IphotoForIos
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Using the iOS 6 panorama photo feature
iOS 6 surprised many iPhoneographers with the inclusion of an unexpected panorama photo feature. Panorama photography using the built-in Camera app on iOS 6 devices has quickly become one of the favorite features of Apple's newest mobile operating system. TechHive's Derrick Story has provided a post today covering tips for using the feature for exciting photos and iPhoto products. Unlike rival apps like Debacle Software's Pano (US$1.99), iOS 6's panorama feature takes photos in one continuous shot -- almost like shooting video. And unlike Occipital's 360 Panorama ($0.99), the panorama is taken in one horizontal or vertical plane instead of in a virtual sphere. iOS 6 assembles the image as one big photo (up to 28 MP and averaging about 16 MB, says Story) covering up to 240 degrees, and that image can then be opened and viewed in iPhoto for iOS ($4.99). Story notes that Retina iPads and the iPhone 5 both have enough horsepower available to let photographers view or zoom in and out of them. But the real trick is to use the panoramic shots in iPhoto (iOS or Mac) slideshows, where they are automatically panned in a "Ken Burns"-like effect, or in the Origami slideshow effect. The latter effect shows the panorama unfolding -- very effective for a slideshow. Horizontal panoramas can also be used in iPhoto books, spanning two full pages for a stunning effect. Have you personally used the panorama feature of iOS 6? Let us know in the comments how you like it. If you haven't used the feature yet, be sure to check out Story's post and then give panorama photography a workout.
Does Toronto wall mural show a new iPad dashboard? No, it's just iPhoto for iOS
TUAW reader Jon Hung forwarded us this photo showing a wall mural that is in the progress of being painted on the side of a fire station at 260 Adelaide St. W. in Toronto, Ontario. The beautiful, super-sized mural shows what appears to be a new iPad dashboard, complete with weather, the date and a lot of photos... Well, that's what we thought for a minute, before realizing that a) we haven't seen anything like that in iOS 6 betas and b) it seemed really familiar. Sure enough, a little research showed that it's the Journals function in iPhoto, which allows you to create photo "mosaics" complete with weather and date information (see below). It's a very useful feature, perfect for sending friends an update of everything you did on a particular day on your vacation. Still, the mural is really impressive and we'd like to see other examples of painted Apple ads that may be in existence around the world. If you've taken a picture of a similar Apple mural and have a Flickr account, just tag your photo with TUAW so everyone can see what you've found. Thanks to Jon for the wonderful photo and tip!
Hello iPhoto for iPad & iPhone is an amazing new way to learn
If there's one thing about iPhoto for iPad and iPhone that I've never been too happy with, it's that the apps aren't exactly self-explanatory and Apple doesn't provide much in terms of an onboard guided tour. Long-time Apple developer and publisher Saied Ghaffari has just published a new iBook titled Hello iPhoto for iPad & iPhone (US$1.99) that provides a unique way of learning the tricks of iPhoto for your iOS device. I had the opportunity to talk with Saied recently about the book, which was created in iBooks Author and has been featured by Apple in the iBookstore. He's no newcomer to the how-to book market, having created the popular "It's About Time: Learn the Switch to Mac" application that led a generation of switchers to the OS X platform. That app made it into special bundles with Parallels Desktop as well, providing a way for switchers to painlessly make the way between Windows and OS X. Times change, and now Saied has embraced iBooks Author and created a helpful companion to the iOS version of iPhoto. Once purchased and downloaded to your iPad, the book appears on the shelf in iBooks. With a tap, it opens to a gorgeous photo of the Grand Canyon -- an image repeated on other chapter headings. In the lower left corner is a small thumbnail that opens a launch page when tapped. %Gallery-155531% The launch page provides a portal to learning a bit about iPhoto and iTunes on your Mac, iPhoto on your iPad, or iPhoto on your iPhone. Tapping any one of the images on the launch page takes you right into that specific book chapter. Going to the iPad chapter brings up three more images, any one of which can be triggered with a "tap to learn." The main topics are an Overview of iPhoto, Browsing & Sharing, and Editing. If I select Browsing & Sharing, for example, I see a more focused page with descriptions of two lessons -- one for Browsing, one for Sharing. With a tap on either description, I'm into the lesson. Once you're at this level, the document is readable in the usual "swipe to turn a page" manner. This is where Saied's experience in computer-based training really shines. Through the placement of small "magnifying lenses" on the page, your eye is drawn to a feature of iPhoto that you're going to learn about. Saied then takes you through a succinct written description of the feature to accompany the images. To be honest with you, I pretty much ignored iPhoto for iOS until I read Hello iPhoto. In the short amount of time that it took for me to go through the book, I was able to pick up a lot of hints and tips about iPhoto for iOS that I wasn't previously aware of. I feel that the $2 price tag of the book is a perfect price point for Hello iPhoto, as it definitely provided much more value in terms of a learning experience. If you have purchased iPhoto for iOS, but still find yourself not using the app all that much, you owe it to yourself to buy Hello iPhoto. It will get you up to speed on iPhoto in no time at all.
OpenStreetMap gets acknowledged in iPhoto credits
After iPhoto landed on iOS in March, people quickly discovered the app used OpenStreetMap data for the map tiles. At the time, there was no attribution given to OSM but that has changed in the latest version of iPhoto, which was released earlier this week. OpenStreetMap pointed out in a tweet that Apple now lists OpenStreetMap contributors in the long list of acknowledgements for the app. Richard Fairhurst, OpenStreetMap Foundation board member, explains how the foundation nudged Apple to get the attribution added to iPhoto, The OSM Foundation has made informal contact with staff at Apple and, in addition, one of our volunteer mappers who is an iOS developer spoke to people at Apple. We believe it was the latter that precipitated adding the attribution - it's great to have such an active and engaged community! OpenStreetMap is a crowdsourced mapping platform that provides free map data in exchange for an attribution. Both FourSquare and Wikipedia use OSM data in their apps. [Via TalkingPointsMemo Idea Lab]
How-to: Beam your photos with iPhoto for iOS
One of the quick points touched upon during yesterday's iPad event was that iPhoto for iOS can be used to "beam" photos between iOS devices. While that comment was enough to send our intrepid and beleaguered blogger Dave Caolo into a "Newtongasm" (Apple's groundbreaking PDA was happily beaming information via infrared back in the day), there was no word on how to actually use this capability. Here, in a few short steps, is the lowdown on how to beam images from one iOS device to another. First, you'll need to have iPhoto for iOS (US$4.99) installed on both devices. Launch iPhoto, then tap on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the iPad app (lower right on the iPhone app) to show Settings. The top item is Wireless Beaming -- make sure that is set to On on both devices. Next, make sure that both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network, and then tap on an image that you wish to send to the other device. At the top of iPhoto is the common iOS share button -- a box with a right-pointing arrow coming out of it. Tap on that to bring up the share pane seen below. This pane displays a number of ways to share your images, including creating a web-based journal, sending an edited image to your camera roll, emailing, printing, beaming and more. Tapping the Beam icon brings up a dialog (below) showing any images you have selected or flagged, or you can select any of the images in your photo library. You can select up to 100 thumbnails from your photo library to beam, and then tap Next. The next screen (below, left) shows a list of all iOS devices running iPhoto that are on the same network. Tap on the name of the one you wish to beam the image(s) to in order to select it, and then tap the Beam Photos button. You'll be asked on the receiving device if you wish to accept photos from the sending device. Tap the Yes button, and the images are beamed almost immediately (below, right). It took about four seconds on an 802.11n network for two images to transfer. Beaming is an easy and fun way to share images between devices, and would be well worth the $5 investment in iPhoto for iOS even if it didn't have all of the other editing and enhancing features. Give it a try!
Apple using OpenStreetMap data in iPhoto for iPad
If you purchased the new iPhoto for iOS yesterday, you may be surprised by the map tiles in the app. As noticed by 512 pixels, they are not from Google Maps. After some initial confusion over the source of the map data, the OpenStreetMap Foundation confirmed that Apple is using map data from the OpenStreetMap project. Apple is using the OpenStreetMap data to render its own tiles in iPhoto. The map data Apple uses in iPhoto is supposedly old (circa 2010) and is used without attribution, a situation OpenStreetMap is working with Apple to remedy. This move is a welcome step away from Google Maps, which Apple uses in other apps like its iPhoto desktop app and its Maps application for iOS. It's also nice to see Apple moving towards its own mapping solution, especially after acquiring map companies like PlaceBase and 3D mapping company C3 Technologies.
