When it released, I announced the NORAD Santa Tracker, built by Microsoft through a partnership with NORAD. You can read about that here: Microsoft's ReThink Initiative Produces the Best NORAD Santa Tracker Yet.
Shortly afterward, Google release their own Santa thingie, that truly paled in comparison to what some might say, the "official" version from Microsoft. Google's is a pretty bland representation and looks like someone simply copied a coloring book page and posted it to the web. At least they stayed in the lines when applying color (mostly).
For Microsoft, releasing just a web site was not enough. The company has now released an official NORAD Tracks Santa app for Windows 8.1 that brings the entire web-based experience to a touch-enabled device. The app is great. It provides NORAD history for the adult children and games for the youngsters.
Search the Windows store for 'NORAD Tracks Santa' or grab it at this link:
The Windows 8.1 app includes these features:
- A countdown to Christmas Eve clock
- A world globe and map (built in Bing) that tracks Santa as he makes his gift-delivering trip.
- Learn more about NORAD and how and why we track Santa
- Videos from all the Commands centers
- Games and activities
- Live Tiles that give up-to-date information on Santa's location
