Mel Martin
Articles by Mel Martin
Where is my sidebar in iTunes 12?
Apple support boards are chattering today about the graphical changes in iTunes 12. The beloved, or in some cases tolerated sidebar is pretty much gone. Your music, movies and devices are now a row of icons at the top left of the iTunes window. This new version iTunes was released earlier this week in preparation for Yosemite. The changes to iTunes, some welcome, some unwelcome depending on your point of view, are part of trying to unify the look and feel of OS X with iOS 8. The problem is, after years of getting used to the "way things work," someone comes along and changes it. Jony Ive most likely in this case. All is not lost, however. Your playlists can still appear in a left-side column as usual, making them quite easy to manage. When you click on the music icon at the top, you will see the word 'Playlists' near the top-center. That will restore the playlist sidebar. This also works in movies and TV shows. Just click the 'Playlist' button. Of course Apple might relent. After vaporizing the camera roll in iOS it will be back in iOS 8.1 which will be released Monday. There was quite an uproar about that change, and apparently Apple relented. So if the loss of the consistent sidebar in iTunes bothers you, there is hope.
Apple announces the iPad Air 2
As part of its October press event, Apple today unveiled its sixth generation tablet -- the iPad Air 2. The Air 2 features an even thinner device, 6.1 mm, 18% thinner than the previous model. Phil Schiller noted that two new iPad Air 2s are still thinner than the original iPad. The new iPad Air 2 uses 2nd generation 64 bit architecture, with the equivalent of 3 billion transistors, resulting in a 40% faster CPU and 2.5 times faster GPU. Like the new iPhone 6 models, the new iPad Air 2 features new motion sensing and a barometer. The camera is also updated, with an 8MP iSight camera, ƒ2.4 aperture, and faster processing in the M8 chip. Features that are on the new iPhones also get added, like time-lapse and slow motion. The iPad Air 2 also has a new front facing camera, with HDR, improved face detection, and HDR photos. Wi-Fi has been pumped up as well, and faster LTE has been added to the cellular radios, as we saw in the iPhone 6. Touch ID is on board too, letting this new iPad work with Apple Pay (but no NFC) and the iTunes and App Store. How much for all these goodies? The iPad Air 2 starts at $499 for 16 GB, $599 for 64 GB,and the 128 GB model is $699. Cellular versions are 629/729 and 829.
Apple Watch to ship early in 2015 and there's an SDK due next month
Apple still isn't letting too many details out about the forthcoming Apple Watch. At the Apple event today, CEO Tim Cook reiterated that the watch will appear in "early 2015". Cook did say the SDK, critical for developers to get apps running on the Apple Watch, will be available in November, the first specific about the SDK. It's called WatchKit. Cook is obviously excited about the Apple Watch, and showed the latest cover of Vogue China with an Apple Watch on the wrist of the cover girl. Cook emphasized how the Apple Watch will play smoothly with iOS 8 devices, as the company creates an entire digital ecosystem between computers, mobile devices, and now wearables.
The old iPad 2 is still the most used iPad
That's a surprising metric coming out of new research from Localytics, and pertinent as we expect to see new iPads from Apple. According to the study's data, the now discontinued iPad 2 has the largest share of online use at 27%. Both the iPad Air and iPad Mini with Retina Display, released last year, have a 14% and 5% share respectively. The study also notes that people use their tablets and smartphones in fundamentally different ways. For most, their smartphone is always with them, whereas their tablet usually stays at home. By having access to smartphones throughout the day, this naturally lends itself to more app launches. On average, iPhone apps are launched 36% more frequently than those on iPads. However, the study says that iPhone sessions are typically shorter since people are generally on the go when using their smartphone. The average session length for an iPhone is 5.2 minutes, which is over a minute shorter than their iPad counterparts at 6.4 minutes (a difference of 23%). Whereas a smartphone may be used for quick news or sports updates, people typically use their iPads for longer activities such as reading or watching content. Screen size is also a factor. The larger the screen size, the more time spent in an app. It will be interesting to see if the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will change some of these iPhone numbers. For this analysis, Localytics examined over 100 million iPhones and iPads from when the iPhone 6 was released on September 19th to October 13th.
CleanUp for iOS will quickly trash unwanted photos
CleanUp is a terrific, free utility for iOS that has only one job -- it quickly deletes photos cluttering up your iDevice. You might wonder why you'd need such a thing. The answer is that Apple's method is a bit cumbersome. You can get a thumbnail view of your photos, and check off the ones you want to trash, but you don't see the photos full screen, so you might inadvertently delete pics you wanted to keep. Apple also provides an option to delete them from a larger view, but when you click on the trash icon you get a popup asking if you are sure you want to delete. CleanUp changes all that. Launch the app, and you will see your most recent photo full screen. If you mark it for deletion, the app auto-scrolls to the next photo. If you want to not delete a photo, just swipe to the next one. But if you have large groups of photos grouped together CleanUp will get rid of them quickly. In my case, as an app reviewer, I have hundreds of screen shots. CleanUp made quick work of them. In one sitting I obliterated almost 300 photos with little effort. The process of deleting is really marking photos for deletion. You can tap the trash icon, or swipe up.When you are done you get the option to go ahead, or stop the process. If you leave the app and come back, you'll be just where you left off. CleanUp is a real improvement in managing your photo files. I doubt I'll go back to Apple's method unless Apple streamlines it. CleanUp requires iOS 8 and is optimized for the iPhone 5, 6 and 6 Plus. It's not a universal app. Recommended.
WorldRelay Tuner lets you create your own micro-channel on iOS
WorldRelay Tuner (free) is a fascinating variation on the many radio tuner apps available. This app gives you audio and video streams, lets you save favorites, and watch or listen to what you want. It also includes live streaming cameras from a variety of spots around the globe. I set up destinations that interested me; some Art House classic films, several jazz stations, and a handful of streaming cameras from a few tourist spots. You can set up a favorites list, which I did, or browse by subject or location. WorldRelay Tuner worked well, and I did discover some media worth sampling and returning to. Although there are several dozen audio and video destinations, I'd love to see a lot more, and I expect the developer to add more over time. The app supports AirPlay, and works on any iOS device as it is universal. The experience reminds me of my youth, playing with a shortwave radio that was used by some of my older relatives. I'd stay up late scanning the airwaves for different stations, hearing the news or music from all over the world. Internet radio does that now, and just about every station is on the Web. WorldRelay Tuner takes it another step forward with video for movies, video podcasts and streaming cameras, but still retains lots of music, news and talk stations. WorldRelay Tuner requires iOS 7 or later. It's optimized for the iPhone 5, but runs fine on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
Here's a first: A video app that takes HDR
I've always liked the flexibility that HDR photography provides in difficult lighting conditions, and I've often hoped I could use the same technology for video. If you have a new iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, you don't have to wait. Live HD/R (US$2.99) is an app that can shoot High Dynamic Range videos in real time. That's quite a feat, and developer Oliver Haynold told me the faster processor and re-worked camera sensor makes it possible on the new iPhones, it just takes special software to unlock the HDR video features. The app allows you to change the tone-mapping settings in real time before you start recording, or you can make changes while you are actually shooting your video. There are adjustments for global and local contrast, noise reduction, and gamma. The app outputs a 720p Quicktime video that can be edited elsewhere if you desire. I tried the app with my HDR torture test. A dark room with a bright window. The results were far better than I could get with the iPhone 6 using the regular Apple supplied software. The sky and details outside the window were very visible, and there was more of the dark room there. Haynold also has a sample video if you want to get a good idea of what the app can do. In regular video shooting around sunset I noticed that colors were better overall, closer to what my eye could see. Using the Apple software, things were flatter and less dramatic. Like any HDR software, you can make things garish and ugly, or natural. That's up to you. Explore the settings and get things done to your taste. It's really remarkable to be able to take HDR videos in real time, so for videographers this app is worth a close look. Although the app will run in older phones than the current iPhone 6 series, you won't get HDR and your frame rates and resolution will suffer. As far as I know, Live HD/R is the first iOS video app that can give you HDR, and it is bound to improve over time. I'd love to see white and black point settings, as I found in some situations the software itself couldn't give me quite the dynamic range I wanted to achieve. I'm impressed with Live HD/R, so if you have an interest in this kind of photography check, out the sample videos and decide if Live HD/R is right for you.
PhotoDirector: Impressive new iOS photo editing app
PhotoDirector (free with one in-app purchase) is new to iOS but the company that created it, CyberLink, has an impressive product line that features photo editors for Mac and Windows. The app debuts with some impressive editing features including smart object removal, which is similar to content aware fill in Photoshop. It's great to have that in an iOS app, and there are plenty of other powerful features as well. PhotoDirector has the usual array of cropping, hue/saturation tools, and an abundance of filters. It allow selective adjustments by color, which is a nice idea. Want to enhance the trees? Click on a sample shade, and then the saturation tool works only on the greens. The app also has adjustments for smoothing skin. I was especially interested in the smart object removal tool, and it worked quite well. You select an object and the app intelligently creates an offset magnified view of where you are painting with your finger, which makes for faster masking. When you tap the apply button the object is gone ... or at least mostly gone. As with Photoshop, you might have to clean up a few remnants of the original image. I used the tool to remove people, electric poles, words, and a barn from photos, and the tool performed very well. You can see an example below. The filters are OK. The HDR filter worked about as well as most similar features in other apps -- in other words, not very well without having an actual HDR image. Used sparingly, it could be effective. I think the best tool of its type is the HDR filter in Snapseed. You can take photos from directly within the app, but there is no compelling reason to do so. There are sharing tools for Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and more. I thought the only thing missing was a sharpening tool. If that feature was there, I'd consider PhotoDirector a complete editing solution. I hope they add it. PhotoDirector should also be universal so the iPad can use it at the proper resolution. As a first iOS product, PhotoDirector is really a very able editor. It's ad supported, but the ads are not intrusive. An in-app purchase of US$4.99 removes the ads, increases the resolution of saved photos, and offers unlimited object removal. I think the purchase is worth it just because this is such a capable editor, but you can certainly do a lot with the free version and see if it fits you. PhotoDirector requires iOS 6 or later. It ran fine under iOS 8, and on my iPhone 6 I liked using it with the bigger screen as compared to my iPhone 5s. PhotoDirector should be on your short list of editing apps in iOS, so grab it if you are in the market for a solid tool. The smart object removal is particularly well done and impressive.
Yovo can keep your photos and messages private
Yovo (free) is an interesting app developed by ContentGuard, a leading company in the field of protecting electronic communications. With Yovo, you can pick a photo on your iOS device and send it to someone. They see the image in their mail or in text messages, but the photo is blurred, something that is done within the Yovo app before you send the photo. Alongside the blurred photo, the recipient gets a URL that they click on to can see the photo without any blur. Yovo offers the ability to set a timeout on the photo, anywhere from one minute to 24 hours. After that, the URL ceases to deliver the photo. The app also works with Facebook and Twitter, and you can delete your photo at any time. The app also tries to thwart screen captures, by displaying a vertical grid obscuring a lot of the photo. It's pretty easy to use Yovo, and the app does have built-in help. I have no doubt the image is secure, and I tried the time-out function and it worked as advertised. One big weakness is that the URLs won't display on a computer, as this is meant to be for mobile to mobile communications only. The Yovo folks told me their expertise is in mobile, and they think most people are exchanging photos on mobile devices. It seems like a pretty serious limitation the way I exchange photos, and I can't predict if someone will get my mail on a mobile device. Other than that, the app works as stated, however I don't think the protection against screen grabs mentioned above is effective. The app calls this feature D-Fence -- which puts a series of vertical lines in front of the photo -- and I could see plenty of the D-Fenced photo through the lines, so I don't think it mattered if I used the feature or not. Yovo seems to be targeting the same customer of ephemeral messaging as Snapchat, another free iOS app. With Snapchat you take a photo or video, add a caption, and it disappears from the recipients screen after it is viewed. The recipient can capture the photo by taking a screenshot, which pretty much defeats the purpose. Yovo appears to be robust, and given the reputation of the company I am sure it is secure. The app has a privacy policy, and if you sign up you can be assured your information or photos won't wind up elsewhere. On the other hand -- and this is positive -- you don't need to sign up to use the app. Yovo requires iOS 7 or later. It's not universal, but should run on any iOS device.
PicPlayPost is a versatile little collage maker for iOS
PicPlayPost has been around a while, and the iOS app continues to evolve and improve. This free app (with one in-app purchase option) creates lovely collages that can contain video, audio, and even GIF animations. I like collages, and create them all the time with my landscape photos, but they are nice for vacation photos, holiday parties, sports events, anything really where you want to make something memorable and share it with others. Using PicPlayPost is simple. First, you pick a frame layout from dozens offered. Next, select your photos, videos or GIFs. Scale them, flip them, select some music to accompany them, and you are on your way. There is also a complete set of filters so you can change the look of any individual frame in your collage. Videos can be set to loop endlessly, stop after playing, or play in a sequence. The same is true with GIF animations. There are trim controls for music and videos, and videos play at up to 30 fps. The app also allows you to create GIFs from a series of photos. When you are done, your masterpiece can be exported to mail, your camera roll, Instagram and the usual social networks. PicPlayPost works fine and has been updated for iOS 8. There are some differences between the number of videos that can be added under iOS 6 and 7. A new feature called #PicPlayPostShow takes a single slideshow and creates an animation automatically. All your creations will have a watermark at the lower right frame, and a one-time US$1.99 in-app purchase removes it. Another collage creation app I'm fond of is Diptic. The regular version ($0.99) creates static collages from photos, while Diptic Video ($1.99) lets you add videos. PicPlayPost requires iOS 6.1 or greater. It's a universal app. It has a lot of features for free if you don't mind the rather bold watermark.
News Republic challenging established iOS news apps
News Republic is the new kid on the block, challenging Flipboard, Zite and other popular news readers/aggregators. The app claims to have an advanced algorithm with semantic and learning intelligence, reviewing millions of news items to create a news feed for each specific reader based on his or her interests in stories. This free app scours hundreds of news sources (including TUAW) for stories that are relevant to you. When you set it up, you decide which broad categories of stories you want, like Science and Technology, U.S. News, Apple, and so on. When you are done, the app creates a front page with the categories visible. Tap on the categories and you'll see a long list of what should be relevant stories. Each story includes any audio and video attached to the originals, and you can choose to read the story in a browser instead of in News Republic. Unlike the new Google News & Weather app I recently reviewed, News Republic reformats every story into a pleasing format with consistent fonts and layout. The app also has a configurable widget for iOS 8 users, which is a nice up-to-date touch that most news apps haven't yet offered. You can sign up for an app account or choose not to. I skipped the sign up, and News Republic seemed to work fine. I've probably given up a feature or two, but generally I try not to sign up for app accounts if I can avoid it. And now for something that I didn't like: the news categories just aren't granular enough. I selected politics, and the majority of the stories came from overseas. I would have preferred U.S. Politics only, but I didn't see any way to accomplish that. You can search for topics and the app will attempt to find stories so that you can create a new category from the results, but U.S. Politics simply didn't work. I'm sure there are other troublesome categories. The app supports notifications, which many people will like, but I'm on a notifications diet so I left them disabled. Overall, I had a good experience with News Republic. It needs to allow more specificity about the types of news I want, and I didn't see any way to activate local or regional news without manually typing some keywords. I'll keep an eye on this app and see how it progresses, but it certainly is worth a look. News Republic requires iOS 6 or later and works fine under iOS 8. It's universal, and offers a good experience on the iPhone or the iPad.
Weather Wow probably won't 'wow' you
Weather Wow (free with in-app purchases) has a nice GUI but that's about it. Pop up ads, sometimes full screen, mar the work that went into the graphic niceties. Weather Wow lets you set other cities besides your own location, but the default settings have weather sounds. Since it was raining when I first ran the app, I was greeted by really loud sound effects of rain. It took me a while to be able to find the settings to turn them off, because a settings icon does not appear on the main screen, but it is 'cleverly' hidden and revealed by swiping. I found a couple times that even though I turned the noises off, on subsequent visits to the app the aggravating sounds returned. If I wanted to hear the rain, I'd go outside or open a window. The app also says it features local news feeds, based on your GPS location. When I tried it yesterday the story displayed was one month old. When I tried today, the app confused my location with a similarly named city in California, and loaded me up with irrelevant news. It's a good idea to combine local news and weather, but for me this app was an utter failure at news. The graphics are attractive (when they aren't interrupted by ads). I actually like the look of the screens, and there are in-depth forecasts and accurate local conditions. An in-app purchase of US$0.99 removes the ads, but other free apps like Apple's built-in weather app, or the superior Yahoo Weather have as much information or more, and don't feel the need for cheesy sound effects or ads. Google News and Weather (reviewed yesterday) isn't the greatest to look at, but they have the ads under control and no silly sound effects. Weather Wow is a good idea, wrapped in a flawed presentation. It didn't wow me, and I can't imagine most people getting excited about it. The app annoys with sounds, ads, and for me at least, a failure to deliver timely local news. Pass. Weather Wow requires iOS 6 or later.
Barograph uses the new iPhone pressure sensor
The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus each have a sensor that gives readings for barometric pressure. Barograph (free), displays real-time pressure data from that sensor. Weather watchers will know dropping pressure usually means bad weather is coming, rising pressure means good weather. The app's main interface is a graph that looks for very small changes. Initially it might seem uneven, but you can usually spot a trend pretty easily. The app charts the pressure and your relative altitude. If you leave the app or lock your phone, the readings stop after 30 seconds so the app is not a battery drain. Pressure readings are in kiloPascals, not a measurement consumers typically use when reading barometers, but what you are looking for is trends. It would be nice if the app gave you the ability to see the data in U.S. non-metric readings. You can share your barometric readings via Facebook, Twitter and email, if that suits your fancy. You can also save the graph to your image library. Developer Jackson Myers told me the app is a first try, and it will get more sophisticated, but it does provide an interesting look into some of the new data the iPhone sensors are offering. The app of course requires iOS 8 or greater, and must run on an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus.
Calc One: A capable, free and smart iPad calculator app
I'm not sure why Apple never put its Calculator app into the standard iPad software build, but the absence has opened the door for several enterprising developers to close the feature gap. One nice new offering is Calc One, which was built specifically for iOS 8 but runs on any iPad running iOS 6 or later. The keyboard is arranged like a telephone keypad for easy entry, and the app provides both a standard simple calculator and scientific functions as well. A smart bar across the top of the keyboard gives you quick access to several scientific functions, and a history feature is built in so you can backtrack and see what calculations and numbers you entered. Colors can be customized, which is a nice touch many calculator apps don't offer. Using Calc One was simple enough. I liked not having to tap the enter key to get results, although I had to get used to that. Some users might like a more standard keyboard for number entry, which should be an option. I preferred the telephone keypad-type layout, but some people may not and they should have a choice. As with Apple's calculator on the iPhone, advanced functions only appear in landscape orientation. I think users should get a choice of what they want to see in either orientation. One thing I really didn't like was having a dialog box appear just after downloading Calc One asking if I was enjoying using the app. Well, I was until that happened. Developers need to give this kind of stuff a rest. Wait until I have really used the app a bit before asking me to rate it. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Other than those few negative points, I like Calc One a lot. There are other alternatives of course, like PCalc (US$9.99) which is probably the Holy Grail of calculators for scientists, students and engineers. It has a variety of skins, and is very customizable. PCalc also has a free version, and you can add specific functions as in-app purchases. But Calc One is also quite nice for a free app, has many functions, and works as advertised. I didn't hesitate to make it the only calculator on my iPad. As mentioned, Calc One runs on any iPad running iOS 6 or later.
Google offers a free but bland News and Weather app
Google News & Weather is a free app designed to give you access to more than 65,000 news sources, both globally and locally, as well as weather for your current location and any locations you specify. It's basically a lift from the Google News pages, put into an app format. If you're happy with Google News on the web, you'll like it. If you want something more, Google News and Weather isn't going to cut it for you. When the app launches, you get your local weather up at the top of the screen, and then a sampling of news headlines below. Tap on one and you get the story, and at the bottom you will see headlines for related stories that you can click on. It's easy to re-order the topics and delete subjects you don't want. The app also grabs local news based on your location, and you can add other locations of interest too. My main issue with this app is the formatting of stories. Unlike Zite or Flipboard or the AP app and many others, Google News just gives you a browser-based view of the original story. There's no formatting to fit the iPhone or iPad, and no consistency of text -- it's just not a pleasant experience. There is basic personalization in that you can select topics of interest as noted above, but the app does not learn from your selections. Google News & Weather also fails to take advantage of Apple's new iOS 8 widget feature, which surely would be nice to have. The app delivers news and weather, but other apps do these tasks better and with a bit more flair. This seems like the result of a rush job and could be much better if more thought is put into the presentation of information. The info Google provides is fine -- it just isn't superior to other news solutions. Google News & Weather requires iOS 7 or later. It's universal, and optimized for the iPhone 5, 6 and 6 Plus.
Reflect+ can refresh your photos in amazing ways
Reflect+ (US$1.99) is a simply amazing little app that will take a photo and realistically add other elements, giving you something new and shareable. The app can add water or a beach to a barren landscape, add realistic haze and fog, or 50 other effects like lens flares, birds, star fields, the moon and planets, and then filter the image to provide different lighting and tonal washes. I added some realistic lightning to photos I had of threatening clouds and the result was good. The app also supports masking so you can selectively erase elements that, for example, might need to fall behind something real in your photo. I took some photos from my library of 'keepers' and let Reflect+ do its thing. I was really impressed. Some desert shots were transformed into realistic photos with water and a flock of birds. You can get really detailed about the water, determining how choppy or reflective it is. Objects in your photos appear reflected in the water. Using the app is pretty intuitive, but a little explanation on using layers would be welcome. I eventually figured it out, but this app would benefit from a tutorial video. The output of the app is really beautiful. I was so taken with playing with all the things I could do I blew through about 20 photo edits in a row. The finished products really don't look fake, as happens with some SFX apps. You can keep it all looking natural or as surrealistic as you like. Reflect+ is universal and certainly worth the money for the quality of the software. It requires iOS 6 or later, runs just fine on iOS 8 and it's optimized for the iPhone 5.
Vidgets has lots of widgets
Vidgets is a handy free iOS app that enables a number of Today screen widgets on your iOS 8 device. When you launch the app, you can choose to add any of 20 different widgets. The app features analog and digital clocks, status of your device (battery, storage, memory usage), and GPS information (analog or digital speedometer, altimeter and digital or analog compass). The app also provides current weather, a forecast, and temperatures for two selected locations, one of which can be your current location. Vidgets offers a Pro version for US$2.99, but I think the free Vidgets are sufficient to get you started. You can customize the colors in the free version. Widgets from third parties are new to iOS 8. Up until now, Apple provided widgets only based on data from Apple apps, but now the feature is wide open and several apps offer widgets available with just a pull-down gesture from the top of the screen. Vidgets is pretty handy, and provides you with some useful info with a simple gesture rather than digging around for similar data buried in a folder on your iOS device somewhere. Vidgets requires iOS 8 or greater, and it is optimized for the iPhpne 5, 6 and 6 Plus. Widgets are an exploding App Store category now that Apple allows them, so keep checking TUAW and we'll try to highlight the best of them.
Twigle Birds: A free app for identifying birds by look and sound
Twigle Birds is a free app for birders. It claims to contain a complete field guide to birds in North America and Europe, and has photos and information built into the app so you don't need a data connection to use it. One particular function does require a data connection, and I'll get to that later. The app lets you search for birds by color, habitat, bird size and other appearance clues. You can also listen to example bird songs from each species. The photos are zoomable so you can see the bird images in more detail. A unique feature of Twigle Birds allows you to use your phone's microphone to capture a bird call and upload it to the web where remote software tries to identify the sound. It's a bit like SoundHound or Shazam but for bird calls instead of music. The database built into the app seems reasonably complete. The text and pictures are sourced from Wikipedia and each entry contains a link back to the Wikipedia website. I couldn't test the accuracy of the bird call identification as I live in a desert area and things were pretty quiet this morning when I went outside to test it. I expect identifying bird calls is pretty tricky, especially from a distance, so I wouldn't have high hopes. I did try the app with some recorded bird sounds I got off the web, and the app thought what it heard was one of nine possible birds. One of the birds was the correct one, but it couldn't get more specific. There are plenty of paid apps for birders, including the very complete Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America (US$14.99). Twigle Birds is a nice app, with some good ideas. It uses your GPS location to help determine birds that might be near you, which helps the app narrow the list. Twigle Birds requires iOS 6 or later. It's not universal, and because of the amount of data that comes with the app it is a 518 MB download.
Adobe launches Creative Cloud updates and new links to mobile apps
In a major announcement today, Adobe is updating almost every desktop and mobile app it offers. It is aiming these new features and applications at creative professionals so their desktop and mobile tools deeply integrate. Beginning today, Adobe is also offering a new tool called Creative Profile that connects users to their work, to the assets they use to create, and the communities they interact with -- no matter where they are. Files, photos, colors, brushes, shapes, fonts, textstyles, graphics, and any other assets are always at the fingertips of users. This new Creative Profile moves with creatives from app to app, and device to device, so assets automatically appear when users need them, in the right context. It's a major effort, and should significantly and positively impact Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers. In addition, new mobile apps are going public today, including: Photoshop Sketch lets artists draw with new built-in expressive brushes and enables an integrated workflow with Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC. Updates to Photoshop Mix extend precise mobile compositing capabilities which now includes enhanced integration with Photoshop CC as well as a new iPhone version. An enhanced Lightroom Mobile app builds on integrated desktop and mobile workflows and includes features to allow clients, friends or family to select favorites and leave comments for photos shared online; and GPS information from iPhone photos now syncs with Lightroom desktop. llustrator Draw (formerly Adobe Ideas) gives users access to their favorite vector drawing tools and features in a modern, streamlined interface, high-fidelity integration with Illustrator CC and enhanced support for Adobe Ink and Slide. Illustrator Line, a precision drawing app, gives creatives new features for perfectly distributing shapes as they draw, plus the ability to send sketches to Illustrator CC, where they have full access to their original vector paths for editing. On the video side, we have the brand new Adobe Premiere Clip app, which transforms video shots on iPhone or iPad into edited videos that can be shared. Videographers can then send their compositions to Adobe Premiere Pro CC for advanced editing and finishing. Adobe also announced additional new iOS mobile apps that are designed to capture designs and bring them into other Adobe applications. Those include: Adobe Brush CC lets designers craft unique brushes, on iPad or iPhone, to use in Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC or Adobe Illustrator Sketch. Any photograph can be made into a brush, so creatives can quickly and playfully design beautiful, high-quality brushes that can range from photorealistic, to organic, painterly or graphic. Adobe Shape CC is a simple, way to capture and create shapes on iPhone or iPad. A high-contrast photo of anything can be converted into vector art that can be used immediately in Illustrator CC and Adobe Illustrator Line via Creative Cloud Libraries. Adobe Color CC (formerly Adobe Kuler) allows users to capture colors and save them as themes that are then instantly available in other Adobe applications, including Illustrator CC and Photoshop CC. Adobe has also unleashed 3 other new services: Creative Cloud Market is a collection of high-quality, curated content that's freely accessible to Creative Cloud members. Users can download thousands of professionally crafted files, including user interfaces, patterns, icons, brushes and vector shapes, to speed through desktop and mobile projects. Creative Cloud Libraries is an asset management service that lets people access and create with colors, brushes, text styles, and vector images through Creative Cloud desktop, mobile apps and services. Creative Cloud Libraries connects desktop tools like Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC to each other -- and to other Adobe mobile apps. Creative Cloud Extract is a cloud-based service that reinvents the Photoshop CC comp-to-code workflow for web designers and developers, letting them share and unlock design information from a PSD file (such as colors, fonts and CSS) to use when coding mobile and desktop designs. I had an online demo of many of these new apps and features last week, and I was greatly impressed. I haven't been able to test them on my own, but it's pretty clear these are evolutionary and sometimes revolutionary changes in the way users will work and collaborate. This is a major release with greatly enhanced functionality for Adobe's customer base. The updates should be available by the end of today and are part of Adobe Creative Cloud membership at no additional cost. The new and updated mobile apps are free to everyone, but of course they are most useful to subscription holders who can integrate other Adobe tools with them. Information about the new mobile tools can be found at the Adobe website. Although many of the Adobe tools are used by professionals, the company offers special price incentives for students and photographers.
Adaptxt Keyboard is a capable and free iOS 8 add-on
One of the great things about iOS 8 is the addition of third party keyboards allowing swipe typing, a variety of symbols and foreign language support. I've already looked at Swype from Nuance (US$0.99) and found it generally superior to the Apple standard keyboard. Adaptxt is offering a free keyboard with the same swipe features, a boatload of languages (I count about a hundred) and specialized keyboards for everything from baseball symbols to keyboards designed for finance and scientific disciplines. Like all third party keyboards, you load it via an an app. Within the app are some special features that can be turned on and off to customize your experience. Select the keyboard in your system settings to enable it and then it is available at any time by tapping the "globe" key on the Apple keyboard or any other installed keyboard. I was mainly interested in how the keyboard worked with swipe typing. I found it just as responsive as the Nuance Swype keyboard. Unlike a typical keyboard, you drag your fingers to different keys without lifting your finger from the keyboard. The software generally figures out" what you are typing and inserts the correct word. You don't even need to press the space bar, instead just pausing and going on to the next word. It's pretty magical. Like any keyboard under iOS 8, you get suggestions for words as you type. Sometimes this works well, sometimes not. The Adaptxt keyboard learns from your typing and suggestions get smarter over time. The keyboard supports custom gestures, text shortcuts, and a variety of keyboard layouts like QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY and more. I liked using the keyboard and found it very capable. The non-English keyboards are happily not stored in the app, but are a download away keeping things compact. I have to say I was pretty down on the whole idea of swipe typing, but now that I am used to it, I prefer it as a way to enter text. The Adaptxt Keyboard is a winner and I love the free price. The app requires iOS 8 or later and is universal. The only weak part of the third party keyboard experience is Apple. iOS 8 had some troubles with third party keyboards and 8.0.2 was supposed to fix those issues. I still have issues like having the default keyboard vanish or be inconsistent across applications. I've seen the same problem in the beta of iOS 8.1. I'm sure those things will get ironed out, and I urge people to try some of these keyboards and see if they enhance the iOS user experience.