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Pano ports its panoramic magic to Windows Phone 7 Marketplace
Fancy yourself an amateur photog, but find yourself stymied by a dearth of killer apps on Windows Phone 7? Well, Debacle Software's got a remedy for what ails your itchy trigger finger, as its popular Pano app hits the marketplace today priced at $2.99. For the uninitiated, the company's software, already available on Android and iOS, uses a proprietary tech that stitches together a maximum of 16 wide-angle images to create one seamless panoramic photo. The three person team's also rejiggered the UI, with its simple three button interface, to mesh with WP7's clean, Metro style. So, if you're heading out into the woods or are just keen to capture urban tableaus, hit up the source below to get your download on.
Panoramic iPhone photo app Pano updated to 4.0, on sale now
Debacle Software's Pano app has been a photo favorite since the App Store opened in 2008. The Toronto-based development team announced that they've shipped version 4.0 of the app, with new and improved features (a recent scaling update has since bumped it to version 4.0.1). As we've discussed before here at TUAW, Pano lets you take panoramic photos with your iPhone camera by giving you a semi-transparent guide to help you align adjacent shots. You can even take 360° panoramic photos if you so desire; it just takes a steady hand and sixteen photos. Once you've taken all of your individual photos, Pano stitches them together to make a seamless photo like the one you see above (which I took in Miami, FL). The new version of the software not only speeds up the process of aligning and blending your photos together, but sports an improved user interface as well. If you're tempted by Pano, you'll be thrilled to know that the app is currently on sale for just US$0.99 -- it's usually $2.99, and even at the higher price it's a bargain. Anyone who is a fan of photography on the iPhone should pick up a copy of Pano while it's on sale. You'll be glad you did!
First Look: Little Metal Ball spins you right round
Some wood, some knobs, and a ball bearing: the traditional labyrinth game has spawned several digital descendants (including some of the simian sort); considering the iPhone's accelerometer is very adept at simulating a tilting table or a swaying bridge, it's no surprise that this genre is quite popular on the App Store. The latest entry in the fun parade, from the developers of the Pano photo app (Debacle Software), is Little Metal Ball [$1.99, iTunes link], available tonight in the App Store. We've got an exclusive gameplay trailer above, so you can see that you'll be piloting your steel BB around and through a wide assortment of obstacles, landscapes and challenges as you try to collect prize stars and finish each level (40 in total) in the minimum amount of time. While the original Super Monkey Ball was so challenging as to be frustrating for an average twitch gamer like myself (version 2 is a big improvement, according to TJ), I found that the difficulty level on LMB was just about right for me -- it takes a little while to get used to the ball jump controls, which are critical for navigating the early levels, but I got the hang of it quickly. The variety of environments keeps it interesting as you progress through the game, and the background music (which calls to mind the Harry Potter film theme) is soothing enough to keep you from throwing your iPhone through the window if you hit a frustrating spot on the course. If I could add one feature, it would be a calibration option so that players could adjust the zero point and not spend the entire game hunched over like a victim of mild food poisoning. LMB may not have all the bells and whistles of the popular Labyrinth 2 [$4.99, iTunes link], but it's certainly a worthwhile addition to the tilt-to-play landscape.
