Every year the first really sunny days lighten us up in Finland. The steps seem to be lighter, smile is wider and everything feels simply brighter. See, I’m even writing with rhymes! It’s amazing how people in the North quickly turn into happy human beings as soon as there’s enough light.

Think about what this annual change does for a working environment! I’ve paid attention and noticed a few things at our office. Programmers and graphic designers come earlier and earlier to the office, we all go out and have lunch together, and many of us ...

Lately, we have been devoting time to study the free-to-play model that is used in the mobile gaming industry. When checking the App Store and Google Play grossing rankings it is easy to see which apps are making the best monetization. At the moment, they are all free-to-play apps.

We have started a couple of new projects in which one option is to utilize free-to-play monetization. Another of these new apps is a game and the other goes more into educational app category. Our biggest challenge is to understand how the free-to-play model would work in children’s apps. The ...

Last week I told you about the first steps in our app development process at Spinfy. Now I'll go through the rest.

Step four – Programming
Joni, our Software Designer, was the guy who made it all come alive. When I asked him to put into words what he did, he mentioned ”setting the pictures into the right places” and ”planning the logic behind the realization of the app”. I think that sounded way too simple to describe all those lines of code, so I had to dig deeper.

The logic behind an app can be very complex because you ...

This time I'll share with you some details of how we developed the interactive Moomin Costume Party kids app. Using a known brand like the Moomins means instant recognition from the existing fan base, but there's also more parties involved and a more complex decision-making process. I hope this post will give you some new insight on what happens in our office on a day-to-day basis.

Partners involved in the process
Spinfy, that's us
Moomin Characters Ltd, the copyright holder
Riina and Sami Kaarla, author and illustrator couple
WSOY, Finnish book publisher

Step one - The concept
The ...

Lately we’ve been so busy that we haven’t had the time to update our blog or think about any Christmas gift shopping. That’s why we asked on Twitter what is the must have Moomin gift this Christmas. Surprisingly nobody mentioned Moomin apps! I guess they didn’t know we have a new Moomin app coming to the App Store just before Christmas. Not to forget Tatu and Patu!

Thanks to our upcoming releases, we expect to have a great Christmas. Especially when tablets are on the top of many Christmas gift wish lists. It’s even expected ...

This time I will recap what we’ve been doing lately. First of all, we’ve got our hands full of new productions and projects. I cannot share all the details yet but this week we received the Chinese and Russian translations of the Moomin and the Lost Belongings. Now we’re waiting for the narration in those two languages. It will be very exciting when we get the sound files and hear our Moomin story in Chinese and in Russian for the first time!

In addition to language versions, there’s also a third Moomin app coming from us ...

Last week I attended the Helsinki Book Fair with Moominpappa. Yes, I take him with me on my business trips. However, this was a totally new experience after Bologna Children’s Book Fair and Frankfurt Book Fair because this time I met children and other dedicated Moomin fans instead of publishing professionals.

I was showcasing Moomin apps in the children’s section and saw hundreds of kids in four days. At least it felt like hundreds of kids because many of them came back three or four times a day because they couldn’t get enough of our Moomin apps ...

Testing... testing... One, two, one, two...
Spinky’s soooo excited because Spinky has never written a blog post before, so the first one can be kinda weird. Sorry!

Guess who’s always hungry. Like really really hungry? Spinky! So Spinky likes to eat lots of apps every day. Mostly children's apps, but any good app will do! If you have any recommendations Spinky is definitely interested in getting a bite.

Let's see, what else? Spinky has his own little hideout in Spinfy's web site! But usually Spinky spends most of the time snooping around the web, looking ...

Kirjat roviolle? That was my first reaction when I heard that Rovio Entertainment would enter the book app category. There’s a Finnish word play in the sentence. In addition to a Finnish entertainment company, ‘rovio’ means a bonfire. But I’m not really asking whether books should be thrown into a bonfire, like it has happened for too many times in the history. Quite the contrary.

Last week we attended the Frankfurt book fair. The big news there was that Rovio is entering the book app category with a recipe book. We think it’s a huge thing for ...

Hi! My name is Adele Pennington (also known as moomin_mania), a new guest blogger for Spinfy. I am a devoted Moomin collector and Tove Jansson enthusiast from England. Ever since the release of The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My, I have been pestering Spinfy to work on a new Moomin app because I was completely obsessed, but all they would tell me was that they were 'working on something'. You can imagine my delight when they told me about the new book app called Muumilaakson kadonneet tavarat!

I'm really passionate about books but also about technology too ...