For a few years now, tv shows and movies have been available on handheld products, mostly pioneered by Apple’s iPhone and iTouch. Then, about a year ago, Kindle started to standardize a new digital frontier for printed books and comics to appear on mobile devices. A few days ago, Apple officially unveiled their latest creation, the iPad, which promises to bring all sorts of happiness to digital fans everywhere. With the device’s portable nature, high quality screens, and internet streaming capabilities, could this truly be the future of how we watch our cartoons? A number of companies have utilized the iPhone for showcasing their films and animated projects, like Disney and Pixar’s UP, or some Nickelodeon series. Now that the device have become large enough for a group of fans to sit around and watch, we could be seeing many more toons hit the iPad, daily. What’s your take? (more… )

The iPhone and iPod Touch are receiving some Mouse power! Disney is launching a brand new application for the portable devices that will include a range of content from the Magical World of Disney. This includes news, character bios, a live stream of Radio Disney, new and original videos, as well as games. The app will be regularly updated, providing a constant stream of Disney features, even going so far as to manage other Disney and Disney-related apps the user might have on the same device.

FitzRoy Media recently signed a deal with Axis3 Apps to create games for Heathcliff and Funny Face. Under the deal, Axis has the exclusive rights to build games and applications for iPhones based on the two popular properties. The plan is to release the first Heathcliff and Funny Face games this November for the iPhone and iPod Touch, with more to work their way out later next year. All games will be available for download through iTunes.

The VeggieTales have been getting a lot of exposure lately. They have their own series, a number of hit DVDs, some upcoming iPhone applications, and a brand new Christmas special on DVD, VeggieTales: Saint Nicholas A Story of Joyful Giving, available in a few weeks on October 3rd. Featured in that holiday special will be a brand new song called The song is called VeggieTales Give This Christmas Away, with performances by Amy Grant and Matthew West. Big Idea and Operation Christmas Child will be teaming up to make the song’s music video available to download free on their sites, until September 30th. Afterward, the video will be part of the Christmas DVD.

It might sound like a delicious pre-meal platter (vegetable appetizers??) but we’re not talking about food! Big Idea and Personalized Products are working together on the first ever iPhone / iTouch app for VeggeTales, called VeggieTales Just For Me. Amongst other uses, the application allows users to spin Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber into a number of different costumes, select from hundreds of different background images featuring the world of VeggieTales characters, and play the Tuba Game. Sure, you can’t eat it, but… seems just as fun!

It’s only been out of the theaters for a few months (and it’s actually still “floating” around in some places) but we’re already nearing the launch of the DVD for Disney / Pixar’s animated blockbuster Up. Disney Studios Home Entertainment plans to have the film on shelves this November 10th, 2009, in two different forms: a four-disc Blu-ray Combo Pack, and a two-disc DVD. In addition to tons of the standard bonus features and extras, both of the forms will include DisneyFile, which is a smaller digital copy of the movie that can be viewed on various devices, like the iPhone.

Earlier this year, Nickelodeon began to release a number of apps and games into the iTunes store, for use on the iPhone and iTouch devices. Since that time, the Nick apps have been very successful, frequently amongst the most downloaded in the store. They’ve also recently launched a survey with 500 parents about how kids and families use the devices, and the results are pretty easy to understand: we like fun apps! Games, activities, whatever. So much so that parents have started purchasing their kids an iPhone or iTouch just like it was a “regular” handheld gaming device, like the Sony PSP, Nintendo GBA, or Nintendo DS. What do you guys think? Are these appropriate for little kids? Do you spend hours upon hours a day playing away on your iPhone?

Animax Entertainment has signed up with Little Pim, producer of the animated DVD series Fun With Languages, to create an interactive foreign language game for Apple’s iPhone. The hope is to have the game launched and ready for downloads from the iTunes store this August, starting with a series of learning activities in French and Spanish using vocabulary and animation from the Little Pim DVDs. Later installments of the app will feature additional languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, and Hebrew.