Burns Night app

The Burns Night toolkit: bestselling book and app to plan your celebration.

Our cheeky wee smartphone app is now updated for 2013! As featured in iTunes UK's NEW & NOTEWORTHY, the Guardian's apps blog and on BBC 6 Music. Available now from iTunes.
And following the runaway success of the app, there's now a book, Burns Night: A Freestyle Guide. It's a veritable toolkit for planning your own party, and is the perfect gift.

Whether you’re a veteran of the world’s greatest birthday party or you’re a Burns Supper virgin, this is the red, red rose of apps – a complete toolkit for your Burns Night celebration, wherever you are.
Learn how to cook your haggis to perfection (with a little help from Jo Macsween of the famous Macsween haggis company and author of The Haggis Bible). Then serenade its journey to the table with our tuneful iPipes, played by Finlay Johnston. Address it in style, and then – to help you avoid looking like a ramgunshoch horse-leech, use our 'flyte assistant' to find the perfect Burnsian insults (or compliments) for your speeches and toasts. To help you recite Tam O’Shanter with the best of them, listen to how it’s done by leading pro Aly Macrae, and then repeat it yourself with the help of our autocue. Round your evening off with the best of Burns’ songs, arranged and sung by the inimitable Grace-Hewat-Polwart trio, and then the traditional version of Auld Lang Syne.

The updated app, produced with our fantastic partners Spot Specific, and made super-stylish by Scott Smyth's design, is available now from iTunes (69p). Pick up Burns Night: A Freestyle Guide from your local independent bookseller for £5.99, or find it on Amazon UK.

Who's who in the app: A stirring performance by top NTS actor Alasdair MacRae brings Tam o' Shanter to life, and you can use the autocue to follow his lead and work on your own delivery once you've heard how it's done. Top singers Karine Polwart, Corrina Hewat and Annie Grace have treated us to some of their acclaimed Burns arrangements; Karine Polwart has won yet more awards this year, whilst Annie, Karine and Kirsty (who sings Auld Lang Syne) have all been invited to sing at the Scottish Parliament for the State Opening, the official Burns Night parties, and other occasions.

Scott Smyth of Ithinkitsnice designed the signature look for the app, including the built-in compass, which points you to Robert Burns's birthplace, allowing you to salute him when raising your glasses to his Immortal Memory. Chloe van Grieken created the iPipes art, and champion piper Finlay Johnston recorded the tune, with Peter Murray of Xtralargerecordings. Adding to the Bard's own words, more were written by Michael Kerrigan, and yet a few more by Sophie Franklin. And the new recipes in the app are all from Jo Macsween, the queen of haggis. Thanks all!

And special thanks to our co-developers who did all the techy stuff: Spot Specific.