Last week, Apple confirmed the purchase of Swell, an iPhone application that enabled you to listen to a stream of audio podcasts according to the theme of your choice. What I found most unique about Swell was the easy and simple user interface that allowed you to swipe from one podcast to the next in a seamless fashion. Apple's response to the purchase was pretty generic, according to Alex Heath who grabbed the quote from the Wall Street Journal: Apple confirms Swell deal w: we buy "smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans. As a result of the purchase, the app is no longer available in the App Store and no longer available to current users who downloaded the application. For example, after opening the application, I could no longer listen to podcasts, but instead received the following audio message: Apple is smart to buy companies that offer features that succeed in areas where they fall short. I actually found myself listening to Swell more often than Apple's Podcasts app, which I also enjoy. This was a smart purchase by Apple, but I will miss Swell a lot.
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KidPix 3D has everything a young artist needs to explore the depths of creativity and imagination. Made for the Mac desktop, the application comes with a rich media library complete with 2D and 3D backgrounds, animations, stickers, movies and sound files, and a range of painting tools and effects. Each scene can be saved as a slide which can be incorporated into a video with soundtracks and transitions. KidPix 3D gets my vote as the best application available for kids on the Mac. The app is $49.99 in the Mac App Store.
Airpano Travel Book is an application for the iPad that provides you with beautiful aerial panoramas of places all around the world.. Taken by a group of Russian photographers in helicopters, the aerial views are what make the photos absolutely spectacular. You can view the panos on their website, but the application makes the images more accessible. The user interface is beautifully designed and easy to navigate, with beautiful graphics in the form of flip books to guide you through the various topics. Most actions occur by swiping your finger across the screen, although you also have the option to physically move the iPad as you pan back and forth across the horizon. The app is $4.99 and worth every penny. Check out my video review below. Halftone 2 is a universal application for the iPhone and iPad that enables you to create vintage style comic strip layouts with your photos. Halftone makes it easy to add paper styles, captions, speech balloons, graphic stamps, and fonts. Your project can be set up as a sequence of pages, changing the layouts throughout. The app also comes with a wide variety of customizations, including the ability to add gradients to the background, adjust borders, padding, effects, and more. In addition to exporting your projects as photos to your camera roll or favorite social networking sites, Halftone also introduced the ability to export your project as a video. Depending on how your pages are laid out, the video will pan and zoom through your layouts, as if providing an animated visual narrative. You also have the option to add soundtracks! The application is available on iOS at the affordable price of $ 0.99. Check out the video below to learn more. Those of you who follow my blog and YouTube channel may know that I have been a big fan of Bazaart. Bazaart is a beautifully designed application that provides a simple and easy to use interface for creating collage art. The application has gone through numerous iterations, including expanded feeds and ways to connect to other members of the Bazaart community. Among the many improvements added was the ability to add comments. At first, this feature was embraced by Bazaart users who, prior to these updates, did not have a way to communicate with other members. Over time, the comment section began to take on a life of its own, resulting in rude and disrespectful remarks. Bazaart which is an app that largely encourages people to share and exchange images, has become an app that discourages participation, reinforced by cyber bullies and egotistical personalities. As an active user, what became most evident to me is that the participants rarely if ever used the tap to browse feature and some members often accused others of stealing "their art." Adding to the irony, the "artists" in question often use art from sources like Deviantart to create their own art and even adding their own signatures to it. If you think we are living in the age of appropriation, well the Bazaart community has taken it to a whole new level.
The developers have plans to improve the app, possibly improving the sharing functions and/or adding the ability to delete comments. It remains to be seen whether or not members of the Bazaart community, accustomed to creating "original art," will open up to the idea that the art they are creating is not really "their art," but a communal experience owned by no one, yet shared by everyone. Now that's an idea! Apple just released iOS 8 Beta 2 and the most notable update is access to the new iCloud Drive service. Immediately upon downloading the update, you are prompted to replace Photo Stream with iCloud Drive, after which, Photo Stream is no longer available. Once the new service has been activated, you can store photos and videos in the Cloud. The Photos application takes a slightly different look, once Photostream is deactivated. The most obvious change will be the removal of "Photostream" in the album section. Instead, you will have "Recently Added," Videos," and "Recently Deleted." Another noticeable change is the inclusion of an additional category along the bottom, with "Albums" and "Photos," joined by a "Shared" section. This section will include various different streams, including photos you've taken with the iPhone camera and streams that you have set up for family and friends. Beta 2 also includes a slight change to control center. When you swipe up from the bottom, the translucent panel will be almost identical to iOS 7, with the exception of a text link in the center that is labeled "Mr. Drive." This link will take you directly to the iTunes Music Store. In Apple's continued effort to customize your listening experience, the categories along the bottom of the music store now include "Genius Mixes." Apple will most likely improve this service with the acquisition of Beats. The iTunes link in Control Center is accompanied by a "buy" button which enables you to purchase music directly from this location, even on the lock screen.
These changes are evident in the second beta of iOS 8, but should not viewed as permanent - at least not yet. Nonetheless, the changes are consistent with what Apple introduced during WWDC and with the information provided on Apple's website. Stay tuned. Tim Cook kicked off the keynote by presenting some impressive stats. For one, two thirds of the attendees at this years conference were there for the first time and Cook boasted 9 million registered developers. Apple delivered 40 million copies of Mavericks, with a user adoption rate of 50% compared to Windows 8 with a 15% adoption rate.
Yosemite Cook then handed it over to Craig Federighi who introduced OS X, beginning rather lightheartedly with the naming process and following a circuitous route that ultimately led them to OS X Yosemite. Federighi continued by highlighting three main areas: apps, improved interface, and continuity. In terms of design, the dock now features flatter and brighter icons (similar to iOS) and an impressive redesign of the trashcan (which honestly seemed to glow on the dock like a white frost). Federighi placed special emphasis on the translucent materials and how window displays are able to meld with the qualities of the desktop (I can't wait to see how this looks on my computer). Federighi proceeded by exploring the improved functionality of Notification Center. The most notable feature was the ability to add widgets right inside notification center, accessing weather, ESPN, stock information, etc. - opening the operating SYSTEM up to third party integration (which was a surprising yet welcoming development throughout the keynote). Federighi also presented the new and improved Spotlight features. When you tap on Spotlight, it appears right in the middle of the display. From here you can launch apps and/or view recently opened documents, search for restaurants and bring up maps. With the Calendar, Federighi showed off the translucency once again, highlighting a very impressive day view (recalling the day view in iOS). As a matter of fact, the whole presentation felt like a call and response between iOS and OS X. Messages revealed the same design consistency (but iOS stole the show with messages) I'll cover that in a bit. I predicted most of the announcements, but I was not prepared for iCloud Drive. Believe or not, Apple will now offer Dropbox-style folders for accessing all of your documents, including documents and related files associated with iOS apps. I only have one word for that: Wow! Anticipating the mountains of storage that will be needed to store all your files across platforms, including video, Apple is offering some very affordable plans: $0.99 a month for 20GB and $3.99 a month for 200GB. The Mail app likewise embodies the same translucency as other apps, along with some pretty cool new features. For starters, with Mail Drop, you can now send large attachments to other Mac users, including videos up to five GB in size. Most memorable for me though was the Mark Up feature that comes with Mail. With Mail, you can mark up photos in freehand and the Mac will clean up those mark ups with clearly delineated arrows and callouts. You can also sign documents using your track pad and send them off, right inside mail. Safari was presented with a cleaner, minimalist look, while increasing the functionality and usability. Smart search, for example, is a feature that shows favorites in tile view without having to view them in the header bar and tabs can be viewed as stacks to quickly access your web history. Safari also supports 1080P video streaming. The reciprocity between OS X and iOS is clearly evident in what Apple calls Continuity. In a feature called Hand Off, you can type a message on your Mac and pick up right where you left off on your iPad. This also works in reverse. These developments can be seen as an extension of what Apple already implemented in Mavericks with the Notes and iBooks applications. And finally, AirDrop can now be used to share files between your Mac and your iOS devices and Macs can now connect to an Instant Hotspot provided by your iPhone. And like Mavericks, Yosmite will be free. iOS 8 Moving on to iOS, Tim Cook returned to the stage to impress us with some more stats. In regards to user adoption, iOS 7 reached an Install base of 89% compared to Android's latest operating system which is around 11%. With iOS 8, we also have improvements with notifications by making them Interactive. For example, you can like a Facebook post without leaving notifications or respond to a SMS message without leaving the screen. iOS 7 introduced multi-tasking by double tapping the home button to bring up open apps in full page view, and now you can see recent contacts along the top as well. In regards to Mail, swiping gestures across messages now bring up the option to flag or mark as unread, and it appears that you will be able to change the options in the settings tab. And similar to what Google introduced with the YouTube app, you can now swipe email Messages to the bottom, while continuing to browse through other messages. This is great for retrieving content from old messages. Spotlight in iOS 8 also includes expanded search, so that you can also search for apps, songs, and movies in iTunes, as well as search the web. A new feature I find to be very useful is the expanded keyboard functionality called Quick Type, Apple's smartest keyboard to date. With this feature, your iPhone can predict what you are about to write and even determine the style and manner in which writing. As I mentioned earlier, Messages for iOS 8 is arguably the most impressive feature, now adding the ability to send audio and video messages, and with group messaging, naming a thread adding or removing from a thread, adding do not disturb, and leaving a thread. You can also view photos that are shared and detailed information about participants. Continuity of course is carried through in iOS 8 with iCloud Drive, hotspot connectivity, and hand off. For Enterprise customers, Federighi indicated that devices can now be configured automatically to manage security, productivity and management, providing as well support for third party enterprise documents. As expected, Apple is bringing us Healthkit, which will enable us to monitor our health with the use if metrics and third party apps. This can also aid doctors in monitoring our health. Similar to HealthKit, Apple introduced HomeKit, which will enable you to control various functions in your house including security, temperature, alarms, lighting, and so forth. Family Sharing for iTunes purchases was a no brainer, since it is already quite common for family members to share the same credit card, but now purchases by secondary members will send a message to the primary card holder for approval. The Photos app gets a boost as well, adding new smart editing tools and nice UI for making adjustments simultaneously. This same feature will come with Yosemite early next year. Apple could have ended the keynote right there, but instead introduced something especially for developers called Extensibility. With extensibility, developers can build their UI right inside native apps, Federighi demonstrated this by illustrating how the Waterlogue app could be used to edit photos to turn your photos into watercolors right inside the Photos App. Apple did not address any new product releases (Jony Ive did not make an appearance), but no one seemed the least bit bothered about it since Apple covered a plethora of features and functionality changes under the hood to keep the Apple community buzzing for quite a while. In just 24 hours after the keynote, articles began to appear about a new iWatch, expected sometime in October, as a result of a leak from a Japanese newspaper. New product releases are inevitable, which means even more excitement to come. Pixelmator 3.2 comes with some nice improvements, including a repair tool, lock layers, converting selections to shapes, and 16 bits per channel support. Check out the following video to see a screen recording of the latest features. With version 2.1 of the Podcasts App, Apple released some welcoming improvements. With the new update, users can now quickly find unplayed episodes, browse the feed of your favorite podcast, save episodes, and delete played episodes automatically. For those of you who are not familiar with this application, Podcasts are a great way to listen to audio and video recordings that address a wide range of topics from politics, cooking, travel, technology, and yes, even My Apple Podcast episodes. Apple one of the first technology companies to promote podcasting through the iTunes store and Podcasts app makes convenient to access them from the mobile devices. To learn more check out our earlier review of the app or download the app in iTunes. Since the Podcasts App syncs across platforms, you will also find a companion update for desktop, iTunes 11.2.1.
Pinnacle Studio by Corel Inc, a video application previously designed for the iPad, is now available for the iPhone. The application has also been redesigned to match the simplicity and flatness of iOS 7. Is this significant?Yes. If you are looking for advanced tools to create and edit video projects, and an alternative solution to iMovie, you will find Pinnacle Studio to be the best option available. There are a plethora of applications for creating quick and easy videos, but very few that give you advanced tools for more extended projects. What are the features?If you are using Pinnacle Studio for the first time, you will be impressed with the features and the levels of customization. To begin a new video project, click on the "+" symbol. Upon entering the project view for the first time, Pinnacle Studio will take a few seconds to sync all your media. A tool bar along the top enables you to access different types of content, including videos, photos, music, transitions, titles, and montages. Adding VideosOn the top left, adjacent to the home button, is the icon used for importing video. Initially, videos in your library are presented in tile view until you select one. You are then presented with a single view of your selection, with the option to crop the video length by moving the yellow sliders left and right. Once you have identified your selection, press the arrow button on the right, which will then drop the clip into the storyboard and timeline below. Adding Photos and MontagesTo the right of the video icon is the photo button. From here you can import photos from your camera roll, including any events or albums you have set up. Since cropping is not necessary at this stage, you simply tap on the arrow button below to drop the image to the storyboard and timeline, respectively. As an alternative to single photos, you can add multiple photos to one segment using the montage feature on the far right of the toolbar. Montages are arranged by category, including aerodynamic, extreme, instant photo, multilayer mix, neon, and tribute - all of which correspond to a specific kind of animation and image configuration. To begin, select a montage and drag it to the storyboard. Browse for photos by clicking on the photo icon, and then drag your photo on top of the corresponding storyboard thumbnail. A small menu will appear, requesting that you choose a placeholder within the montage for your photo (e.g. one, two, three, four, etc). Adding Music and EffectsIn addition to videos and photos, you can import music from your iTunes library or effects that come pre-installed inside the application. In the case of most apps that allow for music integration, you have to be careful about importing music from iTunes due to copyright issues. I recommend that you create an album in iTunes of royalty free music, jingles from Garageband, or your own music, so you can have some stock soundtracks to work with when setting up your project. You can also purchase video and audio samples from sites like Pond5. On the other hand, Pinnacle Studio provides a wide range of effects, including animals, background, cartoons, explosions, gunshots, sports, and more. Once you have identified a sound track, double tap on it to drop it to the timeline. Sound files do not appear on the Storyboard layer, but appear just below the main timeline as separate tracks. In addition to the main timeline, you can add three layers of sound (any combination of music, narration, and/or effects). Adding Titles and TransitionsThe toolbar also provides the option to add titles and transitions. Identified by the "T" icon, titles are grouped in two sections: Motion Titles and Standard Titles. The former consists of titles that have motion. For example, titles can fade in, appear one word at a time, or move into view from the left or ride side of the video frame. Standard titles are static. Once you have selected a title, drag the thumbnail onto the storyboard, and a corresponding element will also be added to the timeline. Identified by the "Thunderbolt" icon, transitions are grouped into three categories: Basics, Pushes, and Slides. The first option provides various types of fades, while Pushes and Slides, push and slide content from the left, right, top, or bottom; the latter pushes or slides your content from the corners of the video frame. Storyboard and TimelineThe project view below is composed of two parts, a storyboard, thumbnail view, and a timeline view. The storyboard consists of square thumbnails, which essentially gives you a snapshot of your media (videos, photos, titles, transitions, etc), and the order in which they are presented. What is great about the storyboard view is the ability to move thumbnails back and forth with your finger, so they can be rearranged - the timeline below is adjusted accordingly. The timeline provides a linear view of your content, enabling you to adjust the length of your clips by moving the sliders along the ends, and/or adjusting the overall view of the timeline by pinching below it with two fingers. Edits and AdjustmentsOnce your content has been added to the timeline and/or storyboard, you can edit each element by double tapping on the storyboard thumbnail or the corresponding element in your timeline. Depending on the element (title, video, photo, transition), you will be prompted to make adjustments, including font type and color, cropping photos, adjusting the speed, volume, and fades of audio and video clips, and/or deleting individual elements. In order to properly view animations and transitions, select a transition, motion title, or montage element and press the gear icon in the bottom left of the viewfinder. Pinnacle Studio will render the necessary files so you can get an accurate view of how your clips will appear as they transition from one segment to the next. Menu options also appear along the bottom of the viewfinder for further refinements. The question mark icon located at the bottom right corner brings up your basic settings menu. This enables you to control the frame rate, default durations for titles, photos, and transitions; clean up files, rebuild libraries, and restore purchases; and access support forums and video tutorials provided by the YouTube channel Luma Touch. The suitcase icon gives you the option of recording audio narrations which are then added below the timeline. From this menu, you can also share your final projects to your camera roll, YouTube, Facebook, Box, or through iTunes File Sharing. The trashcan icon enables you to immediately delete any element selected, and the razor icon allows you to split any audio or video track on the timeline. Simply tap on the razor and then tap on "Video" or the sheet music icon to match the corresponding file type. ConclusionPinnacle Studio provides advanced tools for video editing that far exceed what you can expect to find in other video editing applications. Is it better than iMovie? You will have to determine that for yourself, but both applications enable you to create professional quality videos with levels of customization not found in other apps designed for iOS. Pinnacle Studio for the iPhone is currently $4.99 in the App Store, compared to $12.99 for the iPad version.
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Timothy Brown
Host of My Apple Podcast. Categories
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