Apple Announces ‘Shot on iPhone’ Photography Challenge

For longer than I can remember now, Apple has plucked photos taken by iPhone users from the vast sea of images posted online and featured them on billboards, in print advertising, and online. Today, the company announced that through February 7th, it’s running a Shot on iPhone Challenge. Apple says that:

A panel of judges will review worldwide submissions and select 10 winning photos, to be announced in February. The winning photos will be featured on billboards in select cities, Apple retail stores and online.

Apple’s announcement also introduces the contest’s 11 judges, 6 of whom are from Apple and 5 of whom are outsiders with backgrounds in photography. The Apple team includes Phil Schiller, members of his marketing team, and others who work on Apple’s photo software. The rest of the judges include former White House photographer Pete Souza, travel photographer Austin Mann, who we recently interviewed for Club MacStories, Annet de Graaf, a travel photographer and author of iPhone photography books, Luisa Dörr who shot TIME magazine’s special Firsts issue entirely on an iPhone, and Chen Man, a visual artist and creator of photography-based social apps.

If you’d like to submit your iPhone photos, here’s what to do:

Post your best photo taken on iPhone to Instagram or Twitter with the #ShotOniPhone hashtag to participate in the the Shot on iPhone Challenge. Weibo users can participate as well using #ShotOniPhone#. In the image caption, note which model was used. Alternatively, you can also submit the photo in its highest resolution to [email protected] with the file format ‘firstname_lastname_iphonemodel.’ Photos can be straight from the camera, edited through Apple’s editing tools in the Photos app or with third-party software. Submissions for photos begins at 12:01 a.m. PST on January 22 and ends at 11:59 p.m. PST on February 7. You must be 18 years of age or older to participate, and this challenge is not open to Apple employees or their immediate families.

I’ve always enjoyed Apple’s Shot on iPhone ad campaigns. It will be fun to see which shots its judges pick from what I can only imagine will be a huge number of submissions.

Pixelmator Pro Updated with New Layers Features

Today the Pixelmator team released a layers-focused update to Pixelmator Pro, their Mac image editor.

The update allows users to add any of seven colored tags to a layer to help identify them. The feature also supports Adobe PSD color tags on import and export.

To make navigating projects with lots of layers easier, users can now filter layers based on several criteria including the new color tags, images, shapes, text, RAW, and groups. At the bottom of the layers sidebar, there is also a search field for locating layers by name.

Pixelmator Pro 1.3 supports clipping masks too. The feature allows users to apply the contents of one layer to the shape of another layer or group of layers. Clipping masks can be created from text, shapes, groups of layers, or nested shapes.

Finally, you can also adjust a layer’s opacity and blending mode using the controls at the bottom of the layers sidebar. Adjustments made are previewed live in the app’s main window.

Pixelmator Pro is available on the Mac App Store.

Concepts for iPad: An Adaptable Infinite Canvas to Suit Anyone’s Needs

Concepts, an iOS drawing app featuring an infinite canvas, sat untouched on my iPad forever. I’d seen some buzz about it online, and the idea of an infinite canvas intrigued me. I’m not much of an artist though, so I was unsure how I’d use the app.

What broke my mental logjam was the new Apple Pencil. Attached to the side of my iPad Pro, the Pencil is always within easy reach, so I use it more now than ever. That, in turn, set me on a quest for the best apps that support the Pencil.

I started with familiar apps like GoodNotes, which I reviewed last week, and Linea Sketch from The Iconfactory, two of my long-time favorite apps. I’d used both apps for a long time, but with the new Apple Pencil, I found myself using them more often. Especially with Linea Sketch, I found myself using the Pencil to map out articles and other projects in a loose, free-form style consisting of lots of handwritten notes embellished with splashes of color and doodles. Free from the constraint of orderly lines of text, ideas evolved more organically, which I’ve found works exceptionally well during the early stages of a project.

What led me to dive into Concepts though was a single wall I hit with Linea and GoodNotes. The canvas of both apps is constrained to a single digital sheet of paper. That’s not a deal-breaker in some circumstances, but for more sprawling projects and loosely-defined brainstorming, it’s problematic. The one-page-at-a-time interface of both apps also made it hard to annotate more than a single screenshot per page without running out of space.

Concepts affords me an infinite canvas free of space constraints. It also offers a level of control over the tools I use that fits well with how I approach text editors. Like many writers I know, I like to adjust every detail of how my words appear onscreen, including the typeface I use, its size, the line height, and column width. As I’ll explain in more detail below, Concepts allows a similar level of control over its tools, which I love. I may not take advantage of those tools or their customizations to the same extent as an artist might, but I appreciate their power nonetheless.

So, I spent time over the holidays sketching out plans for 2019 in Concepts. The more I used the app, the more I became convinced that it merited a place in my iPad workflow. Still, I wondered if a review from my non-artist’s perspective made sense for an app so focused on drawing. What finally convinced me to write the review was the interview Federico and I did with Yarrow Cheney that we released on AppStories today.

Cheney co-directed The Grinch and The Secret Life of Pets, was the production designer for the Despicable Me movies and The Lorax, and has been involved in many other animated feature films since the 90s. He’s a fantastic artist and uses Concepts to create the concept art for the films on which he’s worked.

What struck me most about our conversation though was Cheney’s insight that he uses the iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil and Concepts because the combination reduces the distance between the idea in his head and recording it onscreen. That allows him to iterate more quickly and evolve ideas organically in an ever-expanding canvas from which he then pulls the best ideas.

Concept art from The Grinch posted by Yarrow Cheney (instagram.com/yarrowcheney) on Instagram.

Concept art from The Grinch posted by Yarrow Cheney (instagram.com/yarrowcheney) on Instagram.

Listening to Cheney’s explanation, I realized that the primary value of an app like Concepts lies in helping users record and refine their ideas. Whether your ideas result in something like Cheney’s whimsical concept art for The Grinch or my messy soup of notes, screenshots, and highlighting, the core utility of Concepts, which is right there in its name, is the way it facilitates the exploration of ideas. That’s an important distinction that makes Concepts an appropriate choice for iPad users regardless of whether you’re an artist.

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Permute: Quick Image, Audio, and Video Conversion [Sponsor]

When you want to convert a photo, video, or audio file from one format to another, it’s far too easy to get bogged down in settings, unable to make heads or tails of technical jargon. Permute saves you from that trouble by taking care of the details and converting files incredibly fast.

To start a file conversion, just drag a file into Permute’s main window or onto its dock icon, click start, and you’re all set. Permute is faster than ever too. With the recent launch of version 3, the app supports an incredibly long list of file formats and has added hardware acceleration for MP4 and HEVC files. The app also has presets for a long list of Apple hardware so you can match your end results to the devices you use. You can even modify images and videos, adjusting their size and rotating and flipping them.

But that’s not all, Permute 3 can also:

  • Convert individual files or groups of files
  • Stitch multiple images, videos, or audio files together
  • Create DVDs
  • Convert uncommon file formats like WebP and SVG
  • Schedule conversions for later
  • Add converted files to iTunes

Permute has a special limited-time deal just for MacStories readers. If you use this link, you can purchase Permute for 20% off. There’s a free trial available too if you want to try the app first.

Visit Permute’s website today to learn more and take advantage of the special 20%-off deal before it expires.

Our thanks to Permute for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Apple Publishes Videos Showcasing iPad Pro Workflows

Apple shared five new videos on its YouTube channel today, all of which center around working on an iPad Pro. Each video covers a different iPad workflow, as described by the following titles:

  • A new way to host your own podcast
  • A new way to create a presentation
  • A new way to go paperless
  • A new way to take notes
  • A new way to design your space

What I love about these videos, each of which are just over a minute long, is that they demonstrate the actual apps and workflows you can use to accomplish these tasks on the iPad Pro. For example, the podcast hosting video features Anchor for recording, editing, and publishing the podcast, Files for adding audio from an external source, and GoodNotes for holding your speaking notes. The video on taking notes features Notability exclusively, highlighting the app’s versatility for handwritten and typed notes, drawings, and audio recordings.

Each of the five videos ends the same way, by stating that the video was filmed, edited, designed, and made entirely with the iPad Pro. I can’t imagine a better way Apple could push the message that the iPad is a device for getting real work done.

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Thinking Different: Keys to Adopting an iPad-First Workflow

No matter how tech-inclined a person may be, no one sits down at their first computer and instantly finds themselves at home with the device. We all have our own tales of computing learning curves – figuring out how menus, file systems, and other traditional software elements work. Similarly, when making the move from one type of computer to another, there’s an adaptation cost in acquainting yourself with all that’s new. This is true when switching from a PC to a Mac, and also a Mac to an iPad.

Before the iPad Pro debuted in late 2015, transitions from Mac to iPad were extremely scarce. The iPad’s hardware and software were both far too limited to compel many switchers. The software has advanced since that time – thanks to Split View, drag and drop, and Files, it’s far easier to work on an iPad than before – but there’s plenty more progress still to be made. The hardware, however, is where the iPad has shined most, especially with the newest iPad Pros.

Compare the iPad Pro’s hardware to Apple’s modern Mac lineup and the difference is striking. The iPad has Face ID, while Macs are stuck with Touch ID; the iPad has a Liquid Retina display with ProMotion, and Macs are still Retina only; the iPad Pro benchmarks comparably to the most powerful portable Macs; iPads can include LTE, while Macs cannot; and where Mac keyboards are vulnerable to specs of dust, the iPad’s Smart Keyboard Folio can endure any crumbs you throw at it – plus, with the iPad you can choose the keyboard that’s best for you. To top off all these advantages, the iPad Pro is also more affordable than most Macs.

Software limitations aside, the iPad clearly has a lot going for it; the iPad Pro is a more attractive Mac alternative than ever before. But moving to the iPad still involves some growing pains. The longer you’ve used a traditional computer, the harder an iPad transition can be. There are a few key things, however, that can help make your iPad adoption a success.

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Tim Cook Calls for US Privacy Regulations in Time Op-Ed→

User privacy is one of the social drums Tim Cook has been consistently beating for years now, and today that’s continuing in an even stronger way with a new op-ed by Apple’s CEO published by Time. Cook writes:

I and others are calling on the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation—a landmark package of reforms that protect and empower the consumer. Last year, before a global body of privacy regulators, I laid out four principles that I believe should guide legislation:

First, the right to have personal data minimized. Companies should challenge themselves to strip identifying information from customer data or avoid collecting it in the first place. Second, the right to knowledge—to know what data is being collected and why. Third, the right to access. Companies should make it easy for you to access, correct and delete your personal data. And fourth, the right to data security, without which trust is impossible.

In addition to outlining these four principles, Cook gets more specific in calling for a particular organization to be formed that counteracts a “shadow economy that’s largely unchecked” whereby people’s data is sold by retailers and other companies without express knowledge or consent. He writes:

Meaningful, comprehensive federal privacy legislation should not only aim to put consumers in control of their data, it should also shine a light on actors trafficking in your data behind the scenes. Some state laws are looking to accomplish just that, but right now there is no federal standard protecting Americans from these practices. That’s why we believe the Federal Trade Commission should establish a data-broker clearinghouse, requiring all data brokers to register, enabling consumers to track the transactions that have bundled and sold their data from place to place, and giving users the power to delete their data on demand, freely, easily and online, once and for all.

Apple has established a consistent practice of standing for user privacy, partly owing to its highly publicized standoff with the FBI in 2016, but it seems that in 2019 the company wants that value to be even more pronounced. First there was the unavoidable banner at CES touting the iPhone’s privacy advantage, and now today’s op-ed. It will be interesting to see if any of the ideas Cook pushes bring about productive discussion on this issue, leading to practical change in US policy.

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Connected, Episode 226: The Instagram Secret Society→

The boys discuss a bunch of Apple products that may be receiving refreshes after years of neglect, including the iPad mini and iPod touch, then are taught how to edit photos like pros by Tyler Stalman.

If you want to get better at taking pictures on your iPhone, you don’t want to miss the second half of this week’s Connected. I learned a lot from Tyler and now have a handful of new apps to play with. You can listen here.

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