#iphone magic

Lestat Shaming

Someone Shaming

Me: Louis, should I do Tik Tok?

A little iPhone app magic!

The original.

PsiPad – Drawing Duplication on the iPhone

PsiPad is the ultimate drawing duplication tool and peek device for mentalists and magicians! No more carrying around a gimmicked notepad or a special peek wallet. With PsiPad, your spectator can draw anything on your iPhone — and you can see what it is from your Apple Watch! Even if you don’t have an Apple Watch, you can still get a full peek at the drawing. Ask the spectator to hit the clear…

It's been a while.

After over sixteen months in development, I'm very happy to introduce my new app, MAGIC KIT Pro.

The name may be familiar but that 'Pro' label represents fundamental change.

This project started life as a simple point update to Magic Kit and gradually grew into something entirely new.

Magic Tricks

Probably most important to you - this app is filled with new magic. There are two entirely new magic tricks but that's just the beginning. Every magic trick in MAGIC KIT Pro has been revisited, most have been completely redesigned. There's too much to cover here, and words don't do the visually powerful magic justice. That's why I've recorded new demo videos in glorious 4K. These are not carefully edited videos to hide the workings. These are full, mostly single-take, performances.

App Design

I was happy with the way Magic Kit looked but I wanted to refine the design. I spent a long time iterating on the UI and flow of the app. My goal was to reduce the steps needed to start performing. You now launch straight into the Effect Library. The Quick Access menu as been dramatically redesigned to be more compact allowing for more magic tricks to be usefully included.

I've also revamped the icons for many of the tricks.

Technology Powerhouse

Underlying the new magic and refined app design is a load of new technology.

I'm now using 'on demand resources' to ensure the tutorial videos are available (and using device storage) only when they're required. This makes the initial download much smaller.

All the tricks are now indexed for Spotlight search and state restoration is fully supported.  

From a magic trick perspective, I'm now using SceneKit to render certain tricks as fully interactive 3D scenes. This dramatically increases the visual appeal of the magic.

I've also written a comprehensive customisation infrastructure to enable things like custom cards, or alternative force options where required. This mostly behind-the-scenes work means new tricks can be more fully featured more quickly.

New App

I wrestled with the decision to offer this release as a new app or free update to Magic Kit. In the end, I opted to create a new app and offer an update bundle for existing customers (coming soon) for a couple of reasons.

1. What is now called MAGIC KIT Pro represents a tonne of work. Almost every line of code and every visual element has been changed. Releasing over a year's worth of work for free is not sustainable. 2. While I think all the changes are a massive improvement, I felt uneasy making such dramatic changes on behalf of existing customers. If someone really likes the way Photo Escape works in Magic Kit and has built it into their routine, it's not great for me to completely change the trick in an irreversible way.

Magic Kit received 12 major updates over the course of five years. MAGIC KIT Pro is the foundation for the next five years.

Magic sometimes has a bad reputation for being old school, not really keeping up with the times. That is true to an extent: needle swallowing dates back to the Fahkirs of India, sleight of hand came from Ancient Egyptians stealing from the Pharaohs. This release by Sam “The Gambit” Rubman attempts to take magic to the modern age. Released in 2009 (though The Magic Attic’s website says the product was added to their catalog in 1970 haha), this release was one of the firsts for iPhone magic, with later releases by Shin Lim in 2014, Cesar Alonso in 2012, Mark Elsdon in 2013, ect., though there were releases by Nicholas Byrd, Gerald Kirchner, and James Coats around the same time Sam Rubman released his DVD. 

Though the release was early (meaning the app effects created by Rich Ferguson may not have been “in style” yet), I still don’t believe there was that much new material from it. A lot of the moves used by Rubman were from previously created effects for cards; the only difference was that Rubman used an iPhone instead of a deck of cards. Also he does not really give much credit to the inventors of the moves or where the moves were found in... slightly disappointed in that. 

The DVD was a bit hard to watch. Rubman’s performance was very dull and not entertaining at all, and his explanations were average (average meaning he just runs through the moves once or twice and moves on). Each performance and explanation lasts about 2-3 minutes (the DVD is only around 45 minutes long) so the explanation part was only minimal. However, the explanations were just enough that the viewer should know how to perform the trick (though all the tricks were very, very basic). 

Either way, here’s a list of the tricks:

iAppearance #1: With a wave of a fan of cards, Rubman transforms half a pack of cards into an iPhone. Or you can make the iPhone appear onto the pack. Method is not new...

iVanish #1: Done on a table, you clasp the iPhone in between your hand and it vanishes. Very, very old method that every magician already knows. Again, nothing new. 

iAppearance #2: With a wave of the hand, the iPhone appears. The move is yet another old move created a while ago... and Sam Rubman’s performance of this was not the best since it flashed...

iVanish #2: You put the iPhone in the other hand and it vanishes. A variation of a coin move that did not really work with his iPhone at all...

iPhone Thru Table: Literally the same thing as above.

iBlister: Let me just say again that Rubman’s performance is not the greatest. Effect is simple, a blister appears on your finger when you touch the iPhone. I think this is the cleverest effect from this DVD, though it’s not saying much. It is a variation of an old effect but I enjoyed it. I haven’t tried this on the streets yet (honestly I haven’t actually used any effects from this DVD and there’s good reason why as proven by this review), but my assumption is that a decent amount of college kids can easily work it backwards and figure out the method. 

iVoodoo: A variation of the effect above. Concept and method are pretty much the same, just different performance.

iPregnant: A gag pretty much. I’ve seen variations of this trick many, many times before. Not sure which trick came first; it could have been this DVD. However, the usage of this method was not that great since there’s so many possibilities. Casshan Wallace’s variation of this on his At The Table Lecture is my personal favorite, but I’m sure Rich Ferguson, Calen Morelli, and many other artists have their own variation of this effect. 

iPression: A kind of clever effect where the spectator writes down a number and you divine it. The idea stems from a common mentalism effect, though the gimmick is new. The handling needs improvement from Rubman’s because I fear the spectator will easily notice the gimmick (Rubman used his girlfriend as the spectator on the DVD and it seems obvious she knows the methods). 

iRing: A fun little gag where you pretend to answer your ringing iPhone but it is just a piece of paper. I liked the effect. 

iShiner: A useful utility using your iPhone for glimpses. Okay I admit it, this is actually something useful, so one effect out of too many not so useful effects. 

iSwitch: A utility move for switching things such as bills or cards with the iPhone. Also something useful that I might use. Can be used for appearances or disappearances too.

iThru: A trick where the spectator’s chosen card passes through the iPhone when the magician dribbles the deck. The move is a decent one, not sure if it is original but I am not familiar with it (that I remember).

iPeek: Another utility move to “glimpse” something. I say glimpse with quotes because it’s kind of a glimpse in a way but kind of not.... hard to explain. He uses it to divine a serial number. Idk if I’ll use this though.