With the holidays coming, maybe there’s no such thing as “too many photobook makers.” At least, that’s probably what Mixbook is banking on with their new Mosaic app, which lets you quickly create a hard-cover photobook for $20.
This one’s a little different though: Not only can you create and order your photobook with your iPhone, but the books are created with an unusual effect where photo thumbnails peek through windows in the book’s cover. Definitely attention-grabbing.
Beamr is one of those mouth-watering iPhone apps that wows not so much because of what it is, but because of what it could be.
The basic idea is very cool: Delve into your photo library, select a handful of photos and choose a cover shot. The app will then superimpose some text and graphics over the cover (you can change the cover text).
But the real magic happens when you share your little faux-magazine. Beamr uses “patent-pending JPEGmini optimization technology” to package and deliver the “magazine”; the result is very quick delivery, and the images can be saved by the recipient at full resolution (for example, 8MP if you shot the pictures with an iPhone 4S/5).
I yearn for more, though. The photos can’t be arranged in any way, and there’s only one style of cover. Also, the app is designed for the iPhone, not the iPad(s) on which it would really shine. Still, it’s a neat trick and worth checking out. And hopefully there’ll be updates that build it out in the near future.
The iPhone camera has sparked a revolution in self-portraits – both above and below the belt. One Apple fanatic in San Francisco has turned the habit of iPhone users to say cheese into inspiration for a new kind of portrait.
Igor Capibaribe takes the nude iPhone photos people send him and turns them into one-of-a-kind art works.
The final effect is so far away from DIY nudie shots that the photos here don’t really do them justice. If you’re in San Francisco, you can check them out on this weekend at his studio. (October 26th from 6-9 pm, October 27 and 28 from 11 am – 6pm, Studio 3A 2150 Folsom Street. You can also see more on his site.)
I have a problem keeping track of suggestions from friends and loved ones. Someone will recommend me an artist or TV show to check out, and I’ll forget to actually check it out shortly after. Apple’s wish list feature in iTunes is nice on the desktop, but you can’t manage or view it in iOS. I use an app called TodoMovies to track films I want to watch on the iPhone, but I’ve been longing for something more robust.
When I heard about Recall, I was intrigued. “Never forget a great recommendation again.” Ok. Sign me up. After giving it a test run, I was pleasantly surprised.
Just retooled for the iPhone 5, Vlock is a free app that displays a bold Android-ish clock, with date, on your iPhone. It’ll also let you play videos through the clock in a kind of video version of the iPad’s Picture Frame mode, complete with loop and transitions. Combine this with the app’s lockscreen feature, and you’ve got a faux animated Android-y lockscreen. All without a jailbreak.
I’ve been messing about with this new app, called Listen, on my iPhone 5 for a little while, after the developer hit me up on Twitter about it. Now, I’m not able to jump on on every app, Mac or iOS, that someone asks me to look at, but I gave this one a look-see. Turns out, it’s a pretty neat little app, which does exactly what its name says it does.
Ticket to Ride Pocket is one of those games whose very existence seems absurd. It’s an iPhone version of an iPad version of an online game that originally gained popularity — massive popularity — as a board game. But the talented people over at Days of Wonder (who publish the entire series) managed, inconceivably, to make a triumph of TTR Pocket through careful execution and attention to detail. And today is your last chance to own it for free, before it heads back up to $2 at midnight.
Ah, fall. When the days grow shorter, the air gets crisper, and we finally get American football back after a purgatory of endless midseason baseball games and Olympics roundups about Bob Costas’s dimples. I’ve been obsessed with football — both college and the NFL — since I was a little kid, so this is unquestionably my favorite time of year. And there’s never been a better time to be a fan. Apps galore for iPhones and iPads have now made it possible to watch games on the go — and out of original broadcast market. A word of warning: several of these applications only work in the U.S. market and with a subscription to cable or satellite. So no fair complaining about that like the App Store critics do.
Unfortunately, the App Store has become home to thousands of poorly designed copycat apps that try to ride the coattails of other popular titles. Such apps use a similar name, look, description, and even icon to trick customers into downloading. While Apple is known for the stringent requirements it puts in place for third-party developers, many clear ripoffs still manage to slip through somehow.
It appears as though Apple is starting to crack down on copycat apps with more force. App Store submissions that uses icons similar to other popular apps are now getting banned.
Subatomic Studios has released its first update to Fieldrunners 2, the popular sequel to the original tower defense game for the iPhone. Version 1.1 of Fieldrunners 2 is now available in the App Store, and the update brings an easier Causal mode, new map updates, Game Center integration, Endless mode, and more.
Today Google updated its Chrome browser in the iOS App Store with the ability to share webpages to Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. By updating now, Google has beaten Apple’s own Safari browser to the punch. Safari in iOS can share directly to Twitter, and Facebook integration is coming in the fall with iOS 6. Google+ integration is not offered, and given Apple and Google’s rocky relationship, don’t expect to see it ever.
September is back-to-fashion month, when glossy magazines bulge at the seams with their biggest issues of the year.
To celebrate its fashion-packed September issue, W magazine partnered with Hipstamatic for a new lens called “WMag Freepak,” offered free to download in-app until September 2, and launched a contest that will earn the winner a chance to shoot for the magazine.
Photographer Peter Ellenby, a self-taught shutterbug who has lived in San Francisco, shooting bands, events, portraits and fashion since 1994, took the WMag lens on a trial run for pics that will appear in an upcoming edition of Hipstamatic’s iPad magazine Snap.
Here are his tips for photographing fashion, including why you should save money on a studio but always accessorize your shots with a touch of crazy.
For the past couple of years, Ecoute has been a considered a staple third-party music player on the Mac. Known for its lightweight, minimalistic design, Ecoute works as an iTunes companion. With access to a Mac’s iTunes library, social network integration, shortcuts, and a simplistic design, many Mac users swear by Ecoute as their music player of choice on the desktop.
Today the makers of Ecoute have launched an official iPhone app in the App Store. Ecoute for iOS serves as a beautiful music player with Twitter integration, AirPlay support, music filters, podcast support, and more.
Dark Sky started as a Kickstarter project and turned into a gorgeous, functional iOS weather app. Cult of Mac’s Charlie Sorrel praised the app when it launched back in April, and Dark Sky has since seen great success.
The key feature of Dark Sky is its ability to quickly tell you when it’s going to storm. In a huge 2.0 update, Dark Sky has gotten even better with several improvements, including the ability to send you a push notification before it starts raining.
If you’re like me, you like to watch a lot of movies and trailers. As a bit of a self-proclaimed movie buff, I’m always doing my best to stay on top of the latest developments in Hollywood, and I like to follow favorite directors and actors as they move from project to project. I’ll often see a trailer for an upcoming film and think, “Oh, I’ve got to see that when it comes out!” More often than not, the movie will come and go in theaters and I’ll forget to see it. Very rarely will I then stumble across it in Netflix later, and that’s mainly because there are a ton of movies I want to watch that aren’t available for instant streaming.
When I stumbled across Taphive’s TodoMovies app, I anticipated finally being able to keep track of the movies I wanted to watch on my iPhone. With a beautiful and simple interface, the app did not disappoint.
There are lots of apps out there that let you manage your data usage, but My Data Manager amazes. It works on both the iPhone and iPad, and has a feature set that’d make it a great deal even at $5 — let alone at the $0 it actually costs.
It’s not often that a jaded veteran like me falls in love with an app. But it happened this week with a new app called Chirp. It’s based on one of those rare technologies like HTTP or XML that at first seems trifling, but ends up changing everything.
To oversimplify, Chirp uses sound to transmit words, pictures and URLs from one phone to another.
It’s called Chirp, because its data transmission sounds like a robotic bird.
First, I’ll tell you how Chirp works. Then I’ll tell you why I think this bird has wings and could change how we all share data.
Read the column and get the app here.
Rumors of Facebook rebuilding its official iPhone app have been circulating since The New York Times reported the news last month. Instead of an aesthetic redesign, Facebook was said to be focusing on fundamental improvements under the hood. The update was said to launch this summer. Interestingly, Facebook has also been hiring former Apple engineers who worked on the iPhone and iPad to help build a Facebook-centric smartphone with HTC as a device partner.
A new report today reiterates that Facebook is indeed building a speedier iPhone app, and that former Apple talent is helping build up Facebook’s mobile presence.
The day has finally come. Subatomic Studios has released Fieldrunners 2 for the iPhone and iPod touch in the App Store. In case you don’t remember, the original Fieldrunners pioneered tower defense games on the iPhone back when the App Store first launched in 2008.
Fieldrunners 2 has now gone live in the App Store, and it looks to be another smash hit.
The National Cancer Institute estimates that there will be 2 million new diagnoses of skin cancer in the U.S. alone this year, including nearly 80,000 cases of melanoma. Besides the obvious practice of routine checkups, those known to be a bit more preemptive have taken to whole body photography as a means to spot cancerous activity before it’s too late.
An iPhone app called UMSkinCheck is meant to be an easy way to check for skin cancer without the need of a trained professional. All you need to do is have someone use your iPhone to take 23 pictures of yourself completely nude.
When we first saw the promo vide for Checkmark, Cult of Mac reviews editor Charlie Sorrel called it the “reminders app Apple should have made.” Today the app makers at Snowman released Checkmark for iPhone in the App store. Available for $0.99, Checkmark aims to replace Apple’s own Reminders app with a smarter workflow and much smarter location-based reminders.
Twitter has updated its official iPhone app in the App Store with several new features, including added settings for notifications, enhancements to the Discover tab, the new expandable tweets feature for viewing media content in the timeline, stability improvements, and the new Twitter icon.
Twitter for iPhone 4.3 is available now in the App Store for free. Change log after the break:
You probably love Instagram filters, and all the other image-tweaking filters in the myriad apps available for your iPhone. But no matter how many you try, they are all just presets.
What if you could make your own presets instead? That’s the promise of Booster!, an iPhone 4/s (or iPad 3 if you don’t mind pixel-doubling) photo app with infinitely changeable live filter effects.
As a professional blogger, the only fashion choices I make involve whether to blog from my torn boxers or my filthy briefs, or whether I should accessorize my t-shirt with a mustard or mayonaise blotch.
That said, at heart, I’ve always admired the fancy lads with pants to match who put themselves together with an eye towards fashion, and so I’ve always been a big fan of Cloth, an iPhone app that allows you to put together a database of your best outfits and scroll through them for inspiration, rate them according to how good you look and even share them on Twitter or Facebook with friends.
The only thing Cloth couldn’t do up until now was tell you what to wear… but that’s just changed, thanks to a partnership with Weather Underground that will allow Cloth to automatically suggest outfits appropriate to the weather outside.
Quick! If you have any need for an iOS screen-recording app, and you don’t mind wasting $2, then go download Display Recorder right now. Don’t worry – I’ll wait.