Posts tagged with "camera"

Instagram 1.5 Released: Tilt-Shift Effect, News Feed

Image sharing service Instagram, very popular thanks to its 2 million users but still available as an iPhone-only app, has released a new update today bringing the application to version 1.5. The new Instagram introduces a new effect, performance improvements for previous ones, a completely revamped news feed and the possibility to share photos via email.

The new filter, Tilt-Shift, comes after several requests from users that were forced to apply this specific effect in other iPhone apps like Tiltshift Gen; now Instagram integrates the possibility to blur a portion of an image with a slider directly into its interface without leaving the app. All you have to do is pinch to adjust the orientation of the blur and focus area. Other filters got a speed bost as well and now feel much more responsive, especially on iOS 4.3.

The major new feature, however, is the News Feed that’s been redesign to include more activity from your friends. Together with follow and comment notifications, you can now see what your friends are doing, the comments they post, the photos they like and the people they start following, too. I’m not sure I like this News Feed as it brings a lot more social information into the stream and it might get annoying over time, but we’ll see. For now, it’s clear that Instagram is moving towards a more social approach besides the “simple app that takes photos” concept.

Upon taking a picture, you can also share it via email to your friends and family. I’m pretty sure this sharing option should also allow you to drop pictures onto your Dropbox using this service, and I’ll make sure to try it later. This is a welcome addition to the app. Last, you can tap & hold a username to initiate a reply – I don’t use Instagram much to reply to people but I guess the heavy Instagrammers out there will insanely love this option.

Instagram 1.5 is propagating now in the App Store; it’s available for free here. Check it out, it’s a nice update. More screenshots below.

Update: Associating a Send To Dropbox email address to Instagram won’t let you automatically save photos into your Dropbox. Just a text file with the email you shared.

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This Video Was Shot With The iPad 2

With all the hands-on videos and first impressions about the iPad 2 we collected from around the web last week, we didn’t have the chance to take a look at the actual quality of videos recorded through the new device’s cameras. The iPad 2 features both a rear and front-facing camera to shoot videos and photos, use Photo Booth and have video calls with your friends and family using FaceTime. The front-facing camera is a VGA one, whilst the rear one allows for 720p HD video recording at 30 frames per second, with zoom up to 5x for stills. Apple didn’t provide detailed specs on the megapixels of the rear camera, but it appears that it will be a 1 MP one similar to the camera found on the iPod touch 4th gen.

So how will videos shot on the iPad 2 look, exactly? We don’t know yet, but the video embedded below was indeed recorded with the iPad 2’s back camera. The video doesn’t offer precise indication of how videos will look on the new tablet, mainly because it was shot in low-light conditions, shared via email and then uploaded to Youtube – which applies compression to video files.

Some quality got lost in the process, but it’s one of the first examples of how iPad 2 videos will look on Youtube, right? Check it out. [via iPadevice] Read more

Socialcam, The “Instagram for Video”, Now Available. Our Review

A few weeks ago we talked about Socialcam, a new iOS and Android app from the creators of Justin.tv that’s aimed at revolutionizing the mobile video sharing space by offering a friendly user-experience heavily inspired by the current winner of mobile photo sharing apps, Instagram. Socialcam is finally available for free in the App Store and, after some quick tests, I can say this new app / service has a lot of potentialities to become the “Instagram for video”, but it needs a series of refinements in the settings to allow users to upload videos at the quality they want.

The strongest selling point of Instagram, in fact, is that it’s easy to use and, while images get compressed to enable faster uploading times on WiFi and 3G, users won’t notice the decrease in quality thanks to the filters provided by the app. Filters in Instagram are both a nice photographic addition and a way to “hide” the fact that photos are compressed at lower quality. Socialcam, however, doesn’t come with filters and videos are heavily compressed even when uploaded through WiFi. From what I’ve seen so far, this will make most videos look crappy on the iPhone 4 which, by the way, can actually do HD video recording. Socialcam should definitely offer some settings to allow users to upload and wait for the quality they want, as this could be great for videographers willing to share their creations on the go. Read more

Apple Asks Developers To Update Apps for iPad 2

In a note posted on the iOS Dev Center and, most specifically, on the webpage that lists the new features of the upcoming iOS 4.3, Apple is asking developers to update their apps for the iPad 2 to take advantage of the improved hardware performances of the device.

With a new A5 dual-core chip running at 1 Ghz per core, Apple clearly mentions that most operations inside applications will be faster “ouf of the box” but developers can further tune their software with tools like OpenGL Profiler for “greater performance”. Even though Apple hasn’t stated how much RAM went inside the iPad 2, the A5 chip alone should be twice as fast than the A4 in iPad 1 with graphic performances up to 9x faster. Most apps will be generally faster on the iPad 2, but developers can manually update their apps to use the new iPad 2 hardware if they want to.

Developers are also asked to enhance their apps “with new user experiences” thanks to the iPad 2 cameras and gyroscope + accelerometer. While the possible implementations of rear and front-facing cameras are pretty obvious (self portraits and HD video, expect a lot of Photo Booth and iMovie alternatives coming from 3rd party developers), Apple has put the focus on the precision granted by the combination of gyroscope and accelerometer with “6-axis of motion sensing, including user acceleration, full 3D attitude, and rotation rate”.

The iPad 2 will be released on March 11 and it will come with a special version of iOS 4.3 (containing FaceTime and Photo Booth) pre-installed.

iPad 2 Has Photo Booth, FaceTime

The rumors were true, and the iPad 2 will get a Photo Booth. Thanks to its faster processor and graphics, the Photo Booth app will be able to let you see 9 video streams at once, on the screen.

And of course, the iPad 2 has FaceTime support. You can call other iPad owners, but also iPhone 4s and Macs. The interface looks very similar to the one seen on the iPhone.

Simple iOS Photo Editing with Crop and Straighten

Crop and Straighten by Fingertips is the photo editing app for iOS Apple should have built into their operating system. It’s a simple, fast, minimal solution to change the aspect ratio of your photos and crop them, on the iPhone and iPad. That’s it.

You fire up the app, and you’re asked to import a photo from your camera roll. Choose one, and you’re ready to edit. You can pinch to zoom and focus on a specific detail, or rotate the photo with the usual two-finger gesture and adjust it taking a look at the grid that appears on screen. Very simple. If you want to change the aspect ratio, tap the button in the toolbar and you can choose between 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, 6:7 and 1:1.

If you need an app to quickly crop your photos (especially on the iPhone), Crop and Straighten is highly recommended. Go download it here.

QuickShot: A Custom Camera App That Automatically Uploads to Dropbox

A few days ago I reviewed DropPhox, an iPhone app that can upload photos and videos to Dropbox, also allowing you to set a specific size for uploads so you don’t have to worry about large files being transferred over 3G. DropPhox has some great features and, overall, works pretty well but in my review I mentioned the app could use some additional UI love and the possibility to upload media without tapping on a confirmation button.

QuickShot, a similar app I stumbled upon over the weekend, lets you upload photos to Dropbox but it does this with a polished interface and by completely working in the background. The developers achieved these results using a custom camera view that lists uploads right below the statusbar, without requiring you to confirm photos going off to Dropbox. You can, however, change this option in the settings. QuickShot also enables you to choose a Dropbox path, save pictures to the Camera Roll and set photo quality to low, medium and high. Medium works best for me.

Perhaps the best thing about QuickShot is its minimal and elegant UI that puts three buttons in the standard camera view, with one of them allowing you to pick photos from the iOS camera roll and send them to Dropbox. The app I reviewed, DropPhox, doesn’t have such a feature, or delicious interface.

QuickShot doesn’t do videos, but it’s a great solution for photos. Get it here at $0.99.

DropPhox: The Easiest Way From Your iPhone’s Camera to Dropbox

DropPhox, a $1.99 app by DaVinciWare, provides an easy solution to take pictures and videos on your iPhone, and instantly upload them to the popular service Dropbox, used these days by a plethora of applications and external services. The app’s tagline, in fact, is “Snap and send to Dropbox”.

Once authenticated with your Dropbox credentials in the settings, the app will create a folder in your Dropbox to save photos and videos shot on the iPhone. By default, the path is /DropPhox. In the in-app settings you can also choose to keep GeoTags while uploading, whilst you’ll have to head over the Settings app to modify other preferences. The selection here is pretty rich: you can edit the date format (International, US, Japan), choose the photo size (keep original, or automatically scale to 600x800, 960x1280, 1200x1600) and select the badges you’d like to see on the homescreen and tab bar. I particularly appreciate the possibility to choose photo size as most of my iPhone 4 pictures will end up being resized at 600x800 anyway.

With DropPhox set up to upload to Dropbox correctly, there really isn’t much else to say: open the app and start shooting. As you take pictures and videos, the queue will upload them to Dropbox in the background. It’s very nice. After taking a photo or video, you’ll only have to tap on an additional “Use” button to send stuff to Dropbox.

DropPhox could use some additional UI refinements, but it works well as a way to get photos and videos on to Dropbox in seconds. Sure, everything will depend on the speed of your Internet connection, and that’s why the size settings are very welcome (especially when using an iPhone 4 on 3G). Go download it here.

iPhone App with Face Tracking Technology Lets You Try Virtual Glasses

The Total Immersion developers released a free iPhone app in the App Store a few days ago that uses augmented reality face-tracking technologies to let you try virtual glasses and see how they fit. The app – Atol les opticiens – was commissioned by French optician and eyeglasses retailer Atol and, apparently, it’s the first of its kind to land in the App Store that relies on this kind of face recognition to allow you to try various models of glasses. Unfortunately, the app is in French so if you want to try it prepare to see a lot of “telecharger” and “Oui”.

The developers write:

This is the most fully realized mobile commerce application ever to use augmented reality, and the first  AR app in the m-commerce space featuring face- tracking technology, newly available on mobile,” said Bruno Uzzan, co-founder and CEO, Total Immersion.  “Face tracking is ideally suited to purchases like eyeglass frames, where it’s essential to try before you buy.  In this environment, the m-commerce experience is both more convenient and more satisfying for consumers and merchants alike.  Product selection is virtually unlimited – and those with corrective lenses can keep them on through the AR fitting.

I tried the app and, after a few calibrations, it works pretty well. Check out the video below, and go download here. Read more