Christmas Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

6.5 million downloads for Angry Birds on Christmas Day

by Mike Schramm (Jan 4th, 2012)

Rovio says that it saw a whopping 6.5 million downloads of Angry Birds this past Christmas Day, which is just phenomenal, even for this overwhelmingly popular game. That number is very close to the number of iOS and Android devices activated overall, which means that most people who got an ...

Find my iPad saves Christmas

by Mike Schramm (Dec 29th, 2011)

Here's a nice story thanks to Apple's Find my iPad feature. A family in California had their Christmas gifts stolen last week, along with several other items in the home. Seemingly unrelatedly, another man had his iPad stolen soon after, and he called the police to report the theft. He was able ...

Online shopping gets iPad surge on Christmas Day, iOS dominates in December

by Michael Rose (Dec 27th, 2011)

There's no rest for the weary in retail this year, but at least on Christmas Day most of the shopping frenzy was online and not in line. IBM's Smarter Commerce unit, which tracks 500 online stores (but not Amazon, the largest, and probably not Apple's store either) told the AP that Christmas Day ...

TUAW wishes you a Merry Christmas

by Michael Rose (Dec 25th, 2011)

From all of us at TUAW to all of you who celebrate it, our heartfelt wishes for a very merry Christmas. It's also Hanukkah this week, so best holiday wishes there too. Belated blessed Solstice? Early Kwanzaa & New Year's regards? We wish it all for you. In the holiday spirit, we'd like to ...

Last-minute apps for Christmas Eve

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Dec 24th, 2011)

With the clock ticking down the hours until Santa arrives, here are some last-minute holiday apps to load on your iPhone or iPad as you go out caroling, do last-minute shopping or visit your friends and family: Santa's Big Helper ($.99): This has a number of features, and if you're looking ...

5 Apps to make your holiday shopping easy

by Kelly Hodgkins (Dec 5th, 2011)

Thanksgiving is done and Black Friday is behind us. Now, it's time to get serious with your holiday shopping. Here are a few apps that will make your holiday shopping easier, maybe even fun (all prices are USD). Santa's Bag- Christmas Gift List ($0.99) Santa's Bag- Christmas Gift List is an ...

Daily iPad App: A Charlie Brown Christmas

by Michael Grothaus (Nov 28th, 2011)

Forty-six years after it debuted on prime-time television, the beloved Christmas classic A Charlie Brown Christmas comes to a new medium -- the iPad. But instead of simply releasing it as a downloadable video, the A Charlie Brown Christmas app turns the story of an incredibly depressed child ...

Firemint sells 3 million copies of Flight Control

by Mike Schramm (Jan 20th, 2011)

Firemint has shared some sales figures about Flight Control over on its blog. The now classic line-drawing game was recently listed in the top paid apps of all time on the App Store, and so Firemint decided to reveal a little bit about how many copies it's sold and when. The grand total is exactly ...

OpenFeint sees giant spike in Christmas users and downloads

by Mike Schramm (Dec 31st, 2010)

Here's some more evidence that the App Store had a really amazing holiday weekend last week. OpenFeint has announced that it saw a 184% spike in new users on Christmas Day last week, the largest single day in the service's history for new users. Over the four days around the holiday, OpenFeint ...

Apple launches 12 Days of Christmas promo for various European countries

by Michael Grothaus (Dec 28th, 2010)

Apple's 12 Days of Christmas promotion went live on December 26 for many countries in Europe. The annual promo sees Apple giving away free apps, songs, TV shows, films and music videos from the iTunes Store. Each free download is available for only 24 hours. Here are the countries the promo is ...

Handmade icon pillows given as gifts for Christmas

by Mike Schramm (Dec 27th, 2010)

We've seen Apple app icon pillows before, but these are pretty excellent -- TUAW reader Dan G's girlfriend hand-sewed them for him for Christmas. That's the brand new iTunes icon on the right there (though I expected it to be a little more blue), and on the left is the Firefox icon. We won't tell ...

Facebook for iOS, Tapulous see big iOS downloads over the holiday

by Mike Schramm (Dec 27th, 2010)

As expected, we're starting to see huge download numbers for iOS from over the weekend. As people unwrapped their new iOS devices, they also took to the App Store to pick up new games and apps as soon as they could. Facebook for iOS saw a gigantic jump in users -- as you can see in the chart above, ...

Talkcast tonight 10 PM ET, post-Christmas chat and gift lists

by Kelly Guimont (Dec 26th, 2010)

Talkshoe is having a post-holiday hissy fit, so tonight we are using an alternate show URL -- here it is: http://tinyurl.com/tuawtf It's time for a holiday weekend talkcast, and since it's only a day past Christmas, there's something to discuss: what did you get, what did you give, and what did ...

Merry Christmas from TUAW!

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Dec 25th, 2010)

May all your holidays be as bright as the LED light on the back of the iPhone 4, and as fun as Angry Birds on your iPad. Thank you for reading TUAW through 2010! We really appreciate the opportunity to do this for you, and we're glad you've come by to read the site. We've got a lot of surprises ...

Santa plays "Jingle Bells" on a Christmas version of Accordéon

by David Winograd (Dec 23rd, 2010)

I just got a nice holiday email from Alex Komorov, the publisher of Accordéon, in which Santa plays Jingle Bells on the new Christmas version of the virtual accordion for the iPad. The holiday version costs US$3.99 and is decked out for the holidays. It includes a learning center where you ...