Apple launches ‘Made in Halifax’ section on the App Store

To celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, Apple has been featuring notable apps made in various provinces throughout the country on the App Store.

Now, the latest entry in the App Store’s “Made in” series focuses on Halifax, Nova Scotia. Some of the apps included in this the Made in Halifax section are:

• Aurora — Puzzle Adventure (Silverback Games)
• Froogie — food tracker (Dalhousie University)
• Glitch Wizard — distort photos to trippy GIFs (Allan Lavell)
• Squiggle Park — teaches children how to read (Eyeread)
• Transit 360 — real time transit schedules (MindSea Development)

“Beautiful waterfronts, incredible seafood, renowned universities — and Homer Simpson, too,” reads a message on the Halifax section of the App Store. “Halifax and its Atlantic Canada neighbours have given us everything from the intriguing photo manipulation app Hyperspektiv to Charlottetown, PEI-developed The Simpsons: Tapped Out. If you’ll forgive a bit of fishy punnery, we’re completely hooked on the prize catches found in this ocean of creative talent.”

Apple has previously featured apps made in Toronto-Waterloo, Vancouver, Montréal, Ottawa and Calgary.
As well, a “Canada’s Best Game Makers” series has also been running this year, with Toronto’s DrinkBox Studios (Severed), Vancouver’s Klei Entertainment (Don’t Starve) and RAC7 (Splitter Critters) and Saskatoon’s Noodlecake Studios (Alto’s Adventure). DrinkBox and RAC7 also won Apple Design awards back in June at the tech giant’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California.

A general, non-province and developer-specific section was also introduced in the App Store; this “Unapologetically Canadian” collection featured apps based on all kinds of categories, including creativity, aimed at children and top downloads in the country.