Laptop-DRV » Software and Operating Systems

FX Photo Studio for iPad: Amazing Filters, Amazing Facts

admin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:07:57 +0000

FX Photo Studio HD is the large update to MacPhun’s already capable iPad print modifying application. There have been roughly a single gazillion photo-processing apps in the store, but FX stands out for two reasons. First, it is very easy to use as well as second, it comes packaged with great goods.

The app functions similar to many others: you select an picture from your print manuscript as well as afterwards flip through menus to enhance or destroy it. FX wins here as it is quick, both in loading as well as in previewing the effects. And about those effects: There are 181 apart things you can do. Some effects are variations (there have been the couple of dissimilar vignettes, for e.g., as well as a little filters are simply tone variations on the theme). And some are solid run-down.

But nearly all of these filters have been value perplexing, from “Stencil Poster Red” seen in my screen-grab on top of, thru assorted lo-fi Lomoesque color shifts to blurs, tilt-shifts as well as even underlying paper textures. If I had had this back when I was the graphic designer, It would have let me get a lot more work done from the club.

There have been additionally basic modifying tools: Hidden inside of the filters you will find lightness, contrast as well as alternative adjustments. Effects can be attempted one by a single, as well as they replace any other. Press “Apply” as well as the shift is baked in (you can still remove. Then any brand new outcome is overlaid, creation the possibilities endless.

The common sharing options are here: Facebook, Flickr, Tumbler and Twiter, plus e-mail as well as save to print album. There is additionally an in-app “documents” printed matter to keep things you don’t need elsewhere.

The level of gloss is high. Not only can you re-order a effects lists, you can make the list of favorites, as well as all the UI transitions are smooth, fast fades. One really tidy feature is the ability to share the preset. First, you save your multi-effect preset, as well as then you opt to share it. Hit a share button and a preset settings are uploaded. You can afterwards share the formula via Twitter, Facebook, e-mail or a clipboard. And if somebody else sends you the formula, you can come in it as well as apply a effect to your own photos.

For all-out image tweaking, Photogene is still my the one preferred, though the operation and quality of goods in FX Photo Studio makes it good value a $3 price-tag. And it has one killer feature that, as distant as I know, no other app contains: Amazing Facts. When you export an image, it takes a few seconds to describe. The app throws up an Amazing Fact to
review whilst you wait. For example, did you know that in Australia, kids can’t buy cigarettes, though they have been authorised to fume them?

FX Photo Studio HD [iTunes]

FX Photo Studio HD [MacPhun. Thanks, Tyler!]

Apple Releases iOS 4.2.6 With Fixes for Verizon iPhone

admin — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 05:10:23 +0000

Apple has done the brand new version of iOS accessible for download. iOS v4.2.6 doesn’t bring brand new journal subscription payments, or repair AirPlay to work properly with third-party apps. It doesn’t add gestures to a iPad. In fact, it does roughly nothing, unless you have been the propitious recipient of a new Verizon iPhone that officially arrives currently.

Apple’s release notes have been infamously meager, and this is no difference. Here is the whole of a “What’s new” territory on MacUpdate:

Fixes the bug to ensure Personal Hotspot data use is accurately reported (for Verizon iPhones).

The refurbish, previously accessible as a direct download to patch examination units, should be ready for you when you plug in your new Verizon iPhone 4 today and is, as ever, gratis.

iOS 4.2.6 [MacUpdate]

Android In-App Payments Begin With Angry Birds

admin — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:51:38 +0000

Angry Birds, a insanely renowned multi-platform game, is introducing the brand new remuneration system to a little Android clientele for purchasing in-game content.

Angry Birds diversion players will be means to make use of their genuine cash money to compensate for virtual products existent only inside of the game’s ecosystem. It’s like buying the shovel for your plot on Farmville with your Mastercard.

The pretension? “Bad Piggy Bank.”

Yes, it has a foolish name. And yes, it’s only for Android/Angry Birds clientele upon a Elisa mobile conduit network in Finland. But it’s some-more poignant than you might think.

Now, users won’t have to whip out a cosmetic each time they wish to buy which trowel. Instead of typing in your 16-digit series when you want to purchase an item, you name content you want to squeeze in the game, as well as name a Bad Piggy Bank icon (above), according to Rovio’s blog post. The charges have been done via your phone’s SMS text messaging scheme, as well as a cost will appear in your phone bill.

The introduction of in-app payments are a step towards solving a big complaint in traffic with virtual economies — how to get players to pay genuine dollars for non-real items. With in-app payments, developers revoke what is called the “friction” inside of app ecosystem purchases. That is, it’s most simpler to fork over your money when all it takes is the singular click. And developer studios similar to Rovio want to have it as easy as probable on its customer bottom.

Until as recently as last Wednesday, Android users were firm to sure payment methods like Google Checkout, a assistance with a story tormented by user complaints. Direct carrier billing — which bills your mobile assistance provider for a app purchases you make — has been available since 2009, though usually to T-Mobile clientele regulating Android devices. A second carrier, AT&T, was combined as not long ago as December.

Needless to say, remuneration options for Android OS inclination have moved sluggishly brazen over a past two years.

“This is a single of a bigger issues that all a developers have with Android,” said Rovio CEO Mikael Hed in a prior talk with Wired.com. “It doesn’t have iTunes.”

Like Hed says, Apple hasn’t faced a payment issues in a same way. Each and each customer accessing a iOS App store is required to have an iTunes comment, which is linked to an existent credit card account. With a Android Market, not all users even have Google Checkout.

That type of non-straightforward remuneration system seems to have led to the culture of freeloading on Google’s ecosystem.

“Nobody pays on Android,” says Rovio’s Mighty Eagle Peter Vesterbacka.

Google wants to change which. Last week’s rollout of a Android Market web store brought users the chance to download apps from their desktop browser as well as “push” the apps to their Android mobile inclination, easing a browse-ability of Android’s app catalog while hopefully increasing app sales.

Trying to captivate in more Android app developers as well, app vendors are now means to specify a price of each app in multiple banking amounts, saving users the time they spent doing the math upon banking acclimatisation themselves.

As referred to before, Angry Birds is usually allowing in-app payments for those upon the Elisa mobile conduit network in Finland, but Google expects in-app payments to be accessible to all Android users before a finish of open. With which sort of time frame and a biggest app across all platforms already featuring a process of remuneration, we’ll have to wait as well as see if Android users begin to pony up some-more dough.

Brian X. Chen contributed to this inform.

Photo: Bad Piggy Bank/Rovio

Simpletext Adds Dropbox Sync as well as Lists

admin — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 23:27:33 +0000

Gadget Lab’s favorite note-taking app – Simplenote – has only seen the major brand new refurbish. But don’t be concerned. If you love Simplenote since it is so, good, elementary, then you can keep upon using it as if nothing had changed.

Here’s a list of what’s brand new:

Passcode lock
Better tags
People tags
Group tags
Lists
Dropbox integration

Let’s begin with a final object initial. Premium users (the app is free, though you can pay a eachyear subscription to go pro) can right away sync their notes with Dropbox. Once finished (at the Simplenote website, not in the app), your notes are mirrored as solid content files in a Dropbox office of your preference. The default name is Simplenote, but you can shift it to whatever you similar to.

This equates to which you can sync Simplenote with any other Dropbox-friendly app. For example, you can have discerning records about your novel in Simplenote as well as afterwards labor as well as extend them in a purpose-built text-editor like Plain Text or Writings. It additionally means you can sync with any app on the desktop machine which can read plain content files.

Next up is lists, additionally the premium underline. You can spin a note into the list by drumming a “i” button in the note on your iOS device and flipping a “View As List” switch. Items now get lines between them, as good as the informed three-line iOS grab-handle for re-ordering list equipment. Swiping across an object outlines it finished, striking it by as well as graying it out.

Lists have been still stored as solid text, and a syntax of these solid content versions is really identical to that used by the TaskPaper to-do app (pro tip for TaskPaper users: a @done tab isn’t upheld.

The next big fix-up is tags. These now auto-complete as you sort. You can also tab records with a person’s email address and it will be common with them, automatically. If they have a Simplenote comment, the note will uncover up in their Simplenote. If not, they get a link to the note upon a web. Any changes they have, from either of these places, are reflected in your note right away.

Further, you can make “group tags”. These are just like groups in your mail client. In the tagging section of a note, hit the blue plus-sign as well as then hit a other plus-sign during a bottom of a resulting window. Give your group the pretension and pick a people you want to put in it. All email addresses have been auto-completed from your contacts.

Now, when you tag a note with this group name, it is shared with everyone in that organisation. I can see this being really useful for the Gadget Lab group at subsequent year’s CES, to keep track of that bars we will be assembly in.

And that’s about it. You can right away password-protect your notes. A little gloss has been combined to the web-app, and premium subscriptions have left up to $2 per month, or $20 per year. That’s up from a dollar the month as well as $12 per year, that will doubtless cause many cheapskates to cackle into their watery, 50-cent crater of coffee.

If you don’t already have Simplenote, then contrition on you. Its free. Go get it right away.

New reward facilities: Dropbox syncing and list [Simplenote blog]

iOS refurbish: sharing, passcode close, fixes as well as some-more [Simplenote blog]

Easy note pity regulating tags [Simplenote blog]

Simplenote download [iTunes]

Apple Fixes iOS App Store with Search Filters, Previous Purchases

admin — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:17:37 +0000

If you fire up a App Store on your iPad today, you’ll find it only got the total lot more useful. Instead of flipping by pages of junk to find a app you wish, or wondering if you already paid for something, you can now navigate with ease.

Two simple additions shift the shopping experience utterly. First, any app you have formerly bought, as well as subsequently removed from your iPad, will show up with the word “Install” in place of the “Buy” symbol. You have regularly been means to re-download formerly payed-for apps without paying again, but it took the leap of conviction to do it. You had to tap upon the cost, and afterwards upon the “Buy” symbol. Try revelation which to Aunt Flo.

Second, as well as way more useful, is a addition of filters to the store. Now, when performing the search, drop-down menus let you filter by difficulty, recover date, customer rating, price (free or paid), and device sort (iPad, iPhone). These can be combined, as well as reset by possibly attack the “Clear All” button or just entering the brand new poke term. Thus you can search for five-star time apps on a iPad as well as see all the results (in this box,there are nothing.

The filters only apply to searches, so you can’t arrange the category lists by star rating, sadly, though it equates to an end to a unconstrained paging, and makes third-party app aggregators similar to App Advice the small reduction essential.

And don’t look for a Mac App Store-style list of purchases. You won’t find it. On a alternative palm, if you never delete apps from iTunes on your mechanism, you have that list right there.

Scrabble-Like iOS App Crosses Platforms to Android

admin — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 01:13:06 +0000

Before Angry Birds insanity swept mobile device users everywhere, the masses were interested in words.

The Scrabble-like Words With Friends app, that is. An arriving brand new platform recover for the diversion might infer which whilst pigs might be failing in droves, difference have been still alive as well as good.

Previously exclusive to iOS mobile inclination, a Scrabble-like Words is coming to a Android OS as shortly as subsequent week, says amicable game developer company Zynga. Playing the diversion on an Android device will be flattering most the same as if you played it on your iPhone, a company says.

Now, people will additionally be able to play in a same diversion opposite both platforms. That means no more Droid lovers feeling left out whilst their iOS-using pals are geeking out upon triple-word scores.

Words With Friends on a iPhone/iPad height has proven the measureless recognition in a past. The app boasts 2.5 million daily active users, with over 10 million downloads given its origination. Currently upheld by ads, a app is free for download from Apple’s app store. A paid version with no ads displayed will be coming soon to the Android Market as well as Apple app store.

But releasing a app on Android is not as simple as slapping a garland of iOS formula onto your Android phone.

“We wrote Words from a ground up with Android in mind,” Zynga Senior Engineer Jason Tomlinson told Wired.com in an talk. “For example, since there’s so many dissimilar resolutions opposite Android inclination, shade distance compatibility is the serious issue.”

Leading the small team of 3 or four engineers, Thompson as well as his organisation worked given October essay formula in Java, the primary programming language for the Android OS. Knowing software refurbish fragmentation across devices has been the critical emanate for Android users, Tomlinson’s team done the Words app compatible with hardware running the many up to date 2.3 chronicle (Gingerbread) all the way back to 1.6 (Donut). It will additionally run upon Google’s nonetheless to be released version 3.0 (Honeycomb), the chronicle of Android optimized for tablets.

Some transitions to the Android OS surroundings were easier than others. “The art ports over often seamlessly,” Words co-founder Paul Bettner told Wired.com. “Same with a sounds we make use of. And a same set of servers upon the back end have been supporting both iOS as well as Android users,” Bettner said.

But when Bettner founded Newtoy Inc., a developer studio which combined Words, in 2008, a whole studio was focused upon iOS coding, as well as has continued to be until last year.

“When the comparatively new platform like Android comes along,” Bettner said, “it’s formidable to find coders in a commencement. Even a most gifted Android developers in a universe would have only the few months of experience doing it. Once Google’s OS started growing in popularity, a requests for an Android chronicle of a app came flooding in. That’s when we proposed seeking for help.”

Help came in the form of Tomlinson, who has worked with Google upon Android since a open-source code’s pregnancy. Tomlinson worked with the existing engineers to help adapt them to coding in Java rather than a Apple-preferred language, Objective-C.

“Whichever height an engineer begins programming for, there’s always starting to be the couple of hurdles jumping from a single to an additional,” Tomlinson told Wired.com. “Generally, however, the learning bend for switching from Objective-C to Java is much easier, as Java is easier to collect up.”

With the success of a iOS chronicle of the diversion in thoughts, Zynga is preparing the servers for “the many optimistic projections” of new user acceptance rates, says Bettner.

If the diversion takes off for a Android OS, it’s probably not a stretch to design other large cross-platform releases in 2011.

Photo: Words With Friends using upon a Motorola Xoom tablet.
Mike Isaac/Wired.com

Google Launches Android Market Web Store, Improves Payment System

admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 07:18:24 +0000

TOWERING PERSPECTIVE, California — Google is sleepy of Apple luring all the mobile developers divided.

To fight back, the association is trying to make it easier for customers to purchase as well as install Android apps.

At association headquarters here this morning, Google opened the Android Market web store, the web portal which lets users crop as well as purchase apps from the Android Market but requiring a smartphone.

Google announced the brand new web site in an on-campus event showcasing a brand new Android chronicle 3.0, aka Honeycomb, that is nonetheless to be expelled.

Previously usually permitted by regulating an Android smartphone, you can right away entrance the Android Market site by a web browser upon other devices, such as desktop computers, laptops, netbooks or — as we saw today upon a Honeycomb-fueled Motorola Xoom — inscription. After accessing the site and signing in to your Google comment, you can search a 200,000-plus apps featured on a central Android Market, as well as have app purchases on your browser.

After purchasing, apps will install without delay to the specified smartphone device of your selecting via Wi-Fi or 3G connectivity.

In other words, you still need an Android device to run a apps, though you can “push” them to your device, using a browser.

Google additionally voiced softened payment options as a supplement to a web-store launch. Credit card numbers as well as other personal remuneration report is stored in your particular Google comment. After choosing an app, you can make the remuneration regulating a one-click purchase system.

Google is additionally giving developers some-more control upon a backend. In a developer console, Android app developers will right away be able to set a cost of an app in different currencies privately supported by the Android Market. So what may cost an American user $5, the developer can additionally mention a price of a app to a European user paying with a euro.

Finally, in-app payments will soon be coming to the Android Market, letting users purchase things like practical banking, additional levels or in-game consumables but leaving a app surroundings. The developer documentation for in-app payments is being expelled currently. Google expects in-app payments to be accessible to Android users before a finish of open.

It’s a prolonged overdue pierce by Google, as Apple has had app-store-directory access accessible to customers by browser given 2007. And Android Market users have complained about remuneration systems.

Apple’s app store contains 400,000-plus applications, over twice that of Android’s.

“I think Android has the history of behaving good despite having a late begin,” user interface director Matias Duarte told Wired.com in an talk. “We’re pretty excited about it.”

Although Google showed all the brand new Android Market developments upon the new brand new Honeycomb Android refurbish, a company gave no details as to when a refurbish will be launched.

Photo: Andy Rubin, Google VP of Engineering (Mike Isaac/Wired.com)

SynthCam: Shallow Depth-of-Field Photos upon iPhone

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 03:35:51 +0000

SynthCam is substantially the coolest cellphone photography app we’ve seen in quite a whilst. In short, it allows you to snap iPhone pictures with the really shallow abyss of field, blurring a credentials of your cinema and creation the subject cocktail out. This is usually the domain of SLRs and other large-sensor cameras.

How does SynthCam work this sorcery? By crunching numbers. To use the app, by Marc Levoy (professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University), you frame a image, strike the “shutter” symbol and afterwards move the phone in small circles, keeping it perpendicular to your theme. The camera annals video as well as afterwards routine the frames to keep a subject sharp and blur a background. Because it shoots video, a fortitude is lowered, though a outcome is startlingly similar to a genuine thing.

In his demo video, Levoy says which a effect functions by simulating a larger apertures found in SLRs. Move the little iPhone lens in circles, the thinking goes, as well as you emanate the bigger orifice, much like scribbling the Sharpie will make the bigger mark than only tapping it on the paper.

This seems simplified, although it’s a great sufficient layman’s reason. What a app is doing is tracking the subject and watching how the credentials moves at the back of it. This does simulate the larger aperture, kinda, though the behind-the-scenes estimate is you do more than only stitch images together side-by-side.

These 15-second exposures have a little nice side effects, too. Low-light noise can be reduced by gripping the camera still via the bearing as well as then combining a results to make a brighter, less noisy picture. But improved is a “tourist-removal”, as it could be called. A prolonged exposure will usually record things in a frame for a whole time. Any passersby will only vanish.

The app can be had right now for the iPhones 4 and 3GS or iPod Touch using iOS 4.2 or improved, as well as costs $1. Combine this thing with Instagram and you just found a way to outlay a rest of your day.

Synthcam product page [Marc Levoy]

Synthcam [iTunes]

Essay: iPad Rich Text Editor Shows Promise, Needs Work

admin — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 12:06:48 +0000

Essay is a abounding content editor for a iPad. Apple’s tablet has plenty of plain content editors, with all demeanour of special features, though unless you go for the more formidable apps similar to Pages, or entire office-suites like Documents To Go, afterwards you can’t add simple things like italics or headlines to your work.

Enter Essay, that bills itself somewhat ambitiously as “the iPad word processor”. It’s an ultra-simple text-editor in the vein of Plain Text or iA Writer, usually it lets you format which text.

Essay syncs with a iPad’s de facto file scheme, Dropbox, as well as stores its files in HTML format, readable by just about any desktop text-editing software. You can also get papers out around iTunes or email. And as features go, that’s about it.

The genuine decider in these kinds of apps is the interface, and Essay gets a job finished superbly. Open the app and you see a list of documents in the mainstay upon the left, with a document row alongside. On the far right there is the tiny club with a little controls: mail, imitation, full-screen-view and edit. Edit (in a shape of a pencil) brings up a row with buttons for confidant, underline, italics, strikethrough as well as highlight. You can additionally convert a paragraph into a “section” or the “subsection” (or back into physique content. This row can additionally be accessed by swiping it in from a screen-edge, which hides a source-column, gripping a main section the same distance.

It functions really good, as well as looks the lot similar to Hog Bay Software’s PlainText, with extras.

The problem comes when you make use of an external keyboard. You can sort, though almost no set of keys shortcuts have been supported. You can’t italicize, give courage or otherwise tweak your content. Neither can you cut, copy or pulp. Some keyboard navigation is upheld, but frustratingly not all. Whilst shift and an arrow key will name minute a single during the time, as well as alt-arrow will let you skip a word during a time, alt-shift-arrow (which should name a whole word) usually works spasmodic, as well as Command-arrow (or Command-shift-arrow) for skipping around a line during a time (or highlighting a total line) don’t work at all. These have been critical omissions for “the iPad word processor.”

Right right away, Essay is worth the look, but for critical essay it still needs work. In this aspect, it’s like pretty most each text editor upon the iPad: almost there, though missing a a single or two features that would kill the opposition. We’ll stay tuned for v1.1. $4.

Essay product page [iTunes]

Essay [Essay App]

10 Billion iOS Apps Downloaded, Winner Hangs Up upon Apple

admin — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 02:09:04 +0000

Ten billion apps have been downloaded from a iOS App Store, winning a single propitious person a $10,000 iTunes present document. The App Store launched in July 2008, and has “sold” 7 billion apps in a last year alone. That’s an startling 19 million per day.

The 10 billionth app was Paper Glider, a free diversion for a iPhone and iPod Touch, and it was downloaded by Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent, England. Or some-more fairly, it was downloaded by a single of her daughters. In fact, when Apple’s vice president of iTunes, Eddy Cue, called up to discuss it her a great headlines, Davis hung up upon him, assuming it was the antic call.

Speaking to Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney, Davis pronounced which once her daughters had put her true, she tried to call back though couldn’t get past the front-line of Apple’s help-desk. Later, an additional Apple employees called and a esteem was awarded.

According to Kahney, a esteem will essentially finish up costing Davis income. “We’re meditative of upgrading the Nanos so we can join a party” she said.

Upon hearing the headlines, the own Brian X Chen tweeted “I don’t even know what I’d do with $10,000 of iTunes money.” What would you outlay which income upon? I theory what it unequivocally equates to is gratis apps, cinema TV shows as well as even Mac applications for the great cube of a prospect, but where do you begin? Any suggestions for costly apps you competence similar to to own if you weren’t paying? Answers, as regularly, in a comments.

Apple’s App Store Downloads Top 10 Billion [Apple PR]

$10K iTunes Winner Hung Up On Apple, Thought It Was the Prank [Cult of Mac]