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Each Monday and Friday, tune in to Tech Beat to learn the newest high-tech trends in both industry and product development. YNN Tech Reporter Adam Balkin highlights the coolest and newest apps for your cell phone and mobile device every Thursday and Saturday in your App Wrap.



07/19/2012 12:48 PM

App Wrap: 'The Great Cookie Thief,' 'Minnie Bow Maker'

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“The Great Cookie Thief”

Ever find on long car rides your mobile devices become the property of your kids sitting in the back seat? If so, you might as well load up on apps that will at least keep them from asking, "Are we there yet?" Those little mobile device thieves can enjoy the digital storybook, "The Great Cookie Thief."

Like most digital storybooks these days, users can touch pretty much everyone and everything on the screen to make it do or say something extra, beyond the written text.

To make this different, developers say they help build visual identification and observation skills by having little readers or listeners help solve the crime, mainly by identifying what in the wanted poster resembles poor Cookie Monster, who is being blamed for the crime.

The creativity part lets kids get to make their own wanted posters of other Sesame Street characters or use a photo of themselves.

"The Great Cookie Thief" just launched for iOS devices at an introductory price of 99 cents.

“Minnie Bow Maker”

A dilemma of a different sort for little fingers to work out is the "Minnie Bow Maker" app. There are three stories in there involving some of Minnie's friends having something of a hair crisis and needing Minnie's expertise in creating a new bow to solve the problem.

Minnie relies on the user to create that bow. Users get to choose the style, color, and pattern, and then eventually stick the concept into the bow-making machine to turn it into reality. The character in the story then wears the resulting bow for the conclusion.

Outside the story, users can also just go ahead and crank out a bunch of bows and even show them off on a little Disney catwalk or "duck-walk," if Daisy Duck is involved.