I really love these poignant ads for the Brazilian iPad magazine app, Veja, all of which feature a single finger “dipped” in a different news story after loading up the app. A story about an oil spill features a digit dripping with crude, while a story about genocide coats the finger in blood. The effect is more subtle for the third ad, which shows a pruned finger being held up after a story on a flood.
Not only are these ads gorgeous to look at, but the dripping finger metaphor is a poignant one, not only for the way the iPad has changed the way many of us experience news, but for the immersive power of iOS as a whole.
Photography is one place where older is definitely better — for now at least. We take amazingly high quality photos with our digital cameras and then add filters, grain, vignetting and all manner of other imperfections to make those pictures look like they were shot on film cameras. And not even good film cameras: pretty much all of the effects we use mimic defects in the photo processes of old.
Now, with Osmo Leaker, we have an app whose sole purpose is to add simulated light leaks to our photos. Tap the film-cartridge icon and random orangey strips will be added to your photograph, just as if you had accidentally opened the back of the camera before you rewound the film. Don’t like the result? Tap again. Decided you actually did like the previous leak better? No problem, you can go back (in the Pro version).
When you’re done, you can export to the usual places — Facebook and Twitter — and also save to the camera roll or open the image in Instagram. And that’s it: Osmo Leaker is a one trick pony, but it performs that trick very well. There are two versions available, a free version and a $1 pro version. The Pro app has more effects, full-res export and no ads, as well as the back button for fickle mind-changers.
All this has me wondering how ridiculous this retro-fication might be if applied to other technology. Low-res movies with barrel distortion to replicate the crappy picture of an NTSC CRT TV? Crackles and pops applied to lossless music to simulate vinyl? Wait, that last one actually exists!
DC Copy is a universal app which lets you avoid iTunes.
DC Copy is a new app that does one thing. It lets you copy your photos and videos to your iPhone’s camera roll via iTunes? "What?!" I hear you shout. "We can do that already!"
Well, yes, you kinda can, but it’s a testament to the true horror of using iTunes that this app exists at all, and that — furthermore — you’ll probably be downloading it by the end of this short post.
IStorage 2 is the coolest iPad file manager I have yet seen. It has a bunch of missing parts, and a few UI weirdnesses, but this DropBox-and-iCloud-connecting app uses the iPad’s touch interface and graphical horsepower to bring us the iPad file manager we always wanted.
Sonos has updated their Controller app on Android and iOS in preparation for the June 19th launch of the Sonos SUB. The Sonos SUB is the latest addition to their top-notch wireless audio system and adds that ground shaking bass you’ve been looking for. The SUB works with all amplified components: CONNECT:AMP/ZP120/ZP100; PLAY:5/ZonePlayer S:5; PLAY:3 and features:
Last week a group of developers banded together to celebrate pricing freedom by launching the Because We May promotion. The promotion, which ends June 1, includes heavily discounted games across multiple platforms. Since its launch, Because We May has received great support and the list of games available has grown tremendously.
One of the hallmarks of great Apple software is that it makes you smile like a kid when it does something unexpected and undeniably cool. The first time you pinch-to-zoom, for example, or when you swipe over a picture in iPhoto for iOS and it automatically applies a correction depending on what’s under your finger.
The other hallmark of Apple’s apps is that they look great.
Scalado’s PhotoBeamer manages the first of these things, appearing to work as if by magic. On the second, though, it fails somewhat.
Mobiles Republic, a well known developer of free news aggregate apps, is proud to announce their latest offering, Sports Republic, just in time for the 2012 Olympics. Stay on top of all the scores and highlights with access to over 1,000 sports articles daily from over 70 trusted news outlets and sports blogs. Users can create and customize their own personalized sports channels using the many features of Sports Republic:
Going to WWDC 2012? Weirdos in Cat-in-the-Hat-hats is just one of the many things you can expect.
You one of the lucky ones who managed to buy a ticket to this year’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference during the approximately two hours while tickets were on sale? Apple’s posted the schedule of events that you can expect, as well as the requisite app making finding and scheduling your itinerary for WWDC 2012 all the easier.
If you happen to own a LUMIX DMC-FX90, you might be interested to know Panasonic has dropped an app into both the Play and App Store to allow users to view and control certain aspects of their camera remotely. The LUMIX remote allows your Live View screen to be displayed on your smartphone. As long as you perform a firmware update to your FX90, the LUMIX remote app will provide you with:
This week's roundup features new apps from Yahoo!, Facebook, Google, and more.
Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a new web browser from Yahoo! called Axis, which hopes to redefine web searching on desktops and iOS devices. We’ve also got a terrific app for web editors, one that’ll help you monitor which apps are accessing your personal data, and two new apps from Facebook.
Yesterday, Apple yanked Airfoil Speakers Touch for unspecified reasons. A little birdie told us it was because Airfoil Speakers Touch duplicated inherent functionality in iOS 6. It’s possible that that’s still true, but if it is, it’s not why Airfoil Speakers Touch was pulled, as Apple has now gone on record saying it was actually because Rogue Amoeba violated a developer guideline against non-public APIs.
The popular puzzle game follow up Cut The Rope: Experiments has been keeping Om Nom fed for quite some time, but many of you have been running out of experiments to perform. Thankfully, ZeptoLab has pushed out an update to challenge our wits and feed our precious Om Nom. The latest update features:
The creators of the popular Bump app that lets you share contact information and photos by simply bumping two phones together has bumped up their magic to include your computer. Thanks to today’s update, users will now be able to “magically” transfer their photos from their phone to their computer by simply bumping their phone against their keyboards spacebar. Say what? Yea, and the best part is there’s no additional software needed!
While the majority of Americans celebrate Memorial Day with barbecues and lawn darts, Rockstar Games is celebrating with pimps, hoes, and enough bloodshed to paint any street red. Now until May 28th, Rockstar Games will be offering its sandbox hit Grand Theft Auto III for $.99 (that’s 80% off). For less than the cost of a hotdog, you’ll be able to enjoy:
You know how in many Google web apps you can just press CMD-? to bring up an overlay containing all the keyboard shortcuts available? (you did know that, right?) Well, now you can do the same with any app on your Mac using the sweet and simple CheatSheet, a free app with this one single purpose.
A group of developers have banded together to celebrate their freedom to price their games how they like within specific online stores. Most online app stores give developers this freedom, but others such as the Amazon App Store do not. Amazon allows a developer to set a recommended price for their app but reserves the right to change that price whenever they want. I can’t really think of another app store besides the Amazon App Store, so this coalition almost feels like an anti-Amazon App Store celebration to me.
A warehouse nestled in the heart of Louisville, Kentucky is home to hundreds of unnamed machines. Each white box gently wields a robotic arm that grips a normal-looking pen. As I walkdown the aisles separating the machines, disjointed sounds of clicks and squeaks fill the air. I’m in the home of Thank You Pen, a new startup that aims to blend technology with good, old-fashioned, dead-tree communication. “And while the service’s creator modestly says he can’t compete with Apple, Thank You Pen is doing what Cards can’t: putting love, care and soul into every card sent.”
KurbKarma makes sure that as long as you share, you'll never worry about a parking space again.
Brains have been dashed out and arteries spilled over the perfect parking space. Finding a good spot in a busy neighborhood and keeping it secret and safe is the kind of thing many commuters approach with Gandalfish intensity. The rule of thumb is: if you find a good parking space, by all means, never, ever give it up willingly.
Here’s a better idea, though. Instead of fighting tooth and claw for that el primo parking spot, why not keep it in the family instead, passing it onto others in exchange for information about other awesome, open parking spots in the same neighborhood? In other words, why not let parking generate you some good karma? That’s the idea behind a new app, Kurb Karma, and it looks awesome.
The “Netflix For Games” giant, GameFLy, has decided to test its controllers at mobile gaming. Announced today, GameFLy plans to become a mobile game publisher for both Android and iOS games. GameFLy has set aside a stockpile of cash to help financially burdened mobile developers fund their next great project. GameFLy expects to publish its first game this summer and encourages developers to submit their application to [email protected].
If you own Lightroom and an iPad, buy this app now
Lightroom-using iPad owners, get ready for some good news: Photosmith 2 has just launched a few hours early, and is just as amazing an update as we hoped it would be.
Photosmith is a combination of iPad app and Lightroom plugin (Mac or PC) which will sync photos between the two machines, and let you edit metadata, add keywords and otherwise triage your photos on your iPad before sending them off to Lightroom for editing.
V2 adds batch tagging, two-way sync (for sending photos from your Mac to the iPad), smart groups, metadata presets and a lot more. A full review will follow, but our first impressions are below.
The “most delicious social network app” DishPal, is celebrating this Memorial Day by giving away a $100 Crate and Barrel gift card to three lucky users who upload and share their favorite Memorial Day dish. To be entered for your chance to win, all you have to do is:
Today, independent video chat provider ooVoo, announced a significant update across multiple platforms as well as adding a new Facebook application. ooVoo allows users to HD video chat, text, or make phone calls with up to 12 friends across Android, iPhone, PC, Mac and now also on Facebook. According to Yuval Baharav, Chief Executive Officer, today’s release was a direct result of their over 46 million users:
If you’re looking for another alternative to sharing media content and making free phone calls over WiFi, you might want to check out Sidecar for Android and iOS. The recently released app allows users a plethora of sharing options as long as all recepients have the app installed. If you try to make a call to someone who doesn’t yet have the app, it will send them a text message asking them to check out the app. Features of Sidecar include
