The Jerx App
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Hey guys, if you ordered the book and you have an iPhone then the Jerx app is available for you.
Some things to note:
1. This is free for the people who bought the book. You'll probably eventually be able to find it in the iTunes store as well, but it's going to have some absurd price on it.
2. Rather than try to hide the app behind some phony financial app or something, it's hidden behind itself. If someone tries to go into the app or asks you what it is, you can open it and it will show L'il Jerxy and his magic trick or tip of the day. These are just going to be stupid bits of "advice" or tricks. The real app is hidden behind this opening screen.
3. The app has one main purpose (Codename: Chocolate & Vanilla) that is not currently listed on it. I'm waiting to release that functionality until the book comes out because it goes along with one of the effects in the book. But it's much bigger than that too. In a sense it's a utility gimmick. It does one very simple thing, but the simple thing it does can be used for a variety of different effects: close-up, stage, magic, and mentalism.
4. While the purpose of the app is the Chocolate & Vanilla capability, there are going to be other mini-tricks on it as well for you to screw around with. The first mini-trick that's loaded on the app right now is Wish List. Wish List is a version of this idea that I mentioned last summer. It's a way to get into a five item equivoque. You go to your friend's house and tell them you want to try this psychological test but it requires 5 very specific items. "You might not even have all these things," you say. You open your phone to get the instructions for the test and then rattle off the items you need. You and your friend then notice those are the exact 5 things sitting on your friend's kitchen table. "What a coincidence," you say. She doesn't believe you but you can immediately show her the directions you copied earlier into your phone that have those as the required items and those five things are listed throughout the brief instructions. You tell her you don't want her to read the whole thing because you don't want it to affect the test. So you send a screenshot of the instructions to her phone to check later. She selects an item through "process of elimination" (wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink) and when she opens the the photo of the instructions you sent her it states that item is the one that will be selected when those group of items are laid out in that particular order.
It's a weird trick because the magic moment doesn't come at the end, but the beginning. And then everything that happens after that is meant to legitimize that moment including the "trick" itself.
5. Eventually everyone who buys the book and who has an iPhone or iPod touch will get the app. But be patient because we're limited by how many we can give away at one time before we update it and things like that. "Why not just make it a free app?" I don't want it to be free. I want it to be free for the people who support the site by buying the book. Everyone else can go screw.
6. Have an idea for a magic app? Hire Marc Kerstein to build it. I don't even know if he's looking for those types of gigs. But if he is and you could use his services, definitely check him out. He can probably do non-magic apps too. That one to track your period, for instance. But again, I don't really know. He didn't ask me to say any of this, I'm just saying it because he's handled the creation of the Jerx app for me. And I'll say, "Hey, can you make it do this?" And then 13 minutes later there is a new build of the app with that feature.
Catch you on the flippety-flappety, Flappy-pants-pappy.
