tech

Many iOS app developers are offering free or discounted apps this weekend in celebration of Halloween. One of which is IncrediBooth. As the name implies, it is a photo-booth type of app. It takes a series of photos using the front facing camera of the iPhone 4/4S, iPad 2, or iPod touch 4th generation using different filters.

The app is free this weekend (normally 99¢ USD - App Store link: IncrediBooth - Synthetic Corp) and it includes the "Cowboy Booth" set of filters (4 variations). You can purchase other booths (filters) including a special one just in time for Halloween called Haus O' Haunt Booth (for iOS 5). This filter pack and other ones are available as in-app purchases for 99¢ each. They are completely optional of course.

Recently over the last month, I have written about smartphone app, Mobli. Last week, I had the honor of being featured among others on the popular people section of the app and website. I posted about it and the new features that had been added with the latest update to the iOS version of the app. In that posting, I mentioned I was among others featured including Lukas Haas and Leonardo DiCaprio.

First I want to say thanks to Mobli for featuring me among other fantastic people in their popular section both in the app and the website. It was an unexpected surprise.

Thank you, Steve Jobs. Here's to the crazy ones… Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Think Different.

I had come home from a wake of a long time friend of mine. His death was sudden and unexpected. I was in disbelief that we lost him so quickly. It wasn't long after I checked Google+ to see what was going on while I was away and to distract my attention from the loss of a friend. To my surprise, there it was... people posting story after story about Steve Jobs. Just returning from my good friend's wake and knowing Steve Jobs' health had been declining for some years now, I feared the worst.

Wednesday saw the passing of a visionary. However you might feel about Steve Jobs, there's no denying that he has changed our world.

My original plans for tonight (Wednesday night) was indeed to write about Apple, it was going to be my take from Tuesday's Apple announcements. So many people have been asking me about the announcements that Apple made at the event, I wanted to put down my thoughts here to share.

Mobli mobilizes your life... What does that mean? The mobile phone app, Mobli enables you to mobilize your life by allowing you to be almost anywhere in the world and it allows your life and experiences to be shared to almost anywhere in the world.

Mobli allows this via our smart phones (it is available for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry). It empowers us to engage with others that may be sharing similar experiences or have similar interests. It allows us to share our experiences with others by sharing photos and video taken right on our smart phones shared out to other Mobli users, the Mobli website, and if you choose, Twitter and Facebook as well.

The King Camera (App Store link) for iOS has been upgraded to 2.0 with the upgraded version now in the Apple App Store. This is the first major upgrade of the app since its original 1.0 release (though I think an update back in June of this year that finally added 1:1 aspect ratio cropping was pretty significant as well). Say Cheezzz, the developer of the app states that it has been basically rebuilt from the ground up. I upgraded and had a little (not much) time to try it out today. The photo featured here in the upper left (pumpkins, gourds) is one of mine which I shot and processed on my iPhone 4 using the King Camera app version 2.0.

This is quick post to let you know that you can download the photo editing app, Snapseed for iOS (iPhone and iPad) for FREE until September 23, 2011 (previously $4.99). I haven't used it yet, so no review of it as of now. It is highly rated in the App Store though.

This is just a quick note to all that I know many people have circled me on Google+ recently, many more than normal as of late (not that I am complaining). I haven't had a chance to keep on top of all the new additions, though I normally do try.

This past weekend I have seen the number of people circling me increase by five times I would say. I'm not sure why there has been such an influx lately. Especially since I haven't been on as much as I normally am in the last week or two.

The infographic below is from Followgram. It depicts some "fun facts" about Instagram. According to the note on the bottom of the infographic, Techcrunch and the Instagram blog is the source of the data in the graphic.

Having been on Instagram from just a week after they launched, I have seen how they have grown and matured as a social network. Most recently they announced that they have passed 7 million in users. It was only in June when they had hit 5 million. I remember each of these milestones as Instagram hit them. This infographic illustrates them as well other interesting facts.

It was more than five weeks ago that I first entered the new Google+ social networking platform as a "field beta tester." It certainly is hard to believe it has been that long already. This coming Monday or Tuesday will be six weeks since the initial beta launch of the service, but I guess as the old saying goes, "time flies when you're having fun."

I understood it was new when I started using it, but I don't think I knew that it was only one week after it launched when I took my first Instagram shot on my iPhone on that fateful Wednesday, 13 October 2010 (Instagram was launched the week before on the 6th). It seemed to be the natural successor to my Project 365 at the time. Indeed it was, but it has been so much more.

Instagram has just celebrated their 150th million photo shared via its service. They are seeing Instagrammers sharing photos at the rate of 15 photos per second. They have also seen incredible growth since launching with more than 7 million users now.

For those uninitiated, Instagram is a free app in the Apple App Store (currently only for iOS devices) which allows you to share your stories via photos and words. It is Twitter meets Flickr in a sense. Like Twitter, you follow people and people can follow you. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then it is thousand more than what you can convey in a 140 character tweet on Twitter.

The last several days I have been testing and trying out the new social media platform, Google+ which is currently in limited beta by (no surprise) Google. Before you ask, Google had disabled invites for the time being due to overwhelming demand. So I have no invites to share at this point. That said, it seems that Google does open the barn door from time to time (unannounced). So you may be able to get in if you are lucky enough. (Many people have already requested an invite from me, when I can, I will try to give them to those friends and followers that have requested one from me.)

What is Google+? The easy answer is to say that it is Google's answer to Facebook. While that may be true on certain levels, it is its own social networking service built on existing Google technologies with others added. Some may use it instead of Facebook, others may use it in addition to Facebook, some may not use either. In my experience so far, it has a similar vibe to what Friendfeed was back in the day, just without the automatic feeds pumping into it.

You may be saying, "But what about Google's previous attempts of social networking, like Wave or Buzz?" I never thought of Wave so much as social networking, but more as a communication tool similar to email, but that is another matter. I believe Google has learned from those experiences and Google+ is something other, grander than what Wave was or Buzz is today.

The King Camera (App Store link) for iOS had an update appear in the Apple App Store on Wednesday, June 29th which finally includes the 1:1 aspect ratio cropping pre-set. It boggles the mind that it was released in the first place without it considering that there are now over 5 million Instagram users, all of which are iOS users (at this time) and all of which are using 1:1 aspect ratio that the app supports. It's an audience that any photo app shouldn't ignore. Many Instagram users are looking to 3rd party photo editing apps to complement what they can do with the Instagram app.

Now with the much needed 1:1 aspect ratio cropping pre-set included in King Camera, I can now recommend it to Instagram users. No longer does one need to eye-ball it to get the 1:1 aspect ratio square crop in King Camera as I did with this image here (see top left) which I had post processed with King Camera and posted to Instagram.

Although I have many, one iOS app not yet in my photography tool box is Filterstorm (App Store link). It has been highly recommended (especially in the Instagram community) by others and it has been on my 'want list' for some time now. Well, if you needed an excuse to buy it now (perhaps such as myself), it is has recently been upgraded to 3.0. The upgrade features a new interface along with some new features. It will be interesting to see how this app compares with other full featured photography post processing apps on the iOS such as PhotoForge2 and Photo fx (App Store links) among many others of course. It looks to be more similar to the former than the latter. Despite its name, I don't believe it is what we would call a photo filter app on iOS today. To my understanding it considers adjustments to exposure, color correction, sharpening, etc. as filters (as opposed to more artistic filters such as those in Instagram and others). It is now on sale in the App Store for half off (currently $1.99 from $3.99) for June 23-24, 2011.