I started creating tricks for the iPod and the iPhone as soon as they first came out (that's how I own iPodTricks.com). But until now all of my iPhone effects have been web based ones you use on someone else's iPhone. I came up with iPhoneTrick.com a year before there was such a thing as 3rd party iPhone applications because there wasn't really any other option. Since then the site has become super popular and racks up thousands of visitors a day (my YouTube video explaining how to use it has over 1,000,000 views).

I've been meaning to develop a standalone iPhone trick since it was possible but kept procrastinating. I've seen a ton of stuff come out, most of which is blatantly bad cash grabs. I have nothing against cash grabs, but an iPhone app that's just a couple pages of text or a set of very ugly images isn't going to get anybody excited.

The first app I really liked was Chris Kenner's Rising Card effect. It's a very polished, well thought out effect.

Since there was no way I could compete with that, I decided to hold off for a while. That was until I got a call from a friend who wanted to collaborate. Our last project was almost 10 years ago and became super popular since then: Bob the Psychic Cockroach from Shock FX.

Bob has been underground (literally) for a while but he's decided to make his return to the public eye in the form of an iPhone application. We've been working for the past few weeks getting everything just right. I used James Cameron's performance capture system to create the virtual version of Bob. I think you'll be pretty impressed.

Working with Bob again was so much fun, we actually made two applications. From a magic point of view they're both simple effects based on classic magic tricks. But Bob is a showman and he brings new life to them.

All the lay people we showed the effects to were both fooled and entertained by Bob. He sings and dances as he makes the magic happen and he came up with an idea for a great gross out ending that's a touch back to out original effect in Shock FX.

Right now we're waiting for app store approval which can take anywhere from two weeks to infinity. Keep your antenna crossed and we'll let you know as soon as they're available at the bargain price of $.99.