Christmas

The best iPhone Christmas apps for celebrating the holiday

Santa Claus Video Call iPhone

Whether you love Christmas or simply want to get in the spirit, there are tons of fun, useful, and unique Christmas apps for iPhone. You can count down to the date, make festive photos, have your kids talk to Santa Claus, and more.

To give you a helping hand this holiday season, we’ve assembled a collection of Christmas apps to bring some joy to your device, and hopefully you as well.

Festive Christmas iPhone wallpapers

christmas red green ornament iphone wallpaper mock

The Wallpapers of the Week collection is a curated list of photo quality images for your Apple devices. Focusing primarily on iPhone, the section brings a new gallery each Sunday. Often, the images are seasonally specific. Throughout December the focus has prepared us for the colder months. This week, the selection is Christmas specific.

Snowy winter Christmas wallpapers for iPhone

As December begins, we enter the holiday season. Winter wallpapers rank among my favorite, aside from autumn leaves. Today's snowy wallpaper pack contains eleven original creations from iDB's top wallpaper contributor, @AR72014. From holiday bokeh designs to snow covered scenery, there's something for everyone.

Christmas wallpaper pack

On Christmas Eve, it only makes sense to provide you with a pack of Christmas-inspired wallpapers for all of your iPhone devices. The following pack is the handy work of @AR72014, an iDB wallpaper favorite designer. We have plenty of his creations scattered throughout the Wallpapers of the Week category. Below you will find bokeh Christmas lights and snowy cartoon scenes. 

Check out Apple II made out of gingerbread

I got for Christmas everything I wanted, but seeing this makes me wonder... One very creative dad who's obviously handy in the kitchen has built an Apple II out of gingerbread for his Apple-loving son and posted the images of it on Imgur for the whole world to see. Batter yet, the Apple II modeled in gingerbread comes complete with an edible chocolate keyboard, motherboard and floppy disk.

Here comes Apple’s holiday ad

Apple just aired a brand new holiday-themed television commercial through its channel on YouTube. Titled “Frankie’s Holiday,” the cinematic video runs two minutes long and depicts an unexpected holiday visitor who finally receives the “warm welcome he’s always yearned for.” The unexpected visitor is Frankenstein himself, who happens to be an iPhone 7 user.

The Christmas-themed upbeat commercial conveniently closes with a positive message which invites users to open their hearts to everyone.

iDB Holiday Gift Guide: Cody’s picks

One of my favorite things about the holidays is gift-hunting. Whether I'm looking for something to add to my own wish list, or shopping for others, I love trying to track down the perfect present. So as you can imagine, I enjoy taking part in iDB's annual Holiday Gift Guide.

My picks this year consist of both fun and practical gift ideas, that have proven to be well-made and well-reviewed. As you might have guessed, many of the suggestions are tech-related, but I did make sure to include a few non-tech ideas for those that prefer non-gadget gifts.

iOS again beats out Android in Christmas Day mobile shopping

Just like last year, Apple's iPhone and iPad again dominated online shopping traffic and online mobile sales during Christmas Day, according to an IBM survey first shared by VentureBeat.

Based on data from IBM's real-time Digital Analytics Benchmark, which tracked approximately 800 retail websites in the United States, iOS devices were responsible for an average of $97.28 per order spent online versus $67.40 for Android users, a difference of 44.3 percent.

In other words, a commanding 57.1 percent of online shopping via mobile during Christmas Day was carried out using an iPhone or iPad, an increase of 8.3 percent versus the previous year.

Apple airs new holiday-themed iPhone 5s TV ad

Apple has tonight begun airing its first new commercial in nearly a month. As you'd imagine in mid-December, the spot carries a holiday theme and focuses on the new iPhone 5s handset and its AirPlay feature.

The ad shows a teenage boy capturing his family participating in various holiday activities like decorating the Christmas tree and playing in the snow on his iPhone 5s, and then playing it for them on their TV set...