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Daily App: Dubble mixes your images with those from random strangers
If you are looking to add some creative fun to your iPhone photography, then you should check out Dubble. It's a collaborative social network for photographers that allows you to create weird and wild mashups by combining your photos with those from strangers. Before you get started, you should know that Dubble is a gated community -- you can't check out the photo pairing without signing up for the service by providing and email address and creating a login. Once you have joined, you can start "dubbling" your photos with others. Dubble allows you to upload a photo from your camera roll or take one using the app. The app then combines your photo automatically with another user's photo to create a multiple exposure image. The results are sometimes pleasant, sometimes unusual. Dubble encourages you to mix your photos with random strangers, but the latest version of the app now provides an option to mix your photos with just your favorite Dubble users (premium feature) or only yourself. Dubble is a social network at its core, allowing you to create your own profile and establish your own identity in the community. As a Dubble member, you can browse through the growing library of dubbles, favorite other Dubble users to follow their activity, and comment or like existing dubbles. Dubble is available for free and is compatible with the iPhone running iOS 7.0 or later. The app requires an account and offers a 99-cent in-app purchase to enable dubbling with your those on your favorites list.
Daily App: ActivBeacon offers to call for help if you have a sports injury
ActivBeacon is an interesting idea for active people who fall down and need assistance. Using the built-in iPhone sensors, the app sends a voice or text message to designated family or friends and gives them your GPS location. The developers ask you to think of it like Onstar for sports. You start by signing up for a free account using email or Facebook. You then customize settings and choose your fall sensitivity as you don't want a slight spill causing the app to make emergency calls. Then you add your emergency contacts, and you are good to go. Settings include a session pause interval. You can set it anywhere from 5-30 minutes.. after that interval, the phone will make an emergency call if it detects no movement. The app requires the iPhone to be physically in a pocket for this technology to work, and if you set your phone down you will get false positives. That won't endear you to friends who are on your emergency call list. The app is ad-supported, but you can buy an option for no ads for 12 months for U.S. $4.99. Usually ads are tolerable, but these pop-up full screen and are incredibly intrusive. I think the developers may have over played their hand with these ads... if you don't dismiss the ad it takes you to the iOS App Store to buy whatever is being advertised. I understand the need for revenue, but this level of advertising injected into an otherwise well designed app is really inexcusable. The app does work as stated, and I can see it being really useful, especially to skiers, cyclists, runners, or anyone who is active and not in a group. Its utility is limited by connectivity -- if you are deep in the wilderness, you may not have a cell connection and the app won't be able to reach out for help. Upon using ActivBeacon, it immediately came to mind that similar technology might be helpful for elderly people, and in fact the company offers CareBeacon which is designed for just that purpose. ActivBeacon is a good idea for the outdoor enthusiast who prefers solo adventures. The concept for the app is a solid one; though, I think the developers should find a better way to integrate ads. ActivBeacon requires iOS 7 or later. It's not universal and is designed for an iPhone.
Daily App: Visage Lab is your virtual makeup artist for blemish-free photos
Sometimes photos capture your worst side -- those moments when your skin has a pimple or the ambient lighting makes your teeth appear less than white. To do a quick touch-up without being overly obvious, you should check out Visage Lab, a portrait editor that does a great job at automatically retouching your photos. Visage allows you to import a photo from your camera roll or take a photo using your camera. The app scans the photo and looks for a face in the photo that it can run through its improvement process. The app automatically applies makeup, teeth whitening, shine removal and more. If there is no prominent face in the photos, the app will say there was an error and prompt you to retake the photo. Visage does a decent job of a improving a less-than-stellar portrait photo, producing a base image that can further improved through the use of filters. The app ships with a variety of filters, background and lighting options to enhance the photo or give it a brand new look. When you are done editing, you can share the completed portrait via messaging, email and social networks. You also can save it to your camera roll. Visage Lab Pro is useful to fix small imperfections in photos as long as the image contains your face or the faces of a group as the focus of the composition. It does apply its improvements across the entire image, which is efficient as you can enhance multiple faces in a photo with just one click. This feature can be a drawback for group photos, especially if you have a variable shot and want to customize the effects for each face. Visage Lab Pro is available in the iOS App Store for US$1.99 and is compatible with the iPhone. A universal version with iPad support is available for $2.99]
Weekend App: Fly brings the fun back to iPhone video editing
Fly is a new video editor with a few interesting features that are guaranteed to renew your interest in capturing video on your iPhone. The app features a gesture-driven interface for editing that makes its easy to create split videos as well as picture-in-picture scenes. The app also has support for multiple camera input, allowing you to catch your friend's crazy bike stunt from multiple angles. Fly is unlike any iPhone video I've ever used. The app provides you with up to four video sources that you can mix together on a timeline. Editing is done using gestures, which are easy to use once you get the hang of them. You can simply tap to add a video cut, swipe to add a transition, tap two videos to do split screen and use a two-finger tap to add a video as a picture in picture. You also can overlay audio and voice overs, with the app providing a handful of stock music from which you can choose. The big selling point of Fly is its support for multiple cameras. If you have several iOS devices (either ones you own or those from your nearby friends), you can connect them via a Wifi network and use them to record video from multiple angles. The process is fairly easy, requiring you to setup one device as the master that handles the recording and the other devices as the video sources. Only the master device needs to have the multi-camera option, which is a paid feature available via an in-app purchase. Once you've connected the Fly cameras, you can arrange them so they capture multiple angles of the same scene. When you hit record on the master device, all the connected cameras start recording and will continue until you press stop. Video from the multiple feeds will be shared over the WiFi connection and synced using timestamps. In just a few minutes, you can take these videos and edit them together in Fly. Fly is available for free from the iOS App Store. It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 7. Though it costs nothing to download, be prepared to pay up to US$16 to unlock all the features of the app. Individual features, such as the clips editor, gesture editing and the audio pack, are available for $2.99 each or as an "Essentials Bundle" for $5.99. Multi-cam editing will cost you $9.99.
Daily App: Paperama brings origami to the masses in a clever puzzler game
Paperama takes the craft of origami and makes a game out of it. In each round, the clever puzzler provides you with a square piece of paper and challenges you to fold it to create the outlined shape. Paperama starts off easy with outlines such as a simple triangle, and escalates quickly to more complex shapes, such as a boat, arriving as early as level 12. You must fold the virtual paper carefully along the lines of the shape by tapping a section of the paper and dragging it to its target location. The mechanics of folding are fluid, allowing you to precisely move and angle the paper as you fold. Paperama does give you some room for mistakes as you only need to fold with 80 percent accuracy or more to advance to the next level. There also is an undo button to reverse your folds if you realize you have made a mistake. Though there is no time component to Paperama, each level is limited by the number of folds you can use to create the shape. I found in playing the game that you end up needing all the allotted folds, a fact which helps you plan your folding strategy. If you are not sure how to even start your fold, there is a hint system that'll provide the information you need to solve the puzzle. You are given a small number of hints when you start and earn more as the levels increase. You also can purchase hints via an in-app purchase with 3 hints costing $0.99. Paperama is a wonderfully satisfying game to play, especially for those who enjoy spatial-style challenges. The game is mentally stimulating -- requiring you to think about your folds before you touch the paper. It also challenges your motor control as you must precisely move the paper to match the fold lines. The only critique is that the folds are sometimes difficult to complete because your finger blocks your view. In these cases, you have to undo a fold and move your phone so you can get a better viewing angle. Paperama is available for free from the iOS App Store. There are in-game advertisements for other games that appear occasionally between levels. There also are in-app purchases for hints that start at 99-cents for 3 hints and climb to $14.99 for 100 hints. It is a universal app that requires iOS 6.0 or later.
The Ministry of Silly Walks is now an iOS game, and it's fantastically silly
Do you have a silly walk you'd like to develop with the help of the government? Of course you do! But before you go showing off your right leg's forward aerial half-turn in the hopes of receiving a grant, you should probably spend some time with the most absurd new iPhone app, Monty Python's The Ministry of Silly Walks. The game is an endless runner -- let's be honest, it's an endless silly walker -- that pits you and your goofy stride against a world filled with obstacles. You need to dodge birds, jaunt over park benches, and use your umbrella to glide over large tea spills (that Mrs. Two Lumps is so clumsy sometimes). Each attempt begins inside the Ministry and proceeds out onto the streets where randomly generated pitfalls await you. Each try is completely different, so you'll have no need to memorize where all the unfortunately placed hindrances await. As you make it farther along the route you'll gain a good bit of speed, which eventually makes the trip so difficult that you'll come to a crashing halt. But even when you fail you'll likely get a good laugh from the ragdoll physics that cause your character to flail about before crumpling to a heap. But it's not all about staying upright; You'll also need to collect coins as you silly walk about the city. These coins can be used in the in-game shop to purchase new outfits and power-ups. These performace boosts include things like a magnet to draw in coins from afar and a invincibility shield that lets you silly walk through any obstacles that stand in your way -- temporarily of course. The ministry doesn't have the funding it once did, after all. Voice clips and other sound effects are pulled straight from the source material, which adds a nice feeling of authenticity to the experience, though you don't really have to be a Monty Python fan to find enjoyment here. The game is US$0.99, and there are no in-app purchases to worry about. That would simply be far too silly.
Daily App: Use RoadTrippers to plan your next adventure
Roadtrippers is the companion iOS app to roadtrippers.com, a trip planning site for those who live in the US and Israel. Unlike most travel sites, Roadtrippers highlights the out-of-the-way destinations with its detailed road guides and daily travel stories. The iOS app has a dual purpose -- it allows you to find nearby places that provide a taste of the local flavor and provides an easy way to plan a trip with support for turn-by-turn directions. The place-finding side of the app works surprisingly well, even in my rural area, pulling up local restaurants, nearby accommodations and even nature-related spots that I didn't know about. Each highlighted location on the map has a beautifully designed page with details on the location including a brief description, contact information, directions and comments. You can add the place to your bucket list for future recall or to a trip that you are planning. On the trip planning side of the app, you can add multiple locations to a trip, rearrange their order and get a preview of the driving details such as time, mileage and cost of gas. You can share your trips with the Roadtrippers community, as well as view trips created by other members. When you are done with your iOS device, you can edit the trip on the computer via the Roadtrippers website. The Roadtrippers app provides a nice balance for folks preparing for vacation, allowing you to explore new places and organize trips all from the comfort of your iOS device. It has a few extra features, like the option to contribute a photo to a location and the ability to share the location so other members of your traveling party can provide feedback. All of these features are packed into a beautifully designed framework that syncs with the Roadtrippers website. The Roadtrippers app is available for free from the iOS App Store. It is compatible with the iPhone and the iPad and requires iOS 6.0 or later. It also requires a Roadtrippers account, which is available for free.
Daily App: Grub will fill your free time with fruit-stuffed, monster-packed mazes
iOS arcade title Grub from Pixowl takes the "gobble em up" gameplay of Pac-man and mixes it with the challenging movement of Snake. Throw in some cute graphics and snappy music and you have a mostly fun arcade game for your iPhone and iPad. In Grub, you play as a grub worm with an enormous appetite. Your challenge is to navigate the rock-lined outdoors arena while you eat fruit and collect coins. No arcade game is complete without an enemy and Grub is filled with nasty yet cute hedgehog-like monsters that can drain your life and eventually kill you if you touch them. Grubs can protect themselves, though, by capturing power-ups that equip their wormy bodies with spikes that destroy their nemesis on contact. The game features tilt controls that are calibrated before each level. I had no issue with the playback control and found it to be responsive on my iPhone 5s. Joystick control would be nice as sometimes you need the granular control that only tapping can provide. Joysticks also give your hands something to do while you play, which some gamers prefer over the more passive tilt control. Though the worm moved where I wanted it to go, the game doesn't make it easy to control the grub in the higher levels. There are mazes, traps and other obstacles that can get in your way. The worm also grows longer with each fruit he gobbles up, so you have to precisely navigate this growing sprite through more difficult terrain and ever increasing number of enemies. Because you steer the head of the worm, you have no control over his lengthy tail, which can be challenging to the point of frustration as the head goes in one direction and the tail flip-flops in another. It reminds of the real-life experience of towing a trailer -- it takes time to master the technique of controlling the front end so the back end follows in unison. Grub is a free app and has freemium features, including coins that you can earn through in-game achievements, acquire via an in-app purchase or receive as a reward for an action such as watching a promo video. Much to its detriment, the game also features an energy system that limits the amount of time you can play in one session. Despite its limitations, Grub is an enjoyable game. The graphics are cutesy, the animation is smooth and the music is bouncy. The tilt controls are responsive, though it does take some practice to master the movement in the higher levels. Ultimately, Grub is free and worth a download to see if it is your type of game. You have nothing to lose other than storage space, and you may discover a new title that'll fill some of your free time with fun. You can download Grub for your iPhone or iPad in the iOS App Store. It requires iOS 7.0 or later.
Daily App: Use Pushups Coach to train your upper body using your own body weight
Pushups are among the best bodyweight exercises to build upper body strength. If you prefer the simplicity of the pushup exercise, but need some motivation to do them, then you should consider downloading the Pushups Coach from Maxwell software. When you first launch Pushups Coach, you are prompted to create a profile. The app supports multiple profiles, allowing you use it with friends of family members. The profile asks for your basic health fitness information, including your gender, weight, initial pushup ability, and your starting difficulty level. Pushups Coach starts off easily and gradually increases in difficulty over the six week course of the app. Each daily exercise takes about 10 to 15 minutes, with a 30 second warmup period, five pushup repetitions of 60 seconds each and a cool down period of 60 seconds between each repetition. It only takes a small amount of time, which makes it easier to follow in the long-term. Besides providing an exercise plan, Pushups Coach also includes a journal that tracks your progress, including total progress through the plan cumulative time, calories burned, total pushups and the number of pushups today. A graph chart shows your progress as the number of pushups you perform increases each day. Pushups coach is a versatile app that can be used to help you train to increase your upper body strength, reach a record number of pushups or achieve the coveted 100 consecutive pushups goal. The app is easy to use and the gradual increase in difficulty over the course of six weeks makes reaching your goal possible. Progress tracking provides the encouraging feedback necessary to keep going when you really wan't to stop. The addition of bonus features such as pushup tutorials as well as the ability to listen to music while you workout add to the overall experience. The only knock against the app is the warmup period, which is fixed at 30 seconds. This short warmup period is adequate in the beginning, but a little too short for the higher, more intensive levels. To prevent any muscle injuries, you may want to warm up on your own before starting the app and its timer. Pushups Coach is available for 99-cents in the iOS App Store. It is compatible with the iPhone and has no ads or in-app purchases.
Daily App: Refresh will coach you on the people involved in your next meeting
Refresh is the digital equivalent of the rolodex with a whole bunch of extra features that help you know someone before you actually meet them. An advanced contacts manager, Refresh lets you get insights on other people in just a few seconds. Refresh is your social network curator, contacts manager, and calendar assistant all rolled into one. The app taps into your contacts list, your calendar and all your social networks (the more, the better) to create profiles of the people you have in your address book. It also pulls your calendar events and aggregates the profiles of people who are attending your next meeting. Refresh is designed to help you avoid those awkward moments of silence by giving you talking points about people including their mutual acquaintances, their work history, their outside interests and personal details such as birthday and hometown. The amount of personal, work and social information available at your fingertips is impressive. Instead of building a dry, data-driven profile, Refresh uses this social information to offer tips about a contact. You will find relevant information about the person's employer, such as stock prices, that you can use to kick off a conversation. You also will see hints like "Congratulate Charles on his post: Just got promoted to regional manager" or "Mention you saw Charles' status post: Hiked a section of the Appalachian trail this week." Much like the rolodex of the past, Refresh also lets you add custom notes about a contact that you glean from a face-to-face meeting. The app's information gathering is useful for someone who interacts with a large number of people. There is a lot of detailed information that'll help you prepare for interviews and business meetings. Some of the information, though, borders on the very personal and may not be as useful in early conversations. You have browse through the details and find the information most appropriate for your next encounter. Be warned that the amount of information available to Refresh can be an eye-opener, especially when you realize a similar profile can be built about you. Used appropriately, the compiled data can help you know some salient facts about a person before you actually meet them. You just have to use caution as you don't want to mention a photo from a recent Caribbean cruise the first time you shake someone's hand. Refresh is available for free from the iOS App Store. It works on the iPhone and requires iOS 7.
Daily App: Replay quickly creates video slideshows from your treasured photos
Replay is a photography tool that'll take your images and turn them into impressive slideshow videos that you can share. It's meant to be a fast and fun way to create a watchable summaries of your memorable events. Replay pulls in images from your camera roll, allowing you to pick and choose which photos you want in your slideshow. Once selected, you can rearrange the photos and add in title slides as you see fit. The app ships with a variety of preset themes that you can apply to your photos in order to jazz them up. The app ships with a few free themes, but the majority of them are paid. You can preview all themes, even those you do not own. Themes are available for purchase individually, in bundles or you can unlock the entire app for US$9.99. This latter option also removes the watermark added to the final video output. Replay's theme choices run the gamut of old-time movie effects to nouveau transitions and music. Each theme includes a stock music title that can be changed to a track from your own music library. Themes also have a few settings that'll change the duration, format (Square, Cinema, Instagram), and speed of playback. There are enough options to make things interesting, but not too many to be overwhelming. When you are done editing your video, you can share it on social networks or save it to your camera roll. Replay allows you to select multiple services, making it easy to broadcast your video to different groups of friends. The app also allows you to share your creation with Replay's network of featured videos, which you can view within the app itself under the "Featured" tab. Replay is a wonderful tool for users who want to create slideshows without editing in a full-fledged video editing app. The app is easy to use, offers a variety of themes and outputs the video to a variety of services. Replay is available for free from the iOS App Store. In-app purchases cost $0.99 for individual themes, $2.99 for theme bundles, $1.99 for watermark removal and $9.99 to unlock everything. It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 7.0
Daily App: Subtitles Viewer for iOS
I'm always really pleased to see an app that serves the handicapped, and Subtitles Viewer makes a strong contribution to this category of iOS owner. It's also useful for people struggling with a new language and want to view movies and TV in their native language. This free universal app lets you search a database for TV shows and movies and get subtitles in your language or English for the hearing impaired in the U.S. Here's how it works: You enter the name of a film or TV show, and set a language. Languages include English, Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Danish, French, German, Greek, Javanese, Hebrew, Italian, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese. When you title is loaded, you wait until the first dialog of the movie, then tap on the screen. Subtitles will appear and closely follow the spoken dialogue. I tried a couple of films, including Gravity and Jurassic Park. Both had files in several languages. When I ran the subtitles against the film, the text appeared in the right place in terms of timing. Subtitles Viewer is a handy app that will make many with hearing or language issues very happy. There is no guarantee that every movie you search for will be there or will be available in the language you may need, but it is going to be very helpful for many people. Of course, most movies and TV shows on DVD or Blu-ray have embedded subtitles, but not always in the language you may need, which is an another advantage of using a dedicated subtitling app. My only caveat with Subtitles Viewer is whether theaters will object to a screen running during a film, given the general rules about texting and cellphones in theaters. Subtitles Viewer requires iOS 7 or later and it is optimized for the iPhone 5. There's a similar app for U.S. $0.99 that appears to have the same features called Subtitles.
Daily App: Follow your favorite sports with Reuters Sports Reel
Big news bureaus like Reuters are known for their stunning photographs that capture the most important moments in news and sports history. Just in time for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Reuters has introduced a new sports photography and news app, Reuters Sports Reel. Not surprisingly, Reuters Sports Reel focuses on photography, providing photos from sporting events as they are occurring. At launch, the app supports the current World Cup as well as upcoming events such as the Tour de France, the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix and the US Open Tennis tournament. Reuters Sports Reel allows you to browse the timeline for each event and provides stunning photos of completed matches or races. Each photo has a description of the captured moment, a favorite button and a sharing option that allows you to post it to Facebook, Twitter or send it via Messages or email. Besides photos, the app also includes a calendar for each event that breaks down the dates of the competition, details on the individual matches, and important qualification rounds. You also can pick a favorite team and receive notifications about their event times, progress and final results. You can set these notifications when you first launch the app and change them as needed. Reuters Sports Reel is available for free from the iOS App Store. It is compatible with the iPhone and iPad and requires iOS 7.
Daily App: Amazon Music with Prime streaming
Amazon, today, introduced a new streaming service, Prime Music, for Amazon Prime customers. As a long-time Prime member, I took the updated Amazon Music app, formerly Cloud Player, for a spin. It is a solid first offering that, for some people, could replace Spotify or Pandora on their phone. The Amazon Music app has two major sections, the Prime Music side that includes the free streaming titles and the Library side that includes your purchased and uploaded music. The Prime Music side shows you a list of songs, albums and playlists that are available in the Prime Music Library. Though I browsed through the content a bit, the act of scrolling through music I didn't enjoy got tedious quickly. I found it easier to use the search tool to find specific tracks and browse artists and genre through that method. Like most good music apps, the search function in the Amazon Music organizes search results by artist, album, song and playlist. The results are arranged in a long list, making it easy to scroll through the sections. Search terms have to be exact, with the app returning a blank search instead of a correction if you make a mistake. You can quickly tap on a search result to view or start playing it. Though there are two sections for your music, there is some sharing between the Prime Music side of the app and your Music library, with the Music app allowing you to add streaming Prime Music titles to your library for free. You are not purchasing these tracks; you are merely adding them to your library so you can listen to them more readily and organize them with your purchased music. Interestingly enough, Amazon doesn't push you to buy the music, and the library doesn't distinguish between Prime titles, purchased music or uploaded tracks -- they are all treated the same. The Amazon Music app has all the basic playback controls you find in a music player -- you can adjust the music volume or advance forward/backward through an album or playlist. You also can scrub to a particular section of a song once you find the control, which is located directly underneath the album art. Watch out if your music has white album art as that makes it difficult to find the white progress bar. When playing a music track, you can browse other parts of the app without halting the playback of the track. You quickly can hop back to the "Now Playing" track and see additional details about the song, including the other songs on the album and other albums by the artist. There's also a repeat and random option. Streaming worked flawlessly with support for offline storage if you listen in areas without cellular or WiFi coverage. One major playback feature that is missing is the ability to add a track immediately to a playlist. I can listen to a Prime track and add it to my Music library, but I can't add it to a playlist. I have to add a track to my music library and then hop over to the music library in order to locate the track and add it to a playlist. It's a few extra steps that are not really necessary. If you are listening to a preset playlist, there is an option to copy the entire playlist to your music library. The Amazon Prime music service has over 1 million songs that span the most popular genres, which is perfect for users who enjoy mainstream music. If your musical taste runs to the eclectic side, then you may be disappointed in the Prime Music offering as the library depth just isn't there, yet. Music lovers who rely on recommendations from friends will also be disappointed as there is no social component to the app, other than a Facebook share button. Music discovery also is limited to Amazon's default playlists, which are curated by Amazon staff. Amazon Prime music doesn't have the vast library of Rdio or Spotify, but it contained about 75 percent of my "must-have" tracks, and that is saying a lot as I don't listen to mainstream music. For Prime members who only want music without discovery or social sharing, then the new Amazon Prime streaming service may cause you to rethink that Spotify or Rdio subscription. You can stream the most popular songs across a wide variety of music styles without paying any additional fees. The Amazon Music app is available for free from the iOS App Store. It is a universal app that works on the iPhone and the iPad. You need to be an Amazon Prime member ($99 annual subscription) to access the free Prime Music service. There are no ads in the service.
Daily App: Yonder helps you find treasured outdoor experiences
Finding those great "off the beaten" path places is one of the hardest things about outdoors adventure traveling. Yonder hopes to bridge that gap between guide book and park trail maps with an outdoors-focused social network that allows you to share your great outdoor experiences. Yonder has two main components -- an Instagram-like profile section that allows you to add outdoor "experiences" by snapping a photo, geotagging it and adding a brief comment. You can add details about the experience by selecting a category like hiking, backpacking or climbing as well as adding tags to help others find your experience. Each one of these experiences is added to Yonder for others to see. The other half of Yonder is the exploration part that allows you to view other people's experiences using GPS and a map to help pinpoint nearby shared content. You can look at the shared images and take advantage of the features of the social network by sharing the experience, adding it to a list, favoriting it, navigating to it, commenting on it and more. You also can follow other Yonder users and see where they are exploring. While I love the idea behind the Yonder app, it suffers from the problem that faces most start-up social networks -- engagement. For an app like this to be successful, it needs users viewing the content and users who are willing to share. Yonder is doing its best with ambassadors who are actively promoting and building the network, but the service is relatively new and in the early stages of growth. That being said, there still is useful content on the network, even in my rural area of Maine. And I do think the service is much needed as it is difficult to find the quality outdoor spots, while avoiding those that don't meet your needs. Yonder fits that niche and does so in a beautiful way with a pleasing, easy-to-use UI. Yonder is available for free and you can create an account for free. It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 7.
Daily App: Slow Shutter for iOS gets the job done
There are several apps available for low-light and light trail photography. Slow Shutter! (on sale for US$0.99) is a fine example, and has been rewritten to make it easier to use and increase performance. The app has replaced complex settings with Auto mode (waterfalls, moving objects), a Light Trail mode (traffic, fireworks, moving lights) and a Night Mode for shooting in dark places. The app supports shooting at full resolution, and you can adjust exposure when you are not in auto mode. I gave the app a try and found it worked well. Moving water in auto mode looked quite good. Focus was pretty fast, but the darker the environment the longer a focus lock can take. About the only area where the app didn't excel was at night mode. I thought the basic iPhone camera on my 5s did very well in low light, and I didn't see much difference in noise. Both setups will make you want to have something to steady the camera against, or use something like a Gorilla Pod. To test the Light Trail mode I shot an LED clock and moved the camera during exposure. Then I tapped the camera icon again to stop the shot. The results were nice, with low noise and a sharp image. For light trails and the auto mode, Slow Shutter! was excellent, and could not have been easier to use. Saved photos go right to your camera roll, or you can mail an image or message it to someone directly from the app. Slow Shutter requires iOS 7 or later. It's a universal app and it is optimized for the iPhone 5.
Daily App: Juxtaposer provides powerful editing tools to precisely combine images
Juxtaposer is a compositing tool that allows you to the take the best elements of one image and combine it with a second image to create a whole new scene. Pocket Pixels has been steadily updating the app since it launched in 2008 and has turned it into one of the best tools to combine two images into one. For those who are not familiar with Juxtaposer, the app allows you to select a background image for your scene and a foreground image that overlays the background. You can remove parts of the foreground image, isolating only the small parts you want to overlay. For example, you can take a shot of someone in a barrel at Niagara Falls and quickly replace that person with your own smiling selfie. What sets Juxtaposer apart from the competition is its suite of editing tools that make the app a delight to use. These carefully crafted options include a zoom box so you can precisely see what parts of your image you are erasing and adjustable paintbrush options that let you select the right size eraser for your image. Other useful editing tools include: an unerase tool that allows you fix mistakes a red mask mode to easily see the areas of the top photo that are being removed a transparent mode that lets you precisely align the top image over the bottom image a "move top" tool that lets you select the top image and adjust its size and location a stamp tool that saves your edited top image for future use in other compositions Another major advantage of Juxtaposer is its image correction tool that allows you to adjust the contrast, shadows, saturation, color temp and more. You can make these adjustments to the top image and background separately which is critical if you want your two composited images to match as perfectly as possible. And last but not least is a new iPad version that allows you to combine your images in either landscape or portrait mode on the larger and more comfortable editing canvas of the iPad. The iPhone is great for quick composites, but the iPad is perfect for detailed compositions. Juxtaposer is US$2.99 in the iOS App Store. It is a universal app and requires iOS 7.
Daily App: Photos+ expands to become a viewer for your animated GIFs, Dropbox images
Image view and management app Photos+ from SecondGear recently changed hands and is now being developed by SilverPine Software. Since its transfer, Photos+ has undergone two revisions that have expanded the utility of the photo viewing app for iOS. The biggest revision is the return of animated gifs, a feature that allows you to preview all the animated gifs you have in your photo roll. Unfortunately, you cannot view the animations when you are browsing your library in the thumbnail view. I assume it would be too taxing on the processor and too distracting to have 20 gif thumbnails animating all at once. As a result, this limitation makes it difficult to discern the animated images from the static ones, but there is an easy workaround -- just group all your animated gifs together by dropping them into an album. To view the animation, you must tap on each gif to view it individually. In this individual view, you can access details about the gif (resolution and file size) and share it with others using the Photos+ sharing button. Sharing options include the default services in iOS 7 such as Twitter, Facebook, Messages and Mail. The other major feature is Dropbox integration, allowing you to use the wonderful user interface of Photos+ to browse through all your Dropbox images. You can view the images, preview their EXIF data and map their location if it is available. You also can manage these Dropbox images, downloading them to your iOS device and moving them between albums with ease. Photos+ is available from the iOS App Store for US$2.99. It is compatible with the iPhone.
Daily App: har•mo•ny 2 will stimulate both sides of your brain
Borderleap is making a name for itself in the puzzle game genre, launching both the color blending game Blendamaze and the sliding tile game har•mo•ny last year. Not resting on its laurels, Borderleap is back again with har•mo•ny 2, which landed in the App Store last week. Har•mo•ny 2 is a new version of the popular Har•mo•ny game that offers new music, new levels and, of course, several new categories of color palettes for you to solve. For those who haven't played the original version of har•mo•ny, the game is a sliding tile puzzle that challenges you to move colored tiles around the screen in order to create a color palette. For example, an early level may require you to move the blues to the top row, the aquamarine tiles to the middle and green titles to the bottom. The gameplay sounds ho-hum, but the addition of limits on the number of moves adds some cerebral challenge to the game. You can't just swap tiles and move colors around without any forethought as most tiles on the board are assigned a number that tells you how many times the tile must be moved. For example, you can have a green tile with two dots -- these two dots tell you right away that you must move that tile twice in order to place it in the proper spot and clear the level. Har•mo•ny 2 has a ton of levels that'll keep you busy for a long time, as long as you can slog through the early stages that teach you slowly how to play the game. I found these early levels to be too easy and too numerous, especially for users who enjoy playing games for any length of time. If you are the type of player who grabs a few minutes here or there, then you will be able to tolerate the repetitive nature of the early stages with minimal complaint. Besides the gameplay, har•mo•ny 2 also features a pleasing minimal UI and a professionally produced soundtrack that provides soothing background music to help you relax while you think. Har•mo•ny 2 is both a stimulating intellectual game and relaxing sensory experience successfully wrapped into one application -- I like to call it an experiential puzzler. Borderleap also did away with the in-app purchases in har•mo•ny 2, allowing you to pay up front for the game and not worry about having to purchase an undo or a skip. har•mo•ny 2 is available as a universal app in the iOS App Store for US$1.99
Daily App: Two Dots will have you thinking about connecting dots all day long
Two Dots, the sequel to last year's popular Dots game, has climbed to the top of the iOS App Store charts -- and for good reason. Two Dots takes the basic gameplay of the original Dots game (connect as many vertical or horizontal dots of the same color in a grid as you can) and builds upon it with a new level-based architecture that makes the game more challenging as you progress. Two Dots opens with a tutorial the first time you play it, challenging you to figure out the basic premise of the game (hint: connect the dots) before the help sequence will teach you the basic gameplay. The game follows with additional tutorials, introducing you to new techniques you will need to complete the levels as you progress. Two Dots drops the timed mode of the original Dots game that required you to earn as many points as possible in a short amount of time and replaced it with a moves-based strategy. In Two Dots, you are limited by the number of moves available in each level, requiring you to think about the dots you select in order to meet your color goals. Each level has different goals, such as clearing 15 yellow, 15 green, 15 red and 15 blue dots in 20 moves. Once you meet the objective, the level is completed, and you are given both a score and a star rating based on your performance. If you fail to meet the goal, you are offered the option to buy additional moves or risk losing one of your five lives. Additional lives can be earned as you progress through the levels or purchased via an in-app purchase. You will get kicked back to the start if you lose all your lives. so keep an eye on the counter. I enjoyed the first version of Dots and the second version, Two Dots, is a great followup. The app has a catchy soundtrack, adorable graphics and thoughtful gameplay. Two Dots is available for free from the iOS App Store. There are no ads, but the game does include in-app purchases that allow you to buy power-ups and additional lives.
