CameraRoll
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Kodak’s app and chatbot will scour your photos for forgotten gems
If you're like me, you have thousands of photos on your phone, most of which you will have long forgotten. And let's be honest, you probably don't scroll through all of them often, if at all. I certainly don't. Well, Kodak Moments -- the photo-printing division of Kodak Alaris -- has updated its app and introduced a new Facebook chatbot, both of which will pore over your photos on Facebook or those stored in your phone's camera roll and pick out images that qualify as a "Kodak Moment."
Giphy Cam finally lets you make GIFs from videos
Giphy Cam, the app that lets you become a master GIFs-man (or woman, it doesn't discriminate) has just released its first major update. Before, users were only able to create GIFs using the native camera, either capturing 10 second full-motion clips or 5-shot bursts that are then stitched-together. Now users can import photos and videos from their camera rolls. What's more, people are able to trim their clips, apply more than one filter to the GIF and add text, giving their creations even more personality. Giphy Cam is still only available on iOS devices with no mention of when it'll cross platforms. In the meantime, Android users will have to rely on the Giphy bank of pre-made GIFs to express their animated points.
Giphy Cam wants to be the Instagram of GIFs
Everybody loves a good animated GIF but they're just such a pain to create from a mobile device. Or rather, they were a pain to create on mobile devices now that Giphy's new mobile camera app is available. The Giphy Cam is a free iOS app that allows users to create and share animated gifs as easily they do overproduced shots of their lunches.
Apple may bring back the Camera Roll to iOS 8
Sometimes it's all about the small things. With the release of iOS 8, Apple waved goodbye to its renowned Camera Roll, the hub where pictures and videos lived in previous versions of the operating system. Instead, the Cupertino company replaced it with a "Recently Added" section -- and let's just say some users weren't too happy about that. Fortunately, if you were one of the people disappointed by this, Apple appears to be having a change of heart. According to the site Product Reviews, which points to release notes of the most recent iOS 8 beta seeded to devs, the Camera Roll is back in its original spot, right where it once belonged. Of course, there's always a chance Apple could decide not to reverse course at the last minute, so don't get too, too excited. We won't know for sure until the next version, likely to be iOS 8.1, gets pushed out to the public; for now, you'll have to make due with what you have on your shiny new iPhones.
Tangent is a new, first-class tool for artistic iPhoneography
Many people enjoy taking pictures of their world with their iPhone. Some of these folks like to take things a step further by turning their photos into works of art. One of the newest tools for the artistic iPhoneographer is Tangent from Ben Guerrette and Pixite. Tangent lets you apply artistic shapes, frames and patterns to your photos. The app includes 39 shapes and frames and 43 different patterns. When you launch Tangent, you are prompted to either pick a photo from your camera roll or snap a new picture with your camera. When you choose to pull a picture from your saved photos, Tangent does a nice job of picking up your default camera roll, the panoramas you have taken and all your photostream lists. The app has a handful of default geometric and pattern effects that you can apply to the photos. The effects have an artistic flair and are highly customizable. You can drag them to place them right where you want them on your photo. You can also rotate each one and use pinch to zoom to adjust their size. When you find an effect that you like, you can customize its look before you apply it to your photo. You can add one effect per photo. If you don't like the default set of geometric patterns that ship with the app, you can buy two expansion packs for US$0.99 each. Each set is included in the app and you can even preview them on your photos before you buy them. These premium effects are marked with "+" so you know which ones are included with the app and which ones cost extra. Those who are more artistic can tap the "Start Fresh" button and create their own effects by selecting the shapes, colors and patterns they want to combine. Tangent has a robust set of controls that really let you get the look that you want for your photo. The performance of Tangent was smooth and the UI was intuitive. The only quirk I found was when I was deciding which artistic shape to apply. I was able to browse through all the default effects easily, but when I clicked "Start Fresh" to check out the option for the homemade shapes, I couldn't get back to the default set of shapes without starting over. It's a minor thing and will likely only bother those people who enjoy trying out multiple options before clicking "Done" to create a finished photo. When you are done with your creation, you have several options to share and save your photo. You can save it directly to your camera roll or send it to another app for further processing. You can share it on your social networks like Twitter, Facebook and, of course, Instagram. Lastly, there is an option to "Retangent" your photo, which sends you back to the editor to tweak your effect for a second, third or fourth time. Tangent is a first-rate tool for creative types who enjoy working with photos. It is available in the iOS App Store for $0.99.
Latest iOS 5 beta brings photo album curation to devices (Updated)
Update: This functionality was present in Beta 1, sorry for the error. iOS 5 Beta 2 landed in the hands of developers last week, and details on the latest version of the mobile OS are hitting the newswire. One neat feature is the ability to create photo albums on your iOS device. In this beta version, photos are assigned to an album, but not removed from the original Camera Roll. If you remove one of the originals, it will be deleted from your custom photo album, too. This quirk may be removed in future versions of iOS, but it's equally likely that Apple will keep things as is. The photo album feature could let you organize photos on your device (something we've wanted for a long time), but you may still need the originals in the Camera Roll for syncing to iPhoto or iCloud.
