slideshows
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War Thunder prepares to roll out Steel Generals
Do you enjoy being able to roll around on the ground in War Thunder while taking out anything on the business end of your tank's main guns? Good! The game's next update is giving you new ways to do just that. War Thunder: Steel Generals is due out by the end of the year and is aimed at spicing up the ground game with the addition of US military hardware to the game's lineup. How many pieces of hardware, exactly? Try 30 new tanks and AA units from the appropriate time period. It's exactly the sort of update that can appeal to players who like the game so far but feel it just doesn't feature quite enough tanks. No specific release date has yet been announced, but it's due out before the end of the year, so you won't have to wait long to get your US-based tank on. [Source: Gaijin Entertainment press release]
Daily iPhone App: The Fliptastic slideshow maker works like a charm
I've been looking at slideshow apps for some time and have found them all to be pretty useful. Some of the iOS apps I've checked out don't let you choose transitions, and others have no way to let you choose your own music. So I was pleased to get a chance to look at Fliptastic, which comes with a variety of transitions and lets you select music from your own collection. The app also gives you a way to add attractive text to each slide. The downside is that there is a 10-slide limit, and a 15-second maximum length to your show. For a quick share, however, I can live within those limits. Although the app says it's a slideshow maker for Instagram, don't let that deter you. You can save the videos to your camera roll and mail them out, or you can deliver your slideshow to Facebook or YouTube. The app is simple to use. Give Fliptastic access to your camera roll, and choose the images you want. You get a mini-editor that lets you crop the image to your liking, and then you add your text, choose transitions (crossfade, blur, slide and more) and select music from your own library or the supplied clips. One little nit to pick -- the music gets cut off abruptly at the end, disappearing in a quick fade. It's a bit too abrupt for my tastes. Other than that criticism, Fliptastic works -- and works well. It's 50 percent off for a limited time, so US$0.99 gets you into the slideshow arena. Fliptastic requires iOS 6 or greater, and is optimized for the iPhone 5 series of phones. It has a lot of features that most competing apps don't have in one place. I'd love to see the ability to select more slides and make the shows longer, and that just doesn't seem like a difficult feature to add.
Create and share slideshows with MYMUSAIC
MYMUSAIC is a free iPhone app that lets you create a slideshow from your photos and music, using images from your Camera Roll or those submitted by friends. The app requires you to create a login, or use your Facebook credentials. The privacy policy says your email won't be sold to 3rd parties. Making a slideshow is straightforward enough. Just select some images, add some music from your on-board music library, and the app will quickly render an animated slideshow. %Gallery-194840% The result is nothing fancy, using dissolves as transitions exclusively, and the app fades the music when the slides have run out. But it's quick and easy. One nice feature is that the app tries to match transitions to the beat of the music. The app does allow you to change the order of your images. Slideshow movies can be shared via email or text message. The service is also available from a web browser, so you can access your movies from anywhere and on any device. The only glitch I saw was that a movie I uploaded never showed up in the local or uploaded list. It just seemed to vanish into the electronic ether. A second try worked fine, and user reviews of the app are quite positive. There are plenty of slideshow apps for iOS, but most create them locally and don't have any sharing abilities. MYMUSAIC is a handy little app for quick creation of a slideshow movie to share with friends. It's not a universal app, so only iPhone or iPod touch users will get full resolution screens. The app requires iOS 4.3 or later, and it's optimized for the iPhone 5.
Create unique slideshows with ScatterShow for Mac
Apple's iPhoto app has some very basic slideshow features built in. Sure, you can apply the Ken Burns effect all day long, and even save your slideshows as screen savers. But if you are bored by iPhoto's simple dissolves, pans and wipes, it's time to check out ScatterShow (US$29.99) from Smith Micro. The OS X app (which can be purchased as a download or in a physical box) allows the creation of some really unique arrangements and animations of slides, all of which can be set to music. The app includes a number of pre-set templates, or you can choose to start from scratch. Once you select a background from those provided by Smith Micro or have added your own, you're practically done making your slideshow. Images for the slideshow can be selected individually, or you can add a complete folder. Each photo can be converted to black-and-white or retouched with a variety of filters. The app provides a simple way to change the position of each image, and when the slides are finally animated, the app moves from image to image in a visually interesting presentation. Music is supplied from your iTunes library, or any music file can just be dragged and dropped into the app. %Gallery-194114% Once completed, your creation can be shared on Facebook, YouTube or on any HTML-enabled web page. Your slideshow can also be saved locally and played back as a QuickTime movie. Some nice examples of finished slideshows are available for your viewing pleasure on the Smith Micro website. Despite the sophistication of the app, I found it extremely easy to use. There were enough included templates that I could readily find one that worked for me. Making adjustments to presentations is straightforward, and there is extensive help built into the app. My only gripe? If you import a music track, there is no way to automatically conform the slideshow to the duration of the music. Similar apps like FotoMagico ($99.99) do this quite easily, making the slideshow and musical accompaniment end at the same time. Besides the excellent and powerful FotoMagico, you might want to check out the well-reviewed Photo Slideshow Maker Pro ($24.99) and the free 4K Slideshow Maker. Scattershow is a welcome addition to the list of apps that can create nice-looking slideshows. It is easy to use, and I'm hoping it will evolve to give the user more control and automation. The app requires OS X 10.6 or greater, and a minimum of 1 GB of memory.
DabKick has a unique twist on photo sharing- real time
DabKick is a free app that allows you to create and share a slide show from your iPhone in realtime with someone else, no matter where they are as long as they have Internet access. First, gather some pictures from your camera roll on the app, then text or email a friend or family member. They get a URL, and when they launch it, they'll see the pictures. As you browse through them, the other person will see that action on their end. The app supports chatting and emoticons. This is a different approach to sending a URL and hoping the person sees it. What makes it even better is that the other person does not need the app to view your photos. This is a great way to share family photos or a Christmas party with people who aren't there. I can think of lots of ways to use it. I tried it out this morning with a friend, and it worked just fine. He was viewing on another iPhone. I noticed that he could control the scrolling, and I would see it on my screen. That way, he could view the photos at his own pace. This app is just for the iPhone and iPod touch. It really needs an iPad version. %Gallery-173699%
Pixntell lets you create narrated slideshows on your iOS device
This might be something nice to present those holiday photos to friends and family. Pixntell is a free universal app from Focustrain that lets you take images from your Photoroll and create a slideshow you can narrate. Here's how it works. Open the app, choose the photos to use, arrange them in any order you would like, then record your narration as you swipe through the photos. Your swipe timing is what determines when the images change. Then email your masterpiece or upload to Facebook or YouTube. A couple of things you should know. You're limited to five pictures, which might be enough for some people, but many will want more. The full version lets you use an unlimited number of photos in a slideshow and is a US$0.99 in-app upgrade. An upcoming Pro version lets you add text. The free app worked well enough, but I'd like to see titles, transitions and the ability to add background music. I'd be happy to pay a reasonable amount for those added features. We looked at a similar app last summer called SonicPics that sells for $2.99. As it is, Pixntell is an easy and free way to share some holiday cheer. Images are heavily compressed so they aren't going to look great on a high-resolution screen. It's all designed to send the slideshow quickly over a 3G connection. The upcoming Pro version will have better image quality. The app requires iOS 4.3 or later and runs at full scale on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. It is not yet optimized for the larger screen of the iPhone 5. %Gallery-173022%
ePic is a compact and attractive slideshow display app for OS X
ePic is a US $3.99 OS X app for displaying photos in attractive ways. It has some realistic physics, and unlike many similar apps, you can interact with the onscreen slideshow. To start, you point the app at an iPhoto or Aperture library, or to online sources like Picasa, Flickr, 500px or any local folder of images. Then you select a style and begin the show. ePic can run in a window, or full screen. It can also be activated as a screensaver after a set time. Some of the effects are old hat, like Ken Burns dissolves and slow zooms, but there are some interesting screens where framed photos float in and bounce slightly on a virtual desk. You can interact with slides, using gestures to zoom, rotate and change images. Of course, you can passively sit there and watch the images change and move on their own. Most of the effects are already in your Apple screensaver preferences, and iPhoto can do some nice slide shows too, plus integrate music if you like. Although ePic is simple to use, one control is called 'playing a round' which is not explained. The app has no help, but does provide a link to the developer site. I went there and still couldn't find an explanation of that option, although a note from the developer told me it lets a slideshow with a finite number of images repeat. ePic is a nice simple screensaver with a few unique effects. It's worth a look if this app offers an effect you crave, or if you just want a simple way to generate quick slide shows. %Gallery-163014%
AllShare Cast wireless streaming dongle for Samsung Galaxy S III -- hands-on (video)
If you're looking to pair up a brand new GS III with a bigger screen, but you're not yet part of the Smart TV generation, then this little accessory could get you out of a fix. It's palm-sized with a single blue LED light indicating a connection, but honestly you don't ever need to look at it: it doesn't need line-of-sight to your handset because it uses a wireless protocol called WiFi Display, which means you can happily leave it dangling out of the way behind your TV. The unit has two cables: one for power and the other for the HDMI connection to your TV, which can transmit up to 1080p video and audio. As you'll see in the hands-on video after the break, it works for direct mirroring, so you can watch movies, play games or reel off holiday slideshows. But it also has a more enterprise-focused feature, in the form of a slideshow function in cahoots with the Polaris Office app, which means you can use your GS III as a controller for a presentation. It's a simple idea, but it all seemed to work smoothly and we can imagine it coming in pretty handy.
Aperture 3 already updated
I didn't even have dust on the box yet, but Aperture 3 has scored an update within a few days of its release. The update, according to Apple, "...addresses an issue affecting the playback of video clips used in Aperture 3 slideshows on Snow Leopard." The update is 65.2 megs to download. If it hasn't popped up for you yet, you can force it from the Apple Menu by selecting 'Software Update.' I can't tell you it's a great fix because I haven't tried any video in my slideshows yet, but Apple suggests all users get the update. I other words, be there, or be square. [Thanks to Andrew for the tip]
TUAW Tip: Get your animated slideshows to MobileMe
For all the things Apple does right, there are some strange decisions in the integration of iPhoto and MobileMe. iPhoto has a wonderful way to create animated slideshows with music and professional looking transitions and you can look at them all day on your Mac, or send them to your iPhone or AppleTV. But things get ugly when you want to post them on the web for family and friends using MobileMe. It's baffling, but there is no direct way to upload an animation you've created to MobileMe, even though you can easily send stills or even iMovie videos to the web. Well, it can be done, but it's a non-intuitive work around. First, create your slide show in an iPhoto folder the usual way. Then hit the "Export" button on the lower right of the iPhoto screen. From there, you can determine the size of the QuickTime movie you want to make. If it's for the web, I'd suggest the large size. The movie will render, and then be placed in your iPhoto Slideshows folder inside the Pictures folder. From there, you have a couple of options, none of which are well documented: One way is to open your newly created movie in the latest version of QuickTime. Then from the Share menu, select "MobileMe gallery" from the options presented (you'll get the screen you can see in the thumbnail above). Another way to go is to is to import the movie into iMovie first, and then export it out to MobileMe from there. You can also drag the movie back into iPhoto (and yes, I know this is nutty) and then click the MobileMe icon to upload it there. Why can't you do this directly from iPhoto? Search me. It should be there -- maybe we'll see it in the app's next version. If you have another method to do this let us know.
Other new features from the Apple TV software update
While YouTube on the Apple TV stole the show of the device's most recent software update, Apple managed to sneak in a few other features and some intriguing hints at possible future features. As TUAW reader Brandon mentioned, there is a new iTunes Store section in the Settings menu, but all this does (for now) is allow you to select your country of residence. Could this be a precursor to shopping the iTunes Store from the comforts of your living room couch? Or is it simply a way to make the Apple TV access the streaming content (such as top songs, movies, etc.) from one's own country?Also new is the ability to use iPhoto slideshows for the Apple TV's screensaver (and possibly Aperture slideshows as well; I'll have to check on that), and a new Parental Controls section in Settings that allows you to lock the Apple TV with a 4-digit numerical password. Brandon also says he now sees a 'no audio' feedback on the Apple TV when trying to use an Apple Remote to change volume, but I don't.I'm also not sure about this one, but I believe a 'Shuffle' option is new above lists of items like playlists, artists, etc. Can anyone confirm that one? How about features we're missing? Let us know if anything else is new in the comments or via our tips form.
Mac 101: Finder Slideshows
Did you know that you could create a full-screen interactive slideshow just by selecting items in Finder? Finder's built-in slideshows are one of OS X's most fabulous but also most overlooked features. All you have to do is select a bunch of images, control-click (or right-click) your selection and choose Slideshow from the pop-up contextual menu. OS X clears your screen (or screens if you're running on more than one monitor) and begin its presentation. You have full control over how the slides play back. For example, you can pause, rewind or skip forward by using the interactive controller at the bottom of the slideshow screen. As in QuickTime's full-screen mode, this controller disappears after a few moments and can be brought back by jiggling your mouse. From left to right, the controls let you go back (left arrow), pause (pause/play indicators), go forward (right arrow), switch to an index sheet presentation (four rectangles), toggle between full-screen and actual size presentation (square with arrows pointing out or in), import images into iPhoto (photo with camera) and leave the slideshow (circle with embedded "x").
