Reviews
Back a while ago, Adobe released the first ever version of Adobe Ideas (which Terry reviewed here). Now Adobe has come out with an update to the popular application with some highly anticipated features, turning this app more into a proper drawing application.
Layers are here!
Let’s get the biggest new feature addition over with from the start. You can purchase an in-app purchase that will enable layers in your document. For each sketch you are able to create ten layers with order and opacity controls available for each layer.
(universal for iPhone and iPad)
My buddy Don Giannatti said one time that one of the best ways for a photographer to be inspired is to pick up an iPhone and take pictures of everything and anything you see. I tend to agree with him. Since I switched to my iPhone4 from a Blackberry I have taken pictures like crazy. Partly due to the fact that I have a “good” camera with me all of the time, and partly due to the fact that I can do so much with the pictures right inside of the phone when I’m done with great apps like Color Splash. I’ve never been a huge fan of selective coloring, but I have to admit from time to time I like to do a little bit of it. Enter Color Splash. I downloaded this app mainly out of curiosity because it always seemed to be at the top of the Photography category in the app store, but I have to tell you that I love it! This app does everything that I expected, and it does it really well.
Ease of use
After watching the quick tutorial in the help section I was off and running. When you first open the application it gives you the option of taking or loading your picture. I find this a little redundant but it doesn’t get in the way so it’s really not a problem. Once your image is loaded Color Splash automatically converts it to black and white for you and puts you in color or paint back mode. You use two fingers to zoom in to the area that you wish to fill color back into. Painting is as easy as swiping your finger over the area you wish to return color to. To make this process easier and more accurate the application allows you to zoom in almost to pixel level. There are a few handy icons at the bottom of the screen that really make this app a breeze to use. If you return color to an area that you didn’t mean to, you can select the grey icon to remove the unwanted color. Also there is a pan & zoom icon that allows you to move your way around the image with one finger instead of the two finger method that you have to use while you have the color icon selected. There are two different methods of selective coloring that I would describe as different opacities. The first is full on 100% color return with each swipe of the finger. The second is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40% return with each swipe. Each method offers both a hard edge brush and a soft edge brush. You cannot adjust the hardness or softness but hey this is a mobile app, if you want that kind of control it’s probably best to load the image into Photoshop anyway.
Sharing
There are a few options for sharing your images when you are finished working on them. You can upload to Flickr, Twitter, or Facebook. You can also copy the image to the clipboard or email it. Of course you can save it to your camera roll as well.
Slight improvement
There is really only one thing that I would like to see changed or updated in this app, and it’s just a little thing. When you turn your screen horizontal the image transitions to match, the tool icons however do not. They stay in a vertical orientation. I would like to see the color, grey, and pan & zoom icons at the bottom of the screen in both orientations (told ya it was a small thing).
You can get Color Splash for the iPhone for $.99 here from the
There is also an iPad app that functions essentially the same for $1.99 here on the
I love my iPhone. Not only is it the best smart phone that I have ever owned(and I’ve been through a lot of them), but it has a really good camera. Am I going to replace my SLR with it? Not likely, but as Chase Jarvis likes to say “the best camera is the one you have with you”. Since I don’t leave the house without my phone, I always have a good camera with me. Terry talked about the possibility of getting rid of his point and shoot camera all together recently over on his tech blog here in favor of his iPhone. Since I use my iPhone camera so much I have a slew of apps aimed at making my photos better, or tweaking them to my liking. One thing I have been on the lookout for is an app that has controlled vignettes. After some searching I found FocalLab for the iPhone. I was only looking for vignette control, but this app surprised me and does a whole lot more, and does it well!
Functionality
Like I said I went looking for vignette control, so of course you know that this app does it well. The control is similar to Lightroom’s vignette control, well actually more like Lightroom2’s vignette control. There is a slider that adds a nice fading vignette starting in the corners and increasing toward the center until it looks like a perfect black circle. The transition or fade is gradual until you’re at the extreme end of the slider so it looks natural. The surprises that I found in this app were the blur effects. FocalLab offers four styles of blur, each having its own slider like the vignette. Dreamy Blur and soft focus are really the same type of blur, soft focus being a little more heavy handed or “stronger” if you will. Zoom blur is exactly as it sounds. It creates an area of sharp focus in the center of the image with blur radiating toward the edges. Motion blur is a really cool effect that gives your image the appearance that the object photographed is in motion. This is actually the best version I have seen in a mobile app. Generally to create a motion blur after the image is taken with the quality that this app provides, Photoshop is involved. FocalLab also provides the option for black and white conversion, as well as resizing. These features work ok, but to be honest I prefer to use other apps that have more control for these tasks.
What I’d like to see…
While this app does a really good job at blurring and creating vignettes, I would like to have the ability to place the center of the blur, and/or vignette where I want it. I don’t always want the center of my blur to be in the center of my image. The same goes for my vignettes. Sometimes I would like to see more vignetting from one side or another. Is this nit picking? Sure, but I can ask can’t I?
You can get FocalLab from the iTunes store for $.99 here from the
Click image above to enlarge
Flickr is one of the most popular Photography Social Network sites on the web. Naturally we want Flickr clients for our iOS Devices. A couple of weeks ago Jason did a great job telling you about his pick, Flickstackr. Today I'm reviewing an update to the Flickr App I've used since day one. It's called Mobile Fotos. I started with Mobile Fotos on my iPhone back in the day as it was one of the only Flickr clients available. This was long before Flickr came out with their own App. I liked Mobile Fotos over the others at the time because it was the only one back then that would also upload the current Geolocation information with the photo (a must have for me as I travel all over the world). Flickr will automatically map your photos (your account permissions withstanding) if the geotag information is present. The other feature that I really liked was the ability to use my current location to show me the Nearby photos taken by others. Its' great to arrive to a new spot and see how it was captured by other photographers.
Mobile Fotos is now for the iPad too
While I was happy with it as an iPhone App, I'm even happier with it now as an iPad App too. It supports video uploads and has a really easy UI. I haven't spent any time comparing it with Flickstackr, but it blows away the official Flickr app.
You can get Mobile Fotos for $2.99 here from the
See my Flickr page here.
Angry Birds is one of the most addictive games I've ever played. It's also one of the few games that I've played all the levels on successfully. As soon as they update it with new levels I play all of those too. Needless to say when I saw that they had a Halloween version, I had to check it out. It's not that I'm a fan of Halloween as much as I am a fan of the game. Also it was a chance to get some new levels 
You see my addiction coming through now.
Angry Birds Halloween doesn't disappoint
Not only did I get some new levels in this special edition, but some new challenges as you advance, the pigs are sometimes incased in pumpkins. So you not only have to bring the structures down on them as before, but you have to do it in such a way that it smashes the pumpkins too. This game made my 4.5 hour flight to LA seem like it was only 30 minutes! Thanks!
You can get Angry Birds Halloween for iPhone/iPod touch for $0.99 here from the
You can get Angry Birds Halloween HD for the iPad for $1.99 here from the
P.S. don't blame me if your productivity just went down the drain. I'm just sayin…. 
I shop at Amazon.com all the time and I've always really liked their original iPhone App. Even though they updated that original App to be a Universal App for all iOS devices, they saw fit to introduce a brand new App just for the iPad. Amazon's Windowshop App is a rewrite from the ground up and it's designed for the iPad. As the name implies the App is mostly geared towards browsing and visual discovery of items. Of course you can do searches as always. When you tap on an item you get a nice big display of that item. When you're zoomed in on a particular item they did a nice job with the side tabs for Photos, Details, Reviews and related items. Once you're signed into your account you can Add to your Wish List or buy the items you want on the spot.
The App is Beautiful, but…
I love the fact that this app is so "visual". Being a visual guy, pictures are very important to me. However, the one thing I absolutely don't like about this App is the two way scrolling. First off the App only works in landscape view. OK, no problem. However, in order to see more items you have to scroll both horizontally AND vertically. Once you start scrolling, you have no idea where you are anymore. I would like to see a pref that limits the scrolling to one direction or the other. Outside of that, this App rocks and if you shop Amazon and have an iPad there's no reason not to have it.
You can get the Amazon Windowshop App for Free here from the
Anyone that knows me knows how much of a sucker I am for universal binary apps(apps that work on all iDevice platforms). If I can pay one price for an application and have it work on both my iPhone and my iPad, I am twice as likely to buy that application over another. When it comes to applications like an alarm clock, having something that sets you apart is key. When I went looking for an alarm clock app for my iPhone there were certain things that it had to have, and universal binary was one of them. What I tried after a little searching was Music Clock, and I haven’t looked back since!
What it delivers
Other than multiple device support, I wanted a few things. I needed to be able to set multiple alarms. My days vary so much that I need to be able to set an alarm for a specific date at a specific time. Music alarm lets me not only do that, but it lets me set specific alarms for each day of the week. If I want to get up at 6AM on Tuesdays, but 6:30AM on Wednesdays, I can program that in. The other thing that I needed was to be able to program the alarm to go off on Eastern Time no matter what time zone I was in. I have calls to make at specific time in my home time zone no matter where I am. Music Clock can be programmed to “ignore” the current time zone displayed on your device and uses your home time zone if you desire. The last thing that I knew it had to have was a choice for my built in iPod music to act as an alarm. Music Alarm delivers. There are a few built in things that I didn’t know I wanted but now are very important, useful, and “must haves”. From time to time I like to hit the snooze button, but I know the night before how long I can “snooze”, with Music Clock I can change my snooze time. Can only lay there for an extra 5 min? You’re covered. Got an hour? You’re covered there too. From time to time, I wake up in the middle of the night and need to wonder through the house for whatever reason, and with Music Clock you can double tap the screen and turn it into a flashlight. Something that I don’t use but may be important to you is the sleep timer. I don’t listen to music when I’m going to sleep but I know a lot of people do, if you’re one of these people you’ve got all of the options you could want there.
Two things that I want to see
There are only two things that I want to see in an update. While Music Clock supports the iOS 4 multitasking, when you don’t actually have the app open with the clock showing, the alarm defaults to a standard alarm instead of using your music that you chose. This isn’t really a big deal, but I really like waking up to soothing music instead of a loud buzzing or beeping. Second deals with the flashlight. When you turn on the flashlight it doesn’t turn on the LED on the back of the iPhone4. Again not a huge deal but I’d like to see it as an option anyway.
Recommendation
This app has pretty much everything that you could want from an alarm clock app. The things that I want to see changed are really not that important so I would recommend this to anyone looking for an a good alarm clock app. For only $.99 it’s a steal and a really well designed app.
You can get Alarm Night Clock/Music here from the
Actually the App is $2.99, but once you pay for the App then you can stream the full length Classic movies to your iOS device for no additional cost. MovieVault features over 1,000 movies and you can watch them over Wi-Fi or 3G. You can browse by genre, search keywords or by title/director and more. Most of these films came out before I was born, but it's cool to be able to see this content relatively for free.
It works great
I had no problem streaming a movie the minute after I fired up the App. The playback was fine and even the quality was surprisingly good considering the source content and the fact that it's streaming. The developer claims to be adding content all the time. So if you're an Classic movie buff, this App was made for you.
I'd like to see a "Favorites" feature in the next rev so that I can build a list of movies to watch when time permits.
You can get MovieVault ($2.99) for the iPhone/iPod touch here from the
You can get MovieVault ($4.99) fro the iPad here from the
I’m a Flickr user. I usually upload at least one image from every shoot to my Flickr account; most of the time it’s for the hosting so that I can put the images on my blog or some other online location for sharing. When I got my iPad (and then later my iPhone) I immediately went looking for an application to access and use Flickr, what I found was something a whole lot better!
FlickStackr has changed the way I use Flickr. It allows me to do almost everything that I want to do on Flickr, and it’s a universal binary so it works on both the iPad and iPhone.
Functionality
There are so many things that you can do inside of FlickStackr. Just like on the Flickr site you can view recent activity, recent images from your contacts, your photo stream, your collections, sets, favorites, contacts, groups, and profile. These are all things that I would expect from a Flickr application. I probably wouldn’t even consider a Flickr app if it didn’t do these basic things. When viewing photos in any of these screens you have the option of thumbnail, as well as list view. I prefer the thumbnail view for most of my viewing because it allows for viewing of more images at once and I can skim through to see if anything catches my eye, or to find the particular image that I’m looking for. The list view is great if you want to see the thumbnail as well as who took the picture. Of course you can upload images from your iPad just as you would expect with any Flickr application and add them to sets, or make a new set when you upload.
New Stuff
Something that you get in FlickStackr that you don’t get anywhere else is the Stack. The Stack is similar to your favorites in that it is a saved collection of images that you have “liked” or would like to come back and view at a later time. The difference with the Stack though is that it works whether you’re online or not. You can save images to your Stack and view them at any later time without having an internet connection. I love this feature! The reason I love it so much is because as photographer, I’m always searching images on Flickr looking for inspiration. Whether it’s a pose I like, a lighting setup, or maybe a theme, I like to be able to save these images to come back to later to reference or be inspired all over again. The stack lets me do this no matter if I’m online or not.
Stuff that needs to be added
In the past few months of using Flickstackr I haven’t seen any real apparent bugs that need to be worked out. Everything pretty much functions just as it says it will. I would however like to see some things added. I would like the ability to add images to my group pools like I can on the actual Flickr page. I am an admin for a few groups so I’m always updating content, and sharing images. The ability to do this is really important to me, so I’m hoping to see this in an update. While we’re talking about groups, I would also like to be able to access the group discussions from inside the app. This is a little thing, but again, it’s important to me. These may seem like small requests but they would help make the Flickr experience complete on the iPad for me. For $1.99 it’s inexpensive and fits into anyone’s budget. This is a must have app for anyone who uses Flickr and wants to frequent it on the iPad.
You can get it here from the
Once in a while a game comes out for the iOS platforms that is just a big hit. Make way Angry Birds (the top game until now) because Cut the Rope is here to enter the scene and fight over the top game in the app store.
Game Objective
Cut the Rope has a very simple objective that they use to make a challenging but rewarding game. The plot, so to speak, is that you one day get a box delivered to your door with a little monster inside it who eats nothing but candy. If you are worrying that this is a simulation game, read on and trust me, it isn’t.
Your goal throughout all the levels is to deliver a little ball-sized piece of candy to the surprisingly cute monster (called Om Nom) by cutting the rope it hangs in and through the power of gravity make sure it ends up in Om Nom’s mouth.
iPhone:
iPad:
