Magic apps are the trend of the moment. Whether you've just started doing magic or you do magic for a living, the world of apps definitely has something for you.
Since the late 2010s, apps for magicians have grown more and more popular.
This has created a few problems too: today's market is full of apps that aren't worth buying.
It's easy to fall for the illusion that a magic app can give you the superpowers you need: it's easy to use, it often requires no tools beyond your phone, and it makes you feel like a kind of James Bond.
Before buying them, though, you need to know what magic apps really are: where they come from, who creates them, and how you can use them best.
At One Ahead, that's exactly what we do: we help thousands of magicians improve and make better choices and purchases. We put the experience of our expert writers at their service — writers who work first-hand for magicians and with magicians all over the world.
We'll also recommend the names of the best magic apps you should buy.
Where Do Magic Apps Come From?
Magicians have explored the potential of technology since the very beginnings of their craft.
Just consider that among the inventors of the cinematograph were magicians and magic enthusiasts themselves. They made use of cutting-edge technologies when these were still unknown to the general public.
It's no surprise, then, that magicians are now using the same approach with the device we all have in our pockets — the mobile phone — to do magic.
Some early examples of magic with phones didn't even use apps.
In 2010, the mentalist Oz Pearlman (who at the time was known as a magic creator) had released one of the first hit “tech” effects, iCurveball, that let you discover the identity of a person chosen at random from any phone's contacts.
These were years when very few people talked about magic apps, except in the closed-door meetings of some of the top names in magic.
All of that was about to change.
What's the Most Successful Magic App?
It's surprising when you think about it today, but one of the most successful apps ever created by a magician was made to do something completely different from a magic trick.
With the arrival of the first iPhones, a magician named Steve Sheraton created an app that let people turn their phone screen into a glass of beer — one you could drink by tilting the phone.
At one point, this app came to earn 20,000 dollars a day. We told the story of Steve Sheraton’s iBeer app in detail, and it’s a pretty remarkable one.
One of the first uses of an app for an actual magic effect involved small objects, like coins, penetrating the phone screen, only to be pulled back out of the phone, becoming three-dimensional.
That was one of the first successful effects, and it was where many magicians began to realise the potential of using apps for their own effects.
Slowly, the first creators and performers specialising in magic apps began to emerge.
Who Creates Apps for Magicians?
The magic market is dominated by a few big companies, which usually produce and sell the most successful products. However, many of the most famous magic apps have been produced by independent creators.
The first creator to gain a reputation for creating successful apps for magicians was Marc Kerstein, who works with magicians like David Blaine and Derren Brown, and has released several apps of his own over the years.
At One Ahead, we've spoken with the CEOs of the biggest magic companies to chart how the magic market is changing. Market saturation and competition from independent creators are straining the system that had produced the extraordinary figures of the 2000s and 2010s.
The companies offer production and distribution, but for apps this system falters — given how accessible production is for anyone with the skills, and how simple distribution is (a download is all it takes). That's why so many apps are indie.
There are, however, cases of companies that do choose to invest in magic apps. Two popular examples are Hydra Pro, produced by Ellusionist, and Lloyd Barnes's apps produced by Murphy's Magic.
Finally, magic apps are also created secretly on a regular basis for some of the biggest names in magic. If you don’t know much about the world of “secret” magic products, we highly recommend our investigation on secret magic products and their creators.
What Are the Worst Apps for Magicians?
The sheer proliferation of magic apps means some of them are awful, too. It's what happens when a product becomes so popular that more creators jump on the trend hoping to make money from it.
At the most recent magic conventions, more and more dealers are selling magic apps.
Until a few years ago, releasing a magic app required a considerable level of skill. With the most recent developments in AI, that has changed, and producing these apps is now within reach of almost anyone.
That doesn't mean anyone is capable of creating a good app.
If you've recently been ripped off by a product from the magic market, it may well have been because of an app. It's happened to us too — which is why we've put together a guide on how to stop being scammed by the magic market.
How to Perform Magic App Tricks
Many magic apps actually let you perform effects that belong to mentalism. If the world of magic apps interests you, we recommend digging into the best books on mentalism and how top mentalists perform their tricks.
Magic apps are also very well suited to informal settings — performances among friends and acquaintances, where it's acceptable to borrow a spectator's phone. This is one of the reasons they enjoy so much success among hobbyists.
If you're a casual performer, magic apps might be just right for you — which is why we recommend reading our advice for casual performances, along with a list of tips on how to bring your magic up in social settings.
There's nothing to stop you using them in more formal settings, either — quite the opposite.
In that case we'd recommend you work out the best hook for magic tricks, and put real practice in before you do. You might also want to read our guide on how top magicians practice their tricks.
What Tricks Can You Do With Magic Apps?
Magic apps let you perform a range of effects.
A first type of app lets you enhance some of the "analogue" effects magicians already do. Lloyd Barnes's Maxim, for example, lets you quickly identify the best ways to reveal any named card.
Some apps assist the performer in executing other methods, such as peeks and multiple outs. For example, an app might connect to a special impression pad and report the word a spectator has written on it; that word can then be peeked, or copied automatically by the app into a browser or elsewhere.
As for multiple outs, the most famous app for giving a potentially infinite number of outs in a revelation is Digital Force Bag. It lets any item appear in a specific position in a list held in the phone's notes.
Some apps mimic other real apps, like the calculator or the browser. These let you perform forces, peeks and even animations.
Two excellent apps that use search engines for forces and revelations are Inject 2.0 by Greg Rostami and Inertia Pro by Marc Kerstein. As for the calculator, a popular choice is Calculon by ThoughtCast Magic.
A very popular category is the apps that let you magically unlock a complete stranger’s phone. The mentalist Marc Lemon is known for having produced several very advanced apps on this theme.
Finally, the last well-known category is the apps that deal with the actual "phone" function itself. The most famous is undoubtedly Jonathan Levit's The Stranger. During the performance it lets you call a stranger who will then reveal a card the spectator has chosen.
What Are the Best Apps for Magicians?
Beyond the ones already mentioned, we recommend other successful apps:
Wikitest, by Marc Kerstein. It lets you reveal any Wikipedia page a spectator looks up on their phone, and any word the spectator merely thinks of among those written on that page.
Enigma, by Christian Grace. With this app, you can reveal any word the spectator simply thinks of. It's that good.
Steno, by The Daily Magician. This app grew out of the Steno Book Test, first published on One Ahead itself. The spectator takes a book (even a dictionary), flicks through it and thinks of a word they see; the performer is able to reveal that word.
Onyx, by Marc Kerstein. This is the latest frontier of magic apps: it draws on clever pairing and input methods known so far, combining them with the possibilities of generative artificial intelligence. You can alter text and images in photographs the spectator takes with their own phone, for impossible revelations.
What Are the Downsides of Magic Apps?
When a method seems too good to be true, it's probably because you're watching a magic trailer.
In truth, magic apps suffer from much the same problems as other magic products.
Apps give the illusion of being invincible gadgets that, once learned, are easy to use. The problem is that they aren't: they're still part of a performance, and so they have to be combined with original presentations and set in a context that goes beyond whether the single effect works.
As we often say, for a magic trick to be fooling is the bare minimum. The real work is turning that into a performance.
If a routine focuses too much on the phone, then the audience will suspect the method has something to do with it.
This is why it's necessary to use pseudo-methods — the fake methods performers use to draw the audience's attention away from the real ones. At One Ahead you can find a comprehensive guide to pseudo-methods.
We also recommend learning how to create false memories, which let you push the phone's presence into the background in the memory of a performance. A similar method is the cancelling principle for magicians.
One more issue with apps is whether creators keep them updated. This is another reason why few companies produce magic apps — they have to be continually updated and, where possible, improved.
Few creators are consistent with updating their apps over the years, and if you buy an app that isn't kept up to date, it'll end up unusable.
Finally, most apps are only available for iOS.
Are Apps for Magicians Legal?
The debate around the legality of these apps is still far too small. Most magic apps pose no risk in this regard — in fact, they're designed precisely so as not to put spectators' private data at risk.
However, with some apps and some recent devices, that is not the case. Certain apps can put spectators' data at risk. Most of all, with some magic apps, the spectator is not aware of the extent to which the performer can control their phone, and has never agreed to this.
It's a subject that's still discussed far too little in the magic community, and one that many creators seem to ignore.
There are stories of spectators who have threatened legal action against performers who were plainly using certain apps capable of "penetrating" a spectator's phone.
In an age when apps are more and more widespread and everyone seems to want to use them, this is a debate worth having, and one we highly encourage you to consider when you choose which magic apps to buy.