Hello folks, I'm part of a team here in Liverpool (UK) developing an iPhone app around 3D virtual gifts. We hope to launch in early December, but just thought you might like an early preview of what we're doing. We're going to give some people early access to the app in mid-November, so it'd be great to see who's interested! Bascially, we're describing Little World Gifts as "a boutique store full of festive curios and trinkets to surprise, delight and amuse during the festive season". The free Little World Gifts iPhone App lets you browse a range of gorgeous, handcrafted, 3D, interactive digital gifts, and send them to your friends. And of course, it wouldn’t be Christmas if you couldn’t play with your presents too If you're a bit of an iPhone geek, you might also be interested that we're gonna be doing some cool stuff with in-app purchases, push notifications and Facebook integration too. It'd be great to know what you think, and if you've got any questions. And what Christmas gifts would you like to see in the app?! Follow us on Twitter, be our fan on Facebook or check out http://www.littleworldgifts.com/ for more info. Thanks! Jonathan (@JonathanDeamer on Twitter) at Little World Gifts
Are these pre-rendered 3D or dynamic? Also, "Fat Cat" is properly known as Maneki Neko ("Beckoning Cat").
They're dynamic 3D, so you can spin them round, animate them, zoom in, bounce them off the screen and all sorts of exciting things - there's a rough demo video at http://vimeo.com/6980132 We did consider calling Fat Cat by his "traditional" name, and will probably still go with Lucky Cat or similar before the proper release. He was going to be a money-box, so Fat Cat was a bit of a joke. Good knowledge on Maneki Neko though! ;-)
Bit of a (very early!) sneak peak of what Santa's elves (3D artists, actually) are making for our gorgeous gifts:
Thanks Candy! There's an on going debate in the office as to whether Lucky Cat or Elvis's wiggle is cutest... ;-)
Macworld UK have written a nice piece about us, and we've got a sneaky screenshot of our Christmas shop to share as well!
Another sneaky preview You can share, display and show off your gifts on our cool Facebook shelves, whether you have an iPhone/iPod Touch or not.
Glad you think so, thebub! It's going to be in the App Store in December - sign up at http://littleworldgifts.com to be the first to know. There's plenty of other cool stuff to show you
Some cool recent coverage of LWG that you might like a look at! The Next Web is the first to have a proper play with the app. And TechCrunch has a few thoughts.
It's a cute idea, but I think the number of people I know that would actually be willing to send me a gift in return is close to zero. LWgifts if you read this: looking at the gifts themselves, your art team is clearly talented... you can come up with a better icon than that! I can barely read what it says, and icons are responsible for a lot of impluse buys on the App Store, don't underestimate their power
Thanks for the feedback Midian. And if your friends don't want to swap gifts with you, I'm sure you'll find someone on our Facebook fan page who will ;-)
Valentine's update out now! The Valentine's update to the free Little World Gifts app has just gone live! We got some great feedback on our Christmas store, so we've taken it all onboard and now there are new gifts, free gifts and... ★ improved gift tracking and delivery monitoring in the all new 'Journal' ★ an improved 3D environment, so your trinkets look more gorgeous ★ new gift interactivity including shakeable gift sounds ★ fewer Facebook prompts, so more fun ★ improved, prettier menus, so its easier to navigate the store or find and send your gifts Get it now in the App Store!
More freebies! Oh, and by the way, our Valentine's Rose is now free in honour of the big day, so there's no excuse for forgetting that special someone! Just don't tell them what a bargain it was ;-)
