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- Sensor-rich computing: the quiet revolution that started in your pocket
Suppose you're at at your desk with a MacBook and an iPhone. You want to check cinema screening times at your local multiplex and the weather forecast so you'll know if you'll need a jacket or not. Which device do you reach for?
If you choose the MacBook, you'll need to go to a cinema listings service and enter your zip code to find your multiplex, then repeat the process on a weather tracking site (unless your Dashboard already includes appropriate widgets for that data, in which case it's one keystroke away). On the iPhone, you just load a couple of apps, which know where you are so can show you the local data automatically.
This exact scenario happened to me earlier, and I surprised myself by reflexively reaching for the iPhone, without thinking. Somewhere along the way it started to feel like the logical device to use for this sort of thing.
Now, this is a highly trivial example. Safari and Firefox on the MacBook can do location sensing via Wifi positioning, for example (although few websites support this), and sites can also try and guess your location based on your IP address (although I've found that to be occasionally quite inaccurate). Local information services like cinema listings will also typically offer to store your location for future use, so the search becomes a one-time thing. Stick with me, though; I'm going somewhere with this.
Think about the bigger picture. Go back a few years, and computers typically had just two input devices: a keyboard and a mouse. Some of them would also have a webcam and a scanner, but you'd only be using those occasionally and for well-defined specific tasks (mostly "Skype" and "scanning", respectively.)
Now think about the input methods on an iPhone 4. The keyboard and mouse have been replaced by a touchscreen, of course. You've got front and back cameras too, similarly to the scanner and webcam. But wait! There's more!
- It has a GPS chip, of course, so it can tell where it is (bolstered with some clever battery-saving aGPS too.)
- It has a magnetometer-based compass, so it can tell which way it's pointing (and sense any magnetic fields.)
- It has a gyroscope and acceleration meters, so it can tell when you move it -- and in which direction, how far, and how fast.
- It has an ambient light sensor to adjust screen brightness according to your surroundings.
- It has two microphones -- one for your voice, and one purely for background sounds for noise-cancellation purposes.
- It has an orientation sensor so it knows which way up it is.
And that's just the iPhone itself, before we consider additional hardware like Nike+. When compared to almost all the proceeding technology in the thirty-something years since the Apple II kicked off the personal computer revolution, the iPhone has an extraordinary number of ways to perceive the world around itself. In turn, this leads to huge possibilities for apps in the future that can do a much better idea of anticipating our needs based on our surroundings and, in turn, feel far more personal than the "personal computer" ever did.
Perhaps the simplest examples are apps that use device rotation to change the entire UI to something different. The iPod app, for example, switches between CoverFlow selection and the more traditional UI. Calvetica shows day and month views in portrait and week planners in landscape mode. WeightBot allows daily weight entry in portrait view, then goes one stage further -- with a summary view when you turn the device counter-clockwise and a graph of your weight loss (or, in my case, lack of weight loss) when you turn it to landscape clockwise. Another simple example is Instapaper and its option to change to a muted white-on-black color scheme when your phone's local clock indicates it's night-time.
More sophisticated is the use of the various motion sensing circuitry for games like Rage, which allow players to aim their guns in the game by moving their devices around. Spin the same tech another way and you get 3D panorama photography apps like 360 Panoroma. Here, you move and tilt your phone in a complete circle and the app uses the camera to build a complete image of your surroundings -- and then also uses the same tilt sensing to let you view the photos, panning the picture as you pivot on the spot.
Take this idea to the next level and you get augmented reality, which is probably the poster child for sensor rich computing at the moment. Combine the motion tracking with the camera feed and, as the user waves their phone around, show them the camera view but with extra bits added. Star Wars Trench Run (sadly no longer available in iTunes) superimposes TIE Fighters on whatever you are looking at and allows you to shoot them down. Less frivolously, the AR mode in the Yelp app is a very intuitive way to get your bearings when navigating to a restaurant.
Yelp is far from alone. There are lots of augmented reality apps for the iPhone that do all sorts of things -- translate foreign languages, give metadata on live events like gigs, even create floorplans of your house.
This trend isn't limited to smartphones either. Hasselbad's H4D-200MS digital medium format camera has a clever new feature called True Focus. The photographer sets a focus point, perhaps a model's eye, and then software in the camera watches the scene. As the photographer moves the camera around to change the composition, motion sensors in the camera body feed back to the software which adjusts the focus setting to compensate, keeping that point in perfect focus. By using the motion sensors the camera can do a better job of staying on-target than traditional autofocus subject tracking.
But what about the future? I think we've barely scratched the surface of the possibilities. However, one key drawback with iOS is the relatively limited multitasking means some of the more wacky ideas of third party devs aren't possible.
For example, consider the rather dizzying possibilities of Tasker, an Android app that can engage a childlock for all apps except a few games when you are at home and the time is before 9pm. Or sense when you are at your parents' house in the boondocks and disable 3G altogether, so your phone doesn't hammer its battery flat trying to hang on to weak signal. Or set the phone to mute all notification sounds between 11pm and 7am, except for calls from numbers in your phonebook. Or any one of a million other possibilities, all of them ways to leverage your phone's knowledge of its surroundings to make it adapt to you, rather than the other way around.
Another interesting idea was suggested by Dan Frakes, MacWorld's senior editor: put an unlock code on your iPhone that is automatically disabled when you are at home. It turns out this is possible today for jailbroken iPhones with CleverPin, but of course this sort of deep system modification isn't possible without jailbreak tools.
We can only hope that Apple will do more to embrace the possibilities of sensor rich computing in future iOS versions and give developers more flexibility to access these features. We've all seen how iOS 5's Reminders app offers location-aware popups (e.g. "remind me to put my lunch in the fridge when I arrive at the office"), and we know Apple is patenting location-aware traffic warnings. It would be very nice for all of us if Apple would open this up to third party developers, so they could set an app up to perform some pre-arranged task like a notification alert when the phone is next in a certain location.
I hope to see something like this in future iOS versions, because I think there's still a lot of ideas that no one has had yet. What awesome uses of sensor-rich computing do you like in your apps, and what would you like to see in the future?
Sensor-rich computing: the quiet revolution that started in your pocket originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 02 Jul 2011 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - First-Person Final Cut Pro X, Day One: Completely at Sea
Professional film & video editor Matthew Levie is based in San Francisco, produced and edited the documentary Honest Man and writes Blog and Capture. First-Person Final Cut Pro X is the unvarnished story of his week-long introduction to the new Final Cut.
[Note that all opinions and assessments of FCP X expressed here are Matt's own, not TUAW's, and that any misconceptions or misunderstandings of FCP X features represent Matt's hands-on first reactions. -Ed.]
So I really, really did not believe that FCP X would be "iMovie Pro." But I have to say, my friends, I was far too optimistic. Apple has thrown us squarely under the bus. Somebody at Apple decided that making professional editors happy was just too damn much trouble, and that a much simpler program would allow them to fire 80% of the engineers and lose only 10% of the customers.
If you thought no multicam was the problem, you're thinking way too far ahead for this program. How about no split edits? No roll? No subclip?
There is, in fact, a way to mark a perfectly good in and out point, contrary to rumor. But what if I told you that you could change the speed of a clip to 50% or 25%, but not anything in between?Heck, I can't even find a way to do an overwrite edit.
[As noted by commenters and by ScreenCastsOnline producer Don McAllister, both overwrite edits and intermediate speed adjustments are in fact included in FCP X -- as Matt acknowledges below, citing the challenge of working through FCP X's documentation. Keep in mind that this series is documenting Matt's opinions and reactions over the course of several days, and that first impressions can be incorrect and revised over time. -Ed.]
I should confess at this point that I've never used iMovie. I've been editing for twenty years, on linear systems, and then Avid, and then Final Cut. But I'm guessing that if I were a regular iMovie user, I wouldn't feel so awfully lost in this program.
It turns out, of course, that all of these basic features are in the program, but the documentation isn't very well written. You'd think that if they were going to radically change the way we edit, they'd throw us a lifeline and walk us through it. In fact, when I looked up split edit, it proposed a really Byzantine five-step process involving a ripple trim. It only takes three with a rolling trim. Of course, in FCP 7 it only took one step. That's not promising.My intention was to take this project I have coming up that has very little deadline pressure, it's only two minutes long, it's not that complicated. I thought I'd do that in FCP X and that way I'd learn where the gotchas were and where this program's limitations were.
Now I doubt we're going to get that far. I don't think that I could cut the simplest project I've done in the last ten years on this program. Not because it would take too long, as bad as that would be, but because it is simply not possible.
There's definitely going to be a revolution in post-production, dudes. It's the one where the masses pull Apple off the throne and cut its throat.
I'll keep reading the docs and playing around. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and realize this was all a really bad dream, and actually it's as brilliant as an iPod. But don't hold your breath!
Part II coming up... Learning the Ropes.
First-Person Final Cut Pro X, Day One: Completely at Sea originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 02 Jul 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Capturing the "rocket's red glare" of fireworks with your iPhone camera this 4th of July
With the 4th of July holiday rapidly approaching in the US it's time to think of both your backyard and big time municipal fireworks displays, and how to best capture them on your iPhone. The latest generations of cameras on the iPhone have greatly improved, and while still not up to high end DSLR quality, the built in 5 MP camera can take some extraordinarily good images.
Here's the basics, to make sure you get some keepers. First, the camera needs to be steady. It's too late to get hold of a special iPhone camera case with a tripod mount, but if you have one already, like the Gorilla Pod, you're in business. No tripod? You're not out of luck. Steady the iPhone on your lap, on a chair back, or on the roof of a car. If you have to hold it, it's a good idea to take a deep breath and hold it in while you are shooting the fireworks. No, not for a long time!
Your camera will have a tendency to follow the moving fireworks. Resist the temptation, and hold the camera steady when you take your picture. You don't want streaks and blurs caused by movement. If you have the latest iPhone 4 with HDR, turn it off. Fireworks happen quickly, you don't want multiple exposures slowing things down. And please, turn off the flash. Your little puny LED flash isn't going to illuminate the scene.
Before everything starts, decide if you are going to shoot landscape mode or portrait. If you are trying to capture the foreground crowd, landscape is fine. Most fireworks are set off vertically, so if you are shooting well above the horizon, portrait mode is best.
Digital zoom is a no no. It makes the picture larger, but increases the noise and decreases the quality. Stay at full wide with no digital zoom. The iPhone should auto-focus with no problem. If it doesn't tap the screen where the fireworks are, then hold steady and take your image.
Don't forget, the iPhone is also an excellent video camera. Many of the same rules apply. Try to hold the camera steady... and let the motion come from the fireworks, not from your camera. If you get some great pictures, leave us some links in Flickr, Picasa web albums or your MobileMe galleries. We'd like to highlight the best of them.
Capturing the "rocket's red glare" of fireworks with your iPhone camera this 4th of July originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Parts suppliers reportedly prep for iPhone 5, iPad 3 assembly
Digitimes is reporting that the suppliers for the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 are gearing up to provide components for the next iterations of both of those devices. That in and of itself isn't really surprising -- of course Apple is working on new iterations of all of its devices. But what is interesting about this little leak is the timing. We first heard that Apple was lining up suppliers for the iPad 2 back in November of last year, which the benefit of hindsight now tells us was just about four months before its eventual release in early March of 2011.
In other words, hearing about the iPad 3 suppliers starting to turn the gears now could mean, assuming that Apple is still on the same manufacturing schedule, that we're going to see another new iPad as soon as four months from now -- sometime before this coming holiday season. Would Apple release two iPads in one year? Blogger John Gruber has already suggested that they'll do exactly that, and certainly the timing of this leaked announcement supports that idea.
As usual, nothing is confirmed until we hear it from Cupertino officially. But you can at least add another log to the fire of rumors that we may see the iPad 3 before 2011 has left us behind.
Parts suppliers reportedly prep for iPhone 5, iPad 3 assembly originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - More app sales for Mac and iOS over the Independence Day weekend
July 4th is the weekend for fireworks, BBQs, and good times in the United States of America -- not to mention some excellent app sales. Here's a few more:
- MacGameStore has a big Independence Day sales weekend going on, featuring Mac versions of Civ IV for $14.95, Spore for $9.99, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for $39.95.
- MacPhun's dropped four apps down to the low price of free for the weekend: Silent Film Director, Cartoonatic, Doodle Cam, and ArtCamera.
- G5 Entertainment is dropping Romance of Rome, Virtual City, and Supermarket Management down to $.99 on the iPhone, and $2.99 on the iPad. Supermarket Mania 2 is also on sale, for $2.99 on iPhone and $4.99 on the tablet.
- Rockin Ted is another free app to check out.
- Finally, Steam is having a huge Summer Camp sale this weekend, with dozens of rotating titles going on sale every day. There are a lot of games in there, and a lot of great deals -- keep an eye out for the "SteamPlay" icon, as all of those games work on both Mac and PC.
I'm pretty sure most of the sales going up this weekend are out at this point, but we'll keep an eye out for any more going on. We also occasionally tweet out app sales and updates on our Twitter account, so follow us over there if you want up-to-the-minute deals on Mac and iOS software!
More app sales for Mac and iOS over the Independence Day weekend originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - New York Times updates iPhone, iPad apps to offer in-app subscriptions
The Gray Lady herself has assented to Apple's rules about in-app subscriptions, so you can now subscribe to the vaunted New York Times right from the mobile apps on Apple's iPad and iPhone. We're still not talking about the print edition, so you can't log in on your phone and then have the paper show up at your door, but you can subscribe to the digital edition from right inside the apps themselves. The prices break down into three different rates -- for just the smartphone app and the digital edition, you'll pay $15. The tablet and digital subscription is $20, and "All Digital Access," which means the digital edition and iPhone and iPad subscriptions, will run you $35.
As is the case with in-app subscriptions, the deal will go straight through your usual iTunes account. Because Apple has tweaked the rules since they were introduced, the NYT doesn't have to offer the exact same prices both in and out of the app, so the online deal is a little sweeter -- it's offering the first four weeks of the subscription for just a buck. But iTunes has its own benefits -- if you allow iTunes to share your information, the NYT is giving away a week's worth for completely free.
Either way, you've got plenty of options, and that's the best thing for consumers in this fight anyway.
New York Times updates iPhone, iPad apps to offer in-app subscriptions originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Some Apple Store employees unhappy with work conditions
Pleasant decor and friendly employees make most Apple stores seem bright and cheery. Behind the scenes, though, some stores are not as congenial as they seem, according to a report from In These Times.
Three Apple employees have come forward with a not-so-happy tale of what it is like to work at an Apple retail store. One worker complains about disparate pay with newly hired workers making more than experienced workers. When a few employees approached management about this issue, they were told "money shouldn't be an issue when you're employed at Apple" and their time at Apple "should be looked at as an experience."
Other workers describe Apple's tactic to keep health care costs low by defining full-time employees as those who work 40 hours per week and have open availability to work any day needed. If you have a restricted schedule, you are not considered full-time even if you put in a full 40 hours each week. Part-Timers are offered health benefits but the workers claim these plans are more costly than their full-time counterparts. Work schedules are inflexible and stores are often understaffed during prime hours.
The word union was mentioned, but the three employees avoided the word like the plague. The mere mention of it could cost them their job. Even if the workers are unhappy, they are reluctant to band together against Apple. The one exception is Cory Moll, who is working to unionize Apple's 30,000-strong work force starting with the store in which he works.
When reading this, keep in mind that these are the experiences of three employees. It is by no means a reflection of every Apple store across the world. There are 29,997 employees whose voices have yet to be heard.
Some Apple Store employees unhappy with work conditions originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - No Comment: iPad vs 300 Black Cats
iPad wrap manufacturers SlickWraps celebrated American Independence day in the most traditional manner. Blowing things up in order to sell their product. Cool pyrotechnics meeting capitalism, all in the pursuit of fun.
Their video, which follows, shows the iPad (although not so much the Apple logo) walking away almost unscratched from a bag of splodey Black Cats.
And to that, we say, "No Comment" -- although we do say "Again! Again! More boom!" Thanks to all the TUAW tipsters who passed this one on to us.
No Comment: iPad vs 300 Black Cats originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - On re-purposing the increasingly useless eject key
The eject key sits in the upper right corner of most modern Apple keyboards. On my big iMac with its SuperDrive, it occasionally gets pressed when I need to kick out a backup DVD, but the rest of the time it sits alone. It's even worse on a MacBook Air. With no SuperDrive to speak of, the eject key was replaced with a tiny power button and the eject function moved to the F12 key next door. What do you do with a key that has outlived its usefulness? Give it another reason to live!
This all got started when one of the employees at Other World Computing, the folks who make all of those fast internal SSDs for MacBook Pros and other devices, had the optical drive on his 2011 MacBook Pro removed and replaced with an OWC Data Doubler + 750 GB hard disk drive. OWC's Erik was already enjoying a speedy 480 GB SSD as his startup drive in the MacBook Pro, but wanted the luxury of more storage.
With his eject key now taking up space and not paying the rent, Erik looked around and found a free app called KeyRemap4MacBook. The app remaps most of the non-alphanumeric keys on the Macbook keyboard to a set of different functions. Not only can you assign duplicate keys (Option and Command keys, for example) to perform different functions, but KeyRemap4MacBook makes keys do different things depending on what app you're currently using (note that you can already do this to a point using Keyboard Shortcuts in System Preferences).
Erik used the app to remap his eject key to be a forward delete key (Fn + Delete), and noted that if he does happen to have an external optical drive connected to the MBP, KeyRemap4MacBook thoughtfully provides a way to use the eject key as, well, an eject key.
One thing that KeyRemap4MacBook doesn't do is use a standard delay when pressed, so there's a companion app called NoEjectDelay by the same developer that clears the eject key delay.
The inquiring minds at TUAW want to know what function you'd remap your eject key to perform, or if you'd just turn the eject key into one-half of a pair of cufflinks. Leave us a note in the comments below.
On re-purposing the increasingly useless eject key originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - TUAW's Daily Mac App: Music Commander
Controlling iTunes with the keyboard is easy enough, but what if you want a little more information without having to resort to the full iTunes window? Music Commander is here to help.
Sitting in the menu bar, Music Commander allows you to control iTunes with an extensive drop-down menu. You've got the usual play controls for quick access with your mouse, but you've also got some of iTunes more advanced music controls.
You can rate the current song, switch shuffle and repeat on and off, as well as change the current playlist. Volume control is right there too, as well as the album art and metadata of the current track including album, artist and song name.
If you want to get a bit social with your iTunes listening experience (no I'm not talking about Ping), Music Commander has Twitter, Facebook and last.fm built in, letting you tweet, post or scrobble the current song. When you've had enough you can even quit iTunes right from Music Commander.
If you've been looking for a decent iTunes controller for your menu bar, Music Commander might just be the ticket. While you can accomplish quite a lot of the functionality using Apple keyboard media controls and Growl, Music Commander puts it all there, in one nice and tidy package.
Music Commander is available for US$0.99 from the Mac App Store.
Continue reading TUAW's Daily Mac App: Music Commander
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Music Commander originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Adobe's new "switcher" campaign targets frustrated Final Cut Pro users with 50% off
Adobe didn't waste anytime trying to capitalize on customer dissatisfaction with Apple's new Final Cut Pro X. Professional users are unhappy with the lack of Pro features like multiple camera support in the latest version of Apple's video editing software.
In response, Adobe has kicked off a new "switcher" campaign that highlights ten reasons why the professional video editor should switch to Adobe Premiere Pro CS. It's also offering a whopping 50% off on Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5 Production Premium or Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 for those who own Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer. The media software giant is throwing down the gauntlet and aiming straight for those unhappy Apple customers. Anyone out there going to give in and switch to Adobe?
Adobe's new "switcher" campaign targets frustrated Final Cut Pro users with 50% off originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Lion GM Seed released to developers
The day is nearly here -- Apple released the first GM Seed of Mac OS X Lion to developers just minutes ago. Developers and those running the beta must log into the Dev Center to get their Mac App Store redemption code and download the latest version. The build number of the GM seed is 11A511.
In addition to the main OS seed, Lion Server GM Seed and Xcode 4.1 DP 7 are both out as well. Developers who need to use Xcode should update to the latest build after installing the GM seed of the OS.
We will update this post as more information is received.
Lion GM Seed released to developers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Video: Power your iPad from the sun with Voltaic's Spark case
You could probably get several very nice iPad cases for US$299, providing a different look for every day of the week. Or, if you need to be radically mobile and self-sufficient with your tablet computing, you might be interested in Voltaic Systems' new Spark case -- a solar-powered hard shell model with enough power to charge your iPad wherever the sun shines.
Voltaic designed the Spark to pair neatly with Apple's tablet, with a 1:1 charge to use time ratio (a full charge for the iPad requires 10 hours of light on the panels). Rather than charging devices directly, the solar panels top off an included battery; it's designed to provide a full iPad charge, and sports both standard-power and high-power USB ports for multiple devices.
Obviously, a specialty case such as the Spark isn't for every iPad owner or usage model. For those who do need auxiliary power or extended off-the-grid operations, though -- field researchers, surveyors, engineers, park rangers, etc. -- it could be just the thing.
Our video interview with Voltaic's Jeff Crystal is below.
Video: Power your iPad from the sun with Voltaic's Spark case originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - WWDC 2011 videos reportedly not working in some browsers
Apple released its session videos from WWDC and many people are having problems watching them. Apparently, Apple is limiting playback to Safari on the Mac. If you try to watch the videos on an alternative browser, even on a Mac machine, you receive the stern warning that "You need to use Safari on the Mac to view this video.
We have no idea why Apple has this policy. Both the keynote and session videos are encoded in H.264 so they're in a format supported by a variety of platforms. The easiest workaround for this problem though is iTunes. All these videos can be watched from the media software without worrying about which OS or browser you are using.
[Via Electronista]
WWDC 2011 videos reportedly not working in some browsers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - TUAW's Daily iPad App: Sadun's Collage
To start off this new series of daily apps, I thought I'd pick something close to home -- an app by TUAW's own Erica Sadun. The free, ad-supported app is called Sadun's Collage, and it produces fun photographic collages of pictures taken with the cameras in your iPad 2.
Sadun's Collage is very intuitive to use. When you launch the app for the first time, you see a corkboard with a live image frame on it, as well as a group of buttons that are at the top of the screen. The buttons fade out, but are summoned back with a tap on the corkboard. To take a photo with Sadun's Collage, you tap on the live image frame. Once the photo is "pinned" to your corkboard, you move it by sliding it around with your fingers, use the pinch gesture to make it bigger or smaller, and rotate it by twisting it clockwise or counterclockwise with two fingers. Every photo has a white Polaroid-like frame, and displays shadows for a feeling of depth as you layer the images.
To take another photo -- there doesn't seem to be a limit to how many you can place on the corkboard -- just tap on the corkboard and then tap the + button that appears in the toolbar. If you've been snapping photos of your friends with the rear-facing camera but want to add your face to the board, there's a button for toggling between the cameras.
You're not stuck with just the cork background; there are also slate, marble, sandstone, and limestone to use as backgrounds. Once you've captured, sized, and placed images on the background, a tap on a "photo" button sends the collage (sans advertising) to your iPad photo library. Another button opens a blank email with the collage attached for sending to friends.
Any individual image on a collage may be removed by tapping on it to display a minus sign (-), and then tapping the minus sign to confirm the deletion. If you decide to erase the entire collage and start over, a tap on the "recycle" button offers up a clean slate to start with.
I asked Erica why the app doesn't let you place images from your iPad photo library into the collage. Her response was that the app is designed for spontaneous fun with groups of people more than after-the-fact collage creation. It's also possible that the standard iOS photo browser was omitted because it tends to be a bit slow and is a memory hog, but that's just my opinion.
While you're hanging around at a picnic, hiking in the mountains, or waiting for the fireworks to start over the Independence Day holiday in the U.S. this weekend, be sure to download Sadun's Collage, have a little fun passing around the iPad 2, and enjoy those holiday memories in a clever photo collage that you created.
TUAW's Daily iPad App: Sadun's Collage originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Annual revenue per iOS user estimated at $150
We all know that Apple's iOS devices are popular. Surveys and analyst predictions place Apple at or near the top in the smartphone, tablet and media player market. That's great for headlines, but what does it mean for Apple's bottom line?
Horace Dediu of Asymco did some fancy figuring and calculated that the annual revenue for each iOS owner is US$150. This is based on 180 million current iOS users with 200 million iOS devices. Given the astronomical growth of the iOS platform, this installed user base could quickly climb to 500 million users, a lofty figure that would provide Apple with $74 billion per year in recurring revenue.
Mac sales are also climbing and could easily reach 100 million active users who generate $24 billion a year in revenue. Combine the Mac users with the iOS users and Apple could pull in a cool $95 billion per year in revenues from OS X and iOS devices alone.These numbers are a conservative estimate as Dediu does not factor in sales from iTunes, iPods, accessories and software. It also assumes a very generous 3.5 year life span for iOS devices and 5.5 years for Mac hardware.
Annual revenue per iOS user estimated at $150 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Relaxation Portal for iOS can transport you to another world for free
I've spent the last couple of days testing and exploring Relaxation Portal, an iOS app from SRS Labs that provides stunning audio recreations of several environments in places like Namibia, Crete, an Amazon Rainforest and Martha's Vineyard.
For the full effect, you must listen on headphones. In my tests I used a Jabra Halo Bluetooth and a wired B&W P5 headset. SRS Labs has been innovating in audio design in both hardware and software for years, and SRS tech has found its way into live concert recordings, music enhancing hardware, HD displays, car audio and laptops.
The audio illusion is certainly impressive. The sound effects are layered, which makes them truly interactive. On the island of Crete, for example, you can turn off the sounds of sea birds, crowd noises and wind, while just listening to the surf. You can control the mix of sounds to fit your mood, or try night mode where the sounds are tuned to replicate the island at night. The 3D effect is quite uncanny, and uses a variety of sound processing techniques to fully immerse you in the aural environment.
In addition to the audio treats, the app provides some still pictures of the actual location, and even a bit of history. The app is free, and comes with the 5 locations I've listed above. If that's not enough, you can purchase expansion packs, with locations like Las Vegas (maybe you will hear people crying after they lose a bundle at blackjack), Paris, the Kremlin, the Ross Ice Shelf and Cape Canaveral. Expansion packs contain 5 destinations, and are US$1.99 each.
It should be noted that the sound environments created are not really from the locations listed, but rather layers of very high quality recording of natural sounds that match the local environments. For example, birds that are native to Crete or New England.
I have a few quibbles with this app. It doesn't run in the background. Check an email, or respond to a text, and the app simply stops. If you launch it again, you will be returned to the place you left. I talked with Allen Gharapetian of SRS Labs and he agrees the app must multitask, and to look for that upgrade soon. The app features a night mode, which I assumed might change the character of the sounds, but night mode just blackens the screen, except for little pop-up ads that are always present. You can upgrade to an ad-free version for $1.99.
Gharapetian says the SRS sound enhancing technology is built into smartphones from Samsung and HTC, and they would love to have it on Apple iOS devices. Ultimately this app serves as a technology demo of how good the SRS audio processing can be.
Relaxation Portal is not the only white noise, audio environment app for iOS. I've previously enthusiastically reviewed NatureSpace, which has excellent natural recording and it doesn't stop when you navigate away from it. It is also free, but offers in-app purchases of expansion packs.
Relation Portal is a unique approach to creating aural environments. With the ability to control the mix and levels of individual sounds, you can tailor your session to taste. I'd like to see the app allow multitasking, and the GUI is not particularly attractive to my eye, but ultimately, it is the sound that matters and the app works very well as a way to relax. Great on a vacation, a long airplane trip, or just unwinding at home.
The app runs natively on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch and requires iOS 4.2 or later. Check the gallery for some screen shots and let us know what you think of the audio illusion it creates.
Relaxation Portal for iOS can transport you to another world for free originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Puzzle Agent 2
I've been looking forward to this one. I first enjoyed Graham Annable's Puzzle Agent last summer actually on the iPhone, even though it was also released for the Mac and PC previously. The sequel is now available on iOS, and I can't wait to play it. Annable's weird mix of homespun comedy and creepy gnomes is fascinating to me (and you'll love it too, especially if you have a taste for the weird and slightly frightening), and Puzzle Agent's puzzles were ingenious little bite-sized affairs, paced perfectly well with a story full of wacky characters and twists.
There's no Game Center integration here, and the presentation might not be perfect -- the first iPhone title suffered a little from weird graphical glitches (though there were no game-breaking bugs that I found). But nevertheless, the Puzzle Agent series is much-loved by a certain crowd, myself definitely included. If you know you'll like it already, you can pick it up on the iPhone for US$4.99 or on the iPad in HD for $6.99. If you've never played the series before, you can check out the first title for the same prices, play through the free version, or just wait a bit for them to go on sale.
TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Puzzle Agent 2 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Nortel patent auction goes to Apple/Microsoft/RIM consortium
Back in April, the bankrupt telecom manufacturer Nortel put its patent portfolio on the block via a US$900 million 'stalking horse' sale agreement with a relative newcomer to the market: Google. The arrangement set a minimum value for Nortel's intellectual property on the open market, and presumably put Google in a solid position to eventually bid for the final package.
Apparently the bidding got a little too stratospheric for the search/Android giant to keep up. Nortel announced last night that the successful bid was $4.5 billion, and the patent suite (more than 6,000 inventions covering every corner of the mobile computing and telecommunications landscape) will go to an industry consortium full of strange bedfellows: Microsoft, Apple, Ericsson, EMC, Sony and RIM.
The patent sale, which is subject to court approval both in the US and in Nortel's home jurisdiction of Canada, could mean additional headaches for Android handset manufacturers as they try to fend off patent challenges without indemnification from Google. Of course, Apple's got patent troubles of its own, both from partner/competitor Samsung (see FOSSPatents' comprehensive and terrifying battle chart) and from developer-targeting Lodsys, among many others.
[via TechCrunch & Fortune]
Nortel patent auction goes to Apple/Microsoft/RIM consortium originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 06:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Pictures from the new Apple Store, still in progress at The Americana at Brand in Glendale
The pictures in the gallery below from a tipster show you the location of the new Apple Store being built in the Glendale Galleria in Los Angeles.
This new store isn't that far from the old one in the mall, but appears to enjoy a much better view. If you've got pictures of the store under construction, let us know!
Update: Commenters point out this is in The Americana at Brand in Glendale, not actually at the Galleria.
Thanks, Devin
Pictures from the new Apple Store, still in progress at The Americana at Brand in Glendale originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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