Attention-Grabbing Free Banner App for iPhone Shakes Up Games, Concerts

Feb. 17, 2011 - PRLog -- Fireworks explode in front of your iPhone with the latest update to Shake Banner from Ringmaster Mobile, released today. The utility app uses the accelerometer to create the illusion of words floating in space, and the latest release adds lively background effects like fireworks, snow and stars among its new features.

"It's fun for hockey games, concerts, parties, and even hailing a taxi," said Brian Krause, developer of the app and a founder of the company. "If you need to get a message across visually, Shake Banner is the fastest way to do it with your iPhone or iPod touch."

The new features in this version include fades and random colors for the text, font choices, one-touch access to recently displayed messages, and lively animated backgrounds that take advantage of the shaking motion.

The App Store featured previous versions of Shake Banner as New & Noteworthy and What's Hot. Customers in 24 countries including the United States, Taiwan and France made previous versions a top 100 utility.

Pricing and Discounts

Ringmaster Mobile also announced that all features from previous versions will now be free, supported by ads.

Customers can buy the new, advanced options with In-App Purchase, which disables the ads. The company says the regular price is $2.99 for the package, but it will be on sale for $1.99 for an introductory period.

How It Works

Exploiting the phenomenon known as persistence of vision where a flash of light seems to linger, Shake Banner creates the illusion of whole words floating in the air as the device is shaken back and forth. Other party guests, sports fans and concertgoers can read the text effortlessly. With scrolling message apps, the audience has to work to remember the sequence of letters, sounding out words as they move by. The shaking attracts attention and creates a larger canvas for the message and special effects.

The app is full of thoughtful touches so users can act quickly on an urge to send a message. If a message is already set up, then shaking the device as soon as the app launches will show it. There is no Play button to tap. The new message history restores all the settings for a previous message with a single touch, so the right message is always ready to go. Another example of the thoughtful design is the single touch continuous color palette that is more efficient than the more common approach of multiple sliders.

System Requirements and Availability

Shake Banner 1.2 is available immediately worldwide through the App Store, localized for American and international English, French, Japanese and Spanish. It supports any writing system supported by iOS, including Chinese, Japanese and Korean and even bidirectional languages like Hebrew. iOS 4.0 or later is required. Since the app relies on a one-handed shaking technique, Shake Banner is not recommended for iPad.

Shake Banner on the App Store
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shake-banner/id408734441?m...

Screenshots, Photos and Icons for Editorial Use
http://s1220.photobucket.com/albums/dd443/ringmastermobil...

Ringmaster Mobile Website
http://www.ringmastermobile.com

Shake Banner 1.2 Demo Video on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i00LJ51skt4



Ringmaster Mobile on Twitter
http://twitter.com/ringmastermobil

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Ringmaster Mobile publishes elegant iOS utilities for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The company was founded in Silicon Valley in 2009. The founding team, all mobile technology veterans, includes Martin Haeberli and Brian Krause.

App Store, iPhone, iPod touch and iPad are trademarks of Apple Inc. IOS is a trademark of Cisco and is used under license.

REVIEWERS: Please send your UDID for an ad-hoc build with the new features enabled, since In-App Purchase does not have a promo code mechanism.