Posts tagged with "camera"

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.

Movie Stiller: Video Stabilizer for iPhone

In the past, there have been a couple of times I wished that video I shot with my iPhone turned out to be stable. Camera shakiness, in fact, is the first problem for users addicted to shooting flicks with their mobile devices; and especially in situations when you need to be quick to capture a special moment, you’ll be disappointed to find out the video is un-watchable due to your not-so-stable hand. Whoever hasn’t experienced this at least once either has non-human hands or uses a tripod.

Movie Stiller, a new app from Creaceed (the same developers behind Prizmo), aims at helping you get better videos by stabilizing the ones you have in your Camera Roll. Once you fire up the app, choose a video and wait for Movie Stiller to load it and compute it; in the Settings, you can set a stabilization strength, a default scale and process rotation. Movie Stiller works like this: the more you stabilize a video to avoid shakiness, the more Movie Stiller will add black borders around the current frame. You can then make the image bigger to avoid borders, but that will let the video lose some details. Thus the need of achieving an optimal setup depending on each video.  In my tests, I’ve found the app to work fairly well with videos that had “average shaking”. Don’t expect to optimize your adventurous tornado shoot with Movie Stiller.

The UI of the app is minimal, but stylish. A few taps are needed to get through the stabilization process and you can also export directly to the Camera Roll once it’s finished. Overall, it’s a pretty nifty app to enhance the quality of videos that “could have been better”. Get it here at $2.99.

Game Center Achievements…For A Camera App

Achievements are that sort of thing that keeps gamers going even when frustration and disappointment take over the initial excitement for a new game. You beat the game, you can’t have any more quests, but you want all the trophies / achievements. Many friends of mine do this on their PS3 and Xbox 360 – I’ve never been a fan of achievements, personally. Clearly I must be an exception, as even Apple itself implemented the functionality in Game Center. Not to mention other gaming networks for iOS like OpenFeint and Plus+, which have been offering achievements and leaderboards for quite some time now. Read more

1 Megapixel Rear Camera On The iPad 2?

Several rumors are pointing to the next generation iPad as a slight redesign of the original iPad, with tapered edges, flat back, bigger speaker and front / rear facing cameras. According to 9to5mac, which has done further digging into the latest iOS 4.3 SDK, the iPad 2 will have a 1 MP rear camera capable of shooting photos and videos, and a VGA front-facing one for FaceTime and other camera functionalities.

We’ve done some digging in the latest SDK it looks like Apple’s much rumored second-generation iPad will not feature some fancy 5 megapixel camera, but will instead shoot your flicks and take your pics with something close to a 1 megapixel camera. That’s awfully close to the fourth-generation iPod touch’s 0.7 megapixel back camera so we speculate they could be the same thing. That means you’ll be able to take some unwieldy 720P video with your iPad (whether you’ll be able to view that 720P video natively is another question).

The aforementioned SDK files reference to this device carrying a 1 MP camera as K94 and K95; the site speculates these codenames might refer to the next generation iPad. The current one, for instance, has codename K48. Multiple codenames for the iPad 2 might suggest that different versions are in the works, like iPad WiFi, CDMA and GSM. Other references found in iOS 4.3 beta seem to suggest the same thing.

A 1-megapixel camera on the iPad 2 would be significantly lower than the one found on the iPhone 4; we also have some doubts on the actual photo quality that would result from such a camera lens, which will have to display pictures on a 10-inch screen. Previous rumors indicated Largan Precision as the supplier of camera lenses for the next iPad, and a report in November also confirmed Largan was set to ship “5-megapixel lens modules for tablet PCs”.

Further Evidence of Camera in iPad 2 and Photo Booth and FaceTime Apps

After digging around the 4.3 Beta 2 of iOS for iPad, Mac Rumors has found fairly solid evidence that pretty much confirms not only a camera addition to the iPad but also the addition of a Camera app (obviously), FaceTime and Photo Booth apps.

An image (homeScreenOverlayFaceTime~ipad.png)  used by the iPad in the Setting’s app to preview the wallpaper was found by Mac Rumors to contain three extra icons that do not exist on the image contained in iOS 4.2, those additional icons were those for a FaceTime, Camera and Photo Booth app.

FaceTime and Photo Booth are also largely dependent on the presence of a front facing camera, whilst a Camera app would seem rather redundant without a rear facing camera and so it could be thus presumed that this latest discovery seems to confirm previous reports of both a front facing and rear facing camera on the iPad 2.

Mac Rumors also says they found filters for Photo Booth that included the effects of Thermal Camera, Mirror, X-Ray, Kaleidoscope, Light Tunnel, Squeeze, Twirl and Stretch.

[Via Mac Rumors]

Security Cam for iPhone Keeps An Eye On Your Stuff, With Motion Detection

Now this is an interesting app I’ve recently discovered in the App Store. Months ago, I began thinking about setting up a homemade wireless security system in my house; I saw that the system could be easily put in place with a couple of hundred dollars, and I was getting serious about purchasing all I needed to get it up and running. As usual with my personal projects I dream about and save in my “someday” list, it didn’t happen. Work got in the way, priorities changed, I didn’t set up a home security system. As my to-do list suggests, I may actually do it “someday”.

Home security and monitoring, anyway, is a personal requirement (and hobby, I guess, or obsession) that can change according to one’s needs, workplace and items to protect from unwanted eyes and hands. This is why I think Security Cam, a $0.99 app for iPhone, may be just what the average user is looking for. Read more

MegaReader Update Redefines What Multitasking Is

For those completely obsessed iPhone users who literally cannot take their eyes off the phone there is a new app made for you; MegaReader. In it’s latest update (version 2.1) it’s developers have added a feature that allows you to experience real life multitasking by reading and walking at the same time so that you never have to take your eyes off your iPhone again!

All it does is overlay the text on a live video feed of what’s in front of the phone and is similar to the Samsung Galaxy app that allows you to text and walk and the iPhone app Email ‘n Walk, which as the name suggests overlays an email client over the live video feed!

Click through to see MegaReader’s developers demonstrate the new feature to its full potential!

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