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Cat Scratch Fever: The complete Friskies iOS cat app library
Kittens are on the minds of part of the TUAW crew this week; Editor-In-Chief Victor Agreda, Jr. is now the proud dad of Kit-Kat (yes, we know she has an Android OS name), while my wife and I decided to open our home to two adorable new kitties named Merry and Pippin. While looking around last night for something that might keep the two hyperactive felines entertained for a few milliseconds, I remembered that Friskies cat food had a free "advo-tainment" app or two a few years ago. A glance at the App Store showed that the company has now has a whole litter of free apps to try to keep your kitties mesmerized for at least a little while. Here's the whole kit and caboodle: Friskies JitterBug -- Most of these cat-only apps have a certain theme going on that focuses on how felines love to go after anything that moves. Jitterbug gives your kitties five fifteen-second rounds to try to swat as many bugs on an iPad or iPhone screen as possible. If your cat happens to be the Jackie Chan of kittehs and swats a big number, you'll be glad to know you can share his or her score on Facebook. Cat Fishing 2.1 -- You know how Mr. Grumbles likes to watch the fishbowl for hours? No need to be concerned about him accidentally going for a swim when you set the iPad in front of him and launch Cat Fishing 2.1. Here we have fish as the target for your cat's lightning-fast paw, with three rounds with one, two and three fish at a time. Cat bragging rights can not only be displayed on Facebook, but on the Friskies world-wide leaderboard. For a full review by Mike Wehner's cat Cinnamon, click here. Happy Wings -- Let's see, we had crawling bugs, swimming fish... what else can keep a cat excited? Oh, yeah -- things that fly! Happy Wings features three rounds, the first with fluttering moths, the second with dragonflies, and the third with rare tropical hummingbirds that will be wiped out by your cat's baser instincts. According to the app notes, if your cat happens to make it through a few levels, she'll be rewarded with a "You Won" screen and a cat-friendly Play Again button. At this point, my new kittens have the attention span that is measured in Yoctoseconds. Friskies Call-A-Cat -- It's not really a game, but more a way to see what sounds interest your kitties the most. Friskies Call-A-Cat includes several intriguing noises, like bird chirps and opening a can of cat food. The idea is that you can play the most attractive sound just before feeding time to get your cat into the habit of running to the bowl when you tap the sound on your iPhone or iPad. Friskies You vs. Cat -- Tired of letting your cat have all the fun? You vs. Cat is brilliant, since you basically fling playing pieces with a flick of the finger and your cat has to "catch" them. If the cat does stop the playing piece, he gets points; if it goes into the "goal," you get points. The first one who gets to 50 points wins. Note: don't gloat if you win, as your cat may leave a gift where you least expect it. Party Mix-Up -- Yes, in this game your cat gets to catch Friskies Party Mix cat treats. Does this sound basically like subliminal advertising targeted at cats? Tasty Treasures Hunt -- By this point, you'll need an iPhone or iPad with more storage just to hold all of the cat games. In Tasty Treasure Hunt, the gato will be chasing after little cartoon doodles of chickens, turkeys, cheese slices, and fish. Same idea, different graphics. That's about it for the cat apps from Friskies. They also have some games to keep humans occupied, including the search games Friskies Wonderland Quest and Wonderland Quest II for iPad. I have a sinking suspicion that the basic idea of these games is to find hidden items and to drum a certain pet care product line into your brain. And you can't forget Catify Yourself, which turns selfies into nightmarish cat-human hybrids (image below). Have any TUAW readers had success amusing your cats with the Friskies apps? Or did you end up calling "Confuse-A-Cat"? Let us know in the comments.
My cat Cinnamon reviews Friskies Cat Fishing 2
Cinnamon isn't the smartest cat on the block. He's adorable, a little bit chubby, and remarkably cuddly, but he's also a bit of an idiot. He eats his brother's food even though we yell at him every single day, he chews on power cords despite being shocked and nearly killed by one, and if you leave a dryer sheet in the laundry room he'll consume it whole. That being said, he's also an extremely skilled hunter that can snatch a house fly out of the air and jump 5+ feet up a wall to go after a laser pointer. So when I noticed that Friskies had launched a new version of its Cat Fishing app -- which Cinnamon had taken a great liking to years ago -- I decided I'd let him review it. I launched the app, called Cinnamon into the room, and waited for the fireworks to start. But they didn't. My little buddy just sat there and stared at the screen as the colorful fish swam about, with nothing in the way of an instinctual drive to attack. In fact, I think Cinnamon wanted to befriend the fish more than anything. I'm not sure what has changed in either the app or my cat since the original Cat Fishing game sent him swatting at the screen in a furry of hunger and angst, but it's not there anymore. When the app sensed that Cinnamon wasn't paying attention (after 30 seconds without interaction) it meowed loudly in a feeble attempt to elicit a reaction. It got one. Once Cinnamon heard the app's desperate meowing, he decided it was time for a snuggle, and as you can see in the photo at the top, he and my iPad are now best friends. Or they were best friends for roughly 45 seconds, at which point Cinnamon stood up, sneezed onto the screen, locked eyes with me as if to say "I guess you'll be cleaning that up now..." and walked back into the bedroom to fall asleep until dinner. Cinnamon clearly enjoyed his brief time with the app, and although he's too dumb (or too smart?) to go after the digital bait, it's definitely worth your time to download the free app and see if you can fool your own furball.
Catify Yourself from Friskies lets you channel your inner cat
Are you feeling frisky because its Caturday? Got the urge to meow and purrr? Then you need to check out Friskies's latest cat-themed app, Catify Yourself. The photo-taking app lets you superimpose your face onto a cat body with hilarious results. Catify Yourself has ten backgrounds that show a cat playing or posing for the camera. Each background has a cut-out for your face and room for a caption. You can insert your mugshot using the camera or by importing a photo from the camera roll. Gestures like pinch-to-zoom let you resize the photo and tilt it to fit the face of the cat. Once you've got the face lined up, you can choose a caption from about thirty different pre-set phrases. When you are done tweaking the image and setting the caption, you can share the resulting image via email or on a social network like Facebook or Twitter. You can also assign it to a contact or save it to your camera roll. It's good, clean fun that will literally leave you laughing out loud. Friskies Catify Yourself is available for free from the iOS App Store.
No Comment: Friskies makes iPad web games for cats
So it's come to this. Originally, discovering that cats liked to play with the iPad was just a matter of coincidence -- Felix just liked to bat around the Magic Piano, and that was fine. But pet food maker Friskies has blown that idea right out, releasing a line of three full web-based games for the iPad meant to be played entirely by cats. It's true. Cat Fishing!, Party Mix-Up! and Tasty Treasures Hunt! are all games accessible from that website and built in HTML 5 just for the iPad, and as you can tell from the video after the break, all three of them are designed to attract your cat's attention. With bright shapes that move around in a jerky yet lifelike manner and flashy graphics that respond to paw touches, your cat now has its own games to play on your iPad 2. Friskies even warns that while cat claws can't scratch the iPad's glass screen, certain plastic covers might get scratched, so be careful. What they don't warn about, however, is that you might lose all of your Angry Birds free time to a game-addicted kitty. Beyond that, we have no comment. [via Laughing Squid]
