Artists don’t always explain themselves well.
Even acclaimed illustrator Christoph Niemann, who can articulate the mysteries of creativity better than many, doesn’t always understand the moment when the head, heart and eyes merge with skills and gifts to produce a brilliant piece. It’s like trying to put into words the act of breathing.
But every Sunday, we can behold the headwaters of his creative flow.
This week: As promised! With over 430,000 Instagram followers, photographer Cory Staudacher, aka @withhearts, joins us to talk mobile photography, his favorite photo apps and gear, and his tips for capturing beautiful images with your favorite iDevice. Plus, someone tries to burn down the Mrs. Doubtfire house—time for a drive-by fruiting; prepare thy wrists, the Watch may cometh in March; and details on a radically new Macbook Air.
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Full show notes ahead!
If you can suffer through the selfies, food shots and pet pictures, you can catch a glimpses of the revolutionary art form that is mobile phone photography. Book publisher Pierre Le Govic has positioned himself to be the first important curator of the fleeting beauty on Instagram.
Le Govic, who established a publishing house in France for mobile photography in 2013, has issued Out of the Phone: The Mobile Photo Book 2014 Edition, featuring one picture each from 100 photographers from 25 countries
The first wave of Apple Watch apps will probably be pretty limited in functionality, but even with the WatchKit restrictions Apple has in place, the design gurus at JBS Labs have created an Instagram for Apple Watch concept that we can’t wait get on our wrists.
The Hungary-based design firm pared down the Instagram UI to just the bare essentials. No, you can’t upload pictures or comment on your friends’ latte photos, but the simplified app does let you view and like pictures, as well as read comments and find new people to follow.
Check it out:
Have you been noticing some weird problems with your Instagram feed today, like pictures not showing up? You’re not alone, says Instagram, which notified users this morning that it is experiencing some issues, but a fix is in the works.
Instagram users have reportedly been experiencing issues where their main photo feed isn’t updating with new pictures, even though Instagram users they’re following are still able to upload and share new pictures.
Disneyland is the happiest place on earth, but in 2014 it was also the most Instagrammed spot in the universe.
Instagram revealed its list of the top 10 geotagged locations in 2014 with Cult of Mac this morning, and the Mouse is the King this year, after the Siam Paragon shopping mall in Bangkok took the top spot in 2013.
New York City managed to land three locations in the top 10, while Moscow had two iconic areas on Instagram’s list. Take a look at the full list below and see if there’s a spot that you snapped this year:
Few things on Instagram are more embarrassing than a horrific typo right in the middle of your caption, but starting today Instagram is finally going to let sloppy texters like myself go back and edit captions.
The new Instagram 6.2 update was announced by the company this morning and along with giving Grammers the ability to fix their blunders, the app also added some new features to the Explore page as well.
Do you take pictures of all your meals to share with your friends on Facebook and Instagram? Wish there was a way to share even more of it with your FOMO-ing virtual friends?
Well, you can’t share the taste, or the smell, but 3DAround is an upcoming iOS app that lets you share the food you’re eating in all of its three-dimensional glory. And you can do it with other things too.
Instagram’s new Hyperlapse app is a phenomenal tool to capture buttery smooth timelapse video with more options and tweaks offered than iOS 8’s built-in timelapse feature. But if you’ve got a new iPhone 6 and want to record 1080p Hyperlapses you’re out of luck, unless you know how to access its secret settings menu.
Hyperlapsers can tap into their iPhone’s full potential by accessing the hidden ‘Labs’ menu that lets you tweak everything from your recording resolution, frame rate, speed multiplier options and even the sound levels.
Here’s how to access Hyperlapse’s secret settings:
Today Instagram updated Hyperlapse with a feature it’s calling “selfielapse.” While the app was previously restricted to the rear shooter, the iPhone’s front facing camera can now be used to take time lapse videos.
Hyperlapse’s design has also been updated to be at home on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
Widget, widgets, widgets. Boy, have we got some widgets for you. And text. Plain text. Plain old text, turned into a calculator. And widgets. Did I mention those? Weather widgets. Battery widgets. And yes, text widgets.
Read all about these new widgets and other new apps in this week's App Watch.
Hyperlapse, the new time-lapse video app from Instagram, is taking the Web by storm. In today’s video, Cult of Mac goes hands-on with the free app to show you exactly how to use it to make incredible videos.
We also explain why Hyperlapse beats out iOS 8’s built-in time-lapse feature, and we’ll show you some of the best videos made with Instagram’s new app so far.
Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest videos.
Yesterday Instagram released Hyperlapse, its new app for making time lapse videos. The obvious benefit of time lapsing footage is that you can cram more into a 15-second clip, but the videos also end up looking really cool.
Hyperlapse takes the time lapse concept to the next level by encouraging you to move around while you shoot. That ends up opening the doors for all kinds of creative shots. You’d normally have to pay thousands of dollars for video gear to make the HD footage Hyperlapse can, but now anyone can do it with an iPhone for free.
The engineers at Instagram have shared what went into making the app. Here are a few takeaways:
Instagram’s decision to release Hyperlapse as a standalone app yesterday was a bit of surprise to users, but not adding the feature directly into Instagram certainly hasn’t seemed to hurt its rising popularity.
Hyperlapse was only released 24 hours ago on iOS, but grammers have been eager to take it for a spin, and have tagged over 32,000 Instagram posts with #hyperlapse. Most of the videos are rubbish time lapses of what it’s like to drive in a car, but Instagram made sure Hyperlapse got into the hands of some of its top photogs before the public release, and the results were are pretty breathtaking, whether it be cruising Yosemite on a longboard, or just watching an army of ants march by with its cargo.
We’ve gathered up 12 of the best Hyperlapse videos to hit Instagram so far from both pros and amateurs alike. Check out the videos below to see what’s sure to be the next big trend on Instagram:
Later today Instagram will release a new stand alone app for iOS called Hyperlapse, reports Wired, that will allow users to create time lapse videos that are unfathomably smooth thanks to a its accompanying stabilization algorithm.
Rather than bringing it’s stand alone messaging app Bolt into the spotlight, Instagram is releasing its first ever tool for capturing time lapse video, and comes right as Apple is adding time lapse video to iOS 8, only Hyperlapse comes with a few advantages that Apple’s baked-in version doesn’t have.
Anand Sharma has eaten 17 burritos in the last 141 days. An avid runner and rock climber, the San Francisco-based designer has visited parks seven times this month. He weighed 153.9 pounds and was at 18.4% bodyfat after his 5.5-mile run yesterday. He burned 688 calories during that run.
He gets around a lot, too: On July 15, he flew from Hong Kong to Changi, Singapore. Then he grabbed a bite at the Kampong Glam Cafe. He also spent 94 minutes in a car and 70 minutes on the Lomprayah high-speed ferry that day. During his long day of travel, his heart rate hit a high of 94 and a low of 66 (averaging a slightly higher than usual 79). He didn’t share any photos on Instagram, but he pushed 25 commits to code-sharing site Github.
Sharma, who was 24.382007813 years old as of this writing, is already the most transparent human being on Earth, and he’s just getting started. Fully embracing the data-hungry demands of the quantified-self movement as well as the constant spotlight of social media, he routinely shares every little detail about his life, from his travels and meals to his vital signs and work, on the slickly designed April Zero website he launched last month. Now he wants to invite you to his way of life. He’s working on a new app that will make it easy for anyone to have their own version of April Zero.
Cult of Mac talked with Sharma about April Zero, the benefits of living in public, and the possibilities of Apple’s long-rumored health-centric wearable.
One sad limitation of Instagram is you can’t post photos to the service from your Mac, only your iPhone. It’s by design, of course — Instagram wants to be a more spontaneous photo hosting service than the likes of Flickr — but it can make things annoying when you want to give a more polished shot the Instagram treatment.
Things are about to get a little easier. You still can’t post photos directly from your Mac, but you can make it easier to get them on your iPhone or iPad. Younity, a service that gives you access to your computer’s files through a personal cloud with no syncing necessary, has just added support for publishing Instagram files directly from the service.
While looking at social media on your favorite iOS devices is smooth, making the transition to the Mac just isn’t quite the same. Though there are plenty of top-notch applications for looking at Twitter or Snapchat on iOS, the social media gems on Mac can be hard to find.
In today’s video, we’ll show you the top social media apps for Mac so you can transport the fun from iOS to your desktop in the most efficient ways possible. Here’s how to enjoy the fun of Snapchat, Instagram and more, all on your Mac by downloading some killer social apps.
Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest videos.
This week: now with over 300,000 followers, we welcome back professional Instagram’er Cory @WithHearts Staudacher to share his iPhone photo editing tips and reveal which camera apps he relies on daily. Also on the docket: why our cities deserve municipal internet; unlocking your iPhone gets legal (again); great changes on the horizon for Apple’s Podcasts app; and our musings on the freshly-updated 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros.
Kick back and relax whilst we amuse you with each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the chuckles begin.
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Watch today’s Cult of Mac news roundup for details on how one popular group of protesters are picketing Steve Jobs and Apple itself. Plus, get info on a new Snapchat clone from Instagram, news on unlocking your iPhone and even how one KickStarter is turning MacBooks into huge touch-enabled tablets.
Of course, don’t forget to subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube and catch all our latest videos.
Instagram soft-launched Bolt this week, its new app to take on Snapchat. The app is only available in Singapore, New Zealand, and South Africa right now while Instagram squashes bugs and gets it ready for everyone else in the world.
That doesn’t mean you can’t see what Bolt is like now. Cult of Mac reader @ravirajim sent us a bunch of screenshots of Bolt in action, which you can view above. We’ll let you know when Bolt ships to the App Store in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Instagram has begun rolling out a brand new app called Bolt. After the app’s name and icon recently leaked, Bolt has become available for download in the New Zealand, Singapore, and South African App Stores.
Bolt is basically a direct competitor to Snapchat, as it’s designed to send photos and videos to friends that disappear after viewing.
Using toys, camera tricks and a keen sense of story, the photographer delights Flickr and Instagram fans with movie stills. But the movies don’t exist.
The Scotsman grew up a discerning cineaste with a taste for the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future and Ghostbusters movie franchises, but his greatest inspiration — in film and toys — was Star Wars.
“I could probably track my interest in toys via Star Wars,” Larner says. “When I was a kid in the early ’80s, I was completely swept up by the original Kenner 3.75-inch range. Then, in the ’90s, the remastered movies came out along with whispers of the prequels so the Star Wars toy range was reintroduced, so that caught my interest again. However, it was when Lego had the bright idea of making Star Wars Lego sets in 1999 that I really got sucked in and I haven’t looked back since!”
Instagram has accidentally leaked that it’s planning to launch a thunder strike against Snapchat with a new “one tap photo messaging” app of its own called Bolt.
A banner announcing the new messaging app was accidentally posted for some users on Android to see last night, but was taken down about 15 minutes after it appeared. The Free link button on the banner directed users to the Google Play Store, but the page was not available.
Merek Davis is not a coder. The developer never even made an app before 2013. Yet on his first iOS at-bat, he hit an App Store grand slam with Mextures, his photo-editing app that quickly became one of the top photo apps of the year.
Mextures is like Photoshop for your iPhone, only easier to use. The app’s editing tools and formulas let you tweak and re-tweak pics, adding light leaks, textures and color gradients that can turn even your crappiest pics into something majestic.
It’s a bona fide hit, with some of the most-followed names on Instagram using Davis’ creation. But it almost never happened.
