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Posts tagged with "camera"

Hipstamatic Update: Faster Photo Organization, Camera Bag

It is no secret that Instagram, the popular image sharing service, has been collecting an incredible user base lately. With more than 2 million active users and commercial brands jumping on board to promote their products through photos, Instagram has become many people’s choice when it comes to applying quick and neat effects to photos snapped with an iPhone, ready to be shared online.

But Hipstamatic, another popular iPhone app that’s been around for years and was featured on publications such as The New York Times, is not standing still. Hipstamatic allows you to apply effects to photos and share them on your favorite social networks, but it’s more geared towards “pro” users with a quite complex interface that’s based on the concept of changing films, lenses and flashes. Unlike Instagram, Hipstamatic really wants to put a vintage camera in your hands, with all the options that come with a real camera. The latest update to the app, which went live in the App Store last night, aims at fixing many of the issues with “complicated UI” by providing faster photo snapping and organization, a camera bag menu to easily sort your virtual camera accessories.

Hipstamatic 2 (the iTunes page says version “200”) adds a Camera Bag system that lets you organize the films, flashes and lenses you want to take with you all the time. It’s a simple list that helps along with getting exactly the items you want in your Hipstamatic. This may come in handy if you’ve always hated the fact that the app presents a long list of accessories that can’t be disabled / rearranged. Now it feels much better and it’s easy to use.

Simplicity was also the main reason why the developers added a “Quicksta Snap film queue system” that processes images in the background as you shoot, allowing you to take 9 images in a row without waiting for each one to finish. iOS 4 is required for this feature. Last, major improvements went into the Hipstamatic market – HipstaMart – which is the store embedded into the app that you can use to acquire new lenses, films and flashes as in-app purchases. New packs are offered, the interface is much cleaner now.

Overall, we’re very satisfied with this Hipstamatic update. The app is faster, easier to use and has more options than ever – yet it doesn’t overwhelm you like before. Check it out here.

This iPhone App Takes Pictures With The Microphone

Back in December we saw Apple approved an app called Quick Snap that allowed users to take pictures with the iPhone using the volume buttons instead of the regular camera icon on screen. As you know, Apple doesn’t really like applications that re-purpose hardware elements of the iPhone to perform specific tasks inside an app – just like, again, volume buttons used to snap pictures.

But it looks like they did it again, although we’re not sure whether or not Camera Mic violates Apple’s iOS guidelines. Basically, this app can take photos using the iPhone’s internal microphone; the app’s camera shutter can be triggered by a spike in volume caused by a quick tap on the mic or (this is the option I like the most) a quick whistle or a word like “click” or “go”. The app doesn’t offer much besides this functionality which, after a few tests, I have to say really works as advertised. You say something or tap on the mic, and the app snaps a photo. Of course, the downside is that if people are talking around you the results might not be so effective. But, and here’s another neat feature, it also supports the iPhone’s headphone cord, which can become a remote trigger cable so you don’t have to touch the iPhone’s screen when, say, the device is on a tripod.

There’s the possibility Apple will pull this app soon. So go download it here if you’re into this kind of things, while it’s still available at $0.99.

Update: As noted by our friend Jonatan Castro, Camera Genius offers a similar functionality inside the Settings. I have tested the feature in Camera Genius and it works similarly to Camera Mic, although I got better results with “tap on microphone” with Gamblus’ app. A few readers suggested using the mic’s audio to trigger the camera isn’t breaking any rules, as I wrote above. Still, this is an interesting (and curious) way to take pictures with an iPhone.

Hacker Brings FaceTime to iPad

In spite of the iPad lacking a camera (that should change very soon with the iPad 2), hackers have managed to port the FaceTime application for the iPod touch 4th gen to the tablet and make it work even without access to any kind of camera. The hack, called Intell, requires a pretty laborious installation process you can check out here, and involves changing permissions and values to a series of files inside the iPad’s filesystem.

The FaceTime app has been resized to scale nicely on the iPad’s larger screen, although it’s very clear that is an iPhone / iPod touch app running on a screen that’s not meant for it. The hack works from iPad to any other FaceTime device and, of course, iPhone users calling iPad owners will only receive audio. The app works over WiFi as required by FaceTime.

With the next-generation iPad coming in a few months with FaceTime capabilities it shouldn’t be so hard to wait for video calling on the tablet, but if you really want to try it now, follow the instructions and check out the demo video below. [via 9to5mac] Read more

New York Times Giving iPhones To Reporters

It’s no secret that the camera of the iPhone 4 has dramatically increased the quality of photos and videos shot with the device. The New York Times noticed this as well, and has decided to provide iPhone 4s to reporters for news video gathering. The reporters will be able to record videos and upload them to the NYT’s servers using Aspera’s file transfer tools.

Speaking to Beet.TV, Editorial Director for Video and Television Ann Derry called the Apple iPhone 4 a “game changer” for mobile video shooting and uploading, confirming that reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin used the device during Davos. Videos have become prominent in the paper’s website homepage, and the adoption of the iPhone as a portable camera will extend the staffers’ capabilities of recording videos in almost real-time, as events happen.

Check out the interview below. Read more

PhotoToMac Is The Fastest Way To Transfer Photos to OS X

I share a lot of screenshots and photos between my iPhone and Mac every day. Up until today, I’ve relied on third-party apps like iFiles to import pictures into its library and get them on my Mac using Cyberduck, which can connect to iFiles’ built-in WebDAV server. PhotoToMac, a $1.99 app by Galarina, improved my workflow with a system that allows me to import photos and videos without using additional Mac apps. Files shared with PhotoToMac, in fact, end up directly in the Finder. Read more

Hipstamatic Photos Come To Life In UK Exhibition

Hipstamatic is one of the most popular and successful camera apps ever released for the iPhone: Apple included the app in the iTunes Rewind top selection of 2010 and even The New York Times ran a story on the front page featuring a photo by Damon Winter, shot using Hipstamatic for the iPhone 4. The application mimics the appearance of the original Hipstamatic 100 toy camera, created by the Dorbowski brothers and released in 157 limited edition models between 1982 and 1984.

At the Orange Dot Gallery in London, the “Exhibition for Hipstamatics” features 157 prints of photos realized with Hipstamatic for iPhone and selected from the fan-made website Hipstamatics, where users can submit images uploaded from their iOS devices. The iPhone photo gallery will be held until February 13th, and it’s surely a big improvement over the (hilarious) world’s smallest Instagram gallery we covered a few weeks ago.

We think it’s great that photos coming from a smartphone camera are being showcased in real-life exhibition, inside an actual photo gallery. In case you had any doubts, this once again proves that software is the best addition to Apple’s hardware. [via The Apple Lounge]

iPad 2: No Retina Display, Anti-Reflection Screen, iPod touch Cameras?

A new report by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities details the components of the iPad 2 and the features Apple is expected to implement in the next-generation model of the device. The analyst believes the iPad 2 won’t have a 2048x1536 Retina Display, as resolution isn’t what Apple is focusing on at the moment due to production volume and costs. Rather, the iPad 2’s screen will be built with anti-reflection technologies and a thinner form factor to put it in direct competition with Amazon’s ebook reading device, the Kindle. Anti-reflection is indeed one of the key features in Amazon anti-iPad commercials.

According to the report, iPad 2 will also have faster processor, RAM and graphics as previously reported. The new tablet will likely come with an ARM Cortex-A9 dual core processor, Imagination’s SGX543 dual core GPU and 512 MB of RAM. Currently, the iPhone 4 has the same amount of RAM but the original iPad only has 256 MB. The graphic technology Ming-Chi Kuo thinks will go into the iPad 2 should be 200 - 300% more powerful than the iPhone 4.

Last, the report mentions the iPad 2 will feature iPod touch-like cameras, rather than higher-quality ones found on the iPhone 4. Cameras should be 0.3 mega-pixel VGA front-facing one and a 1 MP (iPod touch-like) rear one. Because of the 1024x768 rumored resolution, these cameras should be enough to guarantee good picture quality. Previous rumors suggested the iPad would get cameras similar to the iPod touch’s ones, although earlier reports pointed to Largan Precision as the selected manufacturer for 5 MP camera lenses.

See-Through Springboard Coming to iPhone Via Jailbreak

A new tweak developed by Limenos, coming soon to Cydia, will enable users to activate the iPhone’s camera directly on the Springboard, and see the results in real-time as a live updating wallpaper. This tweak, which supports Activator gestures to come in the foreground inside a popup menu, will also let users set a picture as the Springboard’s background without opening the Photos app – something that’s pretty neat if you’re into that kind of backgrounds. CameraWallpaper can record videos and take photos with the rear and front-facing cameras and activate the iPhone’s flashlight, too.

More importantly, with CameraWallpaper it will be possible to achieve some sort of see-through Springboard that can come quite in handy if you’re walking and looking at your iPhone at the same time. We think it looks really interesting, so make sure to check out the demo video below. [Youtube via iSpazio] Read more

FaceMan Is Like Photo Booth For Your iPhone

I should have seen this coming. With iOS 4.3 rumored to introduce Photo Booth-like features for FaceTime or the Camera app, a developer created a full-featured alternative to Photo Booth that’s called FaceMan and it’s available now in the App Store at $0.99.

Put simply: FaceMan is great. It comes with 20 effects from the most popular Squeeze and Bent to a geek’s dream like Broken TV and LED; it’s got a slider to adjust the strength of effects; it can do both photos and videos WITH effects applied. Videos don’t have audio right now, but it’s coming with the next update, almost ready to be submitted to Apple. The interface is clean and polished, supports the Retina Display and you just need to flick through pages of effects to pick one and snap a picture. I did, and the terrible result can be viewed in the screenshot above. Full effect list includes: Swirl, X-Ray, Stretch, Heat, Sketch, Sepia, Dent, Led, Emboss, LightTunnel, Bulge, Squeeze, BrokenTv, Mirror, Toon, BlackAndWhite, AsciiArt, ModernArt, 100Me and NightVision.

Last, you can share photos on Twitter, Facebook, email and Tumblr. The app has a dedicated album to view all the photos and videos without having to open the iOS camera roll. I don’t know what else will Apple add in their own Photo Booth app, but FaceMan is an excellent alternative, available now. And it does videos. Go get it.