one trick now, and another that looks even more promising later.

iPick, available now, is a classic card reading trick. A spectator picks from three distinct cards and you guess their pick. What's neat about this is that the spectator can download the app on their machine, and you can do the trick via iChat (or Adium, but the presentation isn't nearly as cool).

iMath, available "soon," looks just like the calculator widget from Apple, but it again allows you to divine the numbers provided by a spectator. To further enhance the trick, the spectator can perform calculations with the calculator, and you'll still be able to read the number, without ever touching their machine.

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Source: http://www.macdazzle.com/

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Software Widget Watch

I'll cop to being a magic trick geek. I'm no good at performing them, but I love the mechanisms, and used to try to create new tricks and...

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cruiser

Thought I had figured it out...til I tried a few more times. Aaaargh! Watched their video 10 times. Tried the widget for hours. This is driving me nuts! I hate and love these guys! This is evil and good!

August 03 2006 at 3:58 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Sadly, as a magician , I can't reveal the secret. Sorry. It's not nearly as hard as it seems, but then again, most magic is the act of making people believe they're seeing one thing when they clearly are really seeing something else.

August 02 2006 at 5:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Snowmobile

Maybe someone has a link to the secret? Would spare me some dollars to spend on crack or heroin. Or both.

August 02 2006 at 4:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

drivebybiped

I think the real magic trick is getting people to actually pay money for these things

August 02 2006 at 2:04 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

As a magician, let me assure you that this effect is a killer with the right presentation.

That said, it'd be a cold day in hell before I perform an effect that requires a mac computer instead of my deck of cards.

August 02 2006 at 1:32 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Apple GUI Police

Ten bucks for the secret? For a trick I figured out in minutes (and no, I won't tell, because I want them to make some money before someone meaner than me spills the beans)? You gotta be nuts. Still, I admire their pluck, but they really should've beta tested this with a couple of magician-friendly mac users. After I figured out the secret, I hit upon one or two suggestions that could've made this trick better. Maybe I should write a 2.0, but would I get sued? Oh well...

August 02 2006 at 12:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Query

I don't think it's worth it to pay 10 dollars each for those, when I could just get a magic book froma bookstore for about 15 dollars.. or I could just look up magic tricks on the internet.. The concept is neat, though, but for one expensive trick, it's not worth my money.

August 02 2006 at 12:02 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jared

how the heck do you use iPick???

August 02 2006 at 11:24 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Taylor

It's an illusion. Tricks are something whores do for money... or candy!

August 02 2006 at 11:22 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Aphrox

The name macDazzle was chosen for the simplest of reasons: we want you to dazzle your friends with nothing more than your Mac! Our Dashboard Widgets are adopted from the vaults of HOTTRIX and were originally invented by Steve for the Palm (later ported to Pocket PC by Ben).

August 02 2006 at 10:53 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply