7 Eggs-Cellent Apps for Easter
Smartphone, iPad apps for egg dying, cooking and gaming.
April 18, 2011— -- Are you ready to dye those eggs and have some chocolate bunnies?
Easter is less than a week away. If you're still in need of ideas for Sunday brunch or fun ways to engage your kids, dozens of smartphone and iPad apps are ready to help you.
Some share tips for disaster-free egg-dying, others give directions for the perfect home-cooked holiday meal. If you're looking for a way to distract your kids while you hide the eggs for their annual Easter hunt, plenty of apps are up to that task too.
Below, take a look at seven smartphone and iPad apps that caught our eye.
Egg Dyeing 101 from Martha Stewart Living
Who better to share tips on decorative egg-dying than Martha Stewart?
If you want to keep it simple this year, the app gives you basic directions for preparing the eggs and keeping your work space clean. But if you want to step it up, the app provides no less than 20 techniques for creating embellished holiday eggs.
Detailed directions, photos and videos show you how to add swirls, speckles and spots to your eggs, or even transform the eggs into animal look-alikes.
The 99-cent app is available for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
For those who don't want to deal with the inevitable mess of real ink and water, Color Me Easter gives you a way to dye Easter eggs (and create all kinds of Easter-themed art) virtually.
Easy to use for even young kids, the app provides black-and-white drawings of eggs, bunnies and other Easter images. Kids just tap on their favorite colors and let their imaginations guide their fingertips.
If they mess up or want to start over, they just shake the handheld to wipe the colors from the screen.
The free app is available for iPhones, iPod Touch and iPad. (It also comes in a 99-cent version with more features.)
Epicurious
For chefs still planning their Sunday meals, Epicurious is at the ready with dozens of sweet and savory Easter recipes.
If you want to add a twist to a traditional Easter dinner, you could try Glazed Ham with Pineapple Mustard Sauce or Baked Smoked Ham With Mango.
Desserts run the gamut from Chocolate Marshmallow Eggs to Walnut and Pistachio Baklava.
The free app is available for Android phones and Apple devices.
What would Easter be without the adorable bunnies?
"Pat the Bunny" isn't necessarily an Easter story, but the holiday is still a great excuse to check out the new high-tech version of the classic children's book.
The app tells kids Pat's tale, while giving them interactive opportunities to make music, pop bubbles, catch butterflies and even see their own reflection (on some devices).
By swiping their fingers across the screen, kids can play hide and seek with the bunny and even paint on the pages.
The app costs $2.99 for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Pop Out! 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit'
This highly-rated app gives another well-known rabbit tale the high-tech treatment.
The digital book shares the story of Peter's adventures while letting kids touch the illustrations to bring them to life.
Just by swiping their fingers across the screen, kids can make rabbits dodge under fences, play with birds and do so much more.
The app also includes a "read to me" feature, music and video.
The 50-page digital book is available for $3.99 for the iPhone and iPad.
Parents looking for help teaching their children about the religious story of Easter might want to take a look at Children's Easter.
The free application includes a Lenten calendar and comic book strips that illustrate passages for every day from April 1st to April 25th (Easter Monday).
The application, which is made by the creators of Children's Bible (which the company says is the most downloaded children's e-book), is available for the iPhone and iPad.
Angry Birds Season -- Easter Update
Yes, even Angry Birds wants to get into the Easter Spirit.
The wildly popular mobile game continues to sell heavily at the Apple iTunes store and was recently named the App of the Year by the U.K. Appy awards.
In addition to its original game, Rovio, the company behind Angry Birds, has released Angry Birds Seasons. The company last week tweeted that a series of new Easter levels are on the way.
According to the tech blog PocketGamer, the game's evil pigs are expected to get pink bunny ears and collectable eggs and candy will be added to the game.
The 99-cent app is available for Android phones and Apple devices.