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How-to: Beam your photos with iPhoto for iOS
One of the quick points touched upon during yesterday's iPad event was that iPhoto for iOS can be used to "beam" photos between iOS devices. While that comment was enough to send our intrepid and beleaguered blogger Dave Caolo into a "Newtongasm" (Apple's groundbreaking PDA was happily beaming information via infrared back in the day), there was no word on how to actually use this capability. Here, in a few short steps, is the lowdown on how to beam images from one iOS device to another. First, you'll need to have iPhoto for iOS (US$4.99) installed on both devices. Launch iPhoto, then tap on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the iPad app (lower right on the iPhone app) to show Settings. The top item is Wireless Beaming -- make sure that is set to On on both devices. Next, make sure that both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network, and then tap on an image that you wish to send to the other device. At the top of iPhoto is the common iOS share button -- a box with a right-pointing arrow coming out of it. Tap on that to bring up the share pane seen below. This pane displays a number of ways to share your images, including creating a web-based journal, sending an edited image to your camera roll, emailing, printing, beaming and more. Tapping the Beam icon brings up a dialog (below) showing any images you have selected or flagged, or you can select any of the images in your photo library. You can select up to 100 thumbnails from your photo library to beam, and then tap Next. The next screen (below, left) shows a list of all iOS devices running iPhoto that are on the same network. Tap on the name of the one you wish to beam the image(s) to in order to select it, and then tap the Beam Photos button. You'll be asked on the receiving device if you wish to accept photos from the sending device. Tap the Yes button, and the images are beamed almost immediately (below, right). It took about four seconds on an 802.11n network for two images to transfer. Beaming is an easy and fun way to share images between devices, and would be well worth the $5 investment in iPhoto for iOS even if it didn't have all of the other editing and enhancing features. Give it a try!
Is the new Journal feature in iPhoto for iOS the start of something bigger?
I certainly hope so. One of the joys of using a Mac with MobileMe was that someone with little or no computer sophistication could get photos easily published to the web. Great for families sharing with distant relatives and friends, or anyone who needed to get a gallery of photos to the internet only had to make a couple of quick clicks and it was done. It was sad when Apple announced the demise of MobileMe, which goes dark this June, and the loss of MobileMe galleries. Photo Stream is cool, but the photos expire after a month. Many Apple customers were hoping for a replacement for those galleries, and the new iOS version of iPhoto is riding to the rescue. What's offered is more powerful in some ways than the MobileMe galleries. The templates are prettier, you have more control of the appearance of the pages, and you can include location data and even weather. You can't password protect sites, but maybe that will come. Photo Journals is a nice feature and not a direction I expected Apple to go. There's one fly in this ointment: iPhoto for OS X does not have the Photo Journals feature. It allows sharing to MobileMe (not for long), Flickr and Facebook. Some photo sites, like Picasa, provide plug-ins that will let you upload directly from iPhoto. It would seem pretty obvious that the Mac OS version of iPhoto would allow this, but as of today it doesn't. If iPhoto for Mac gets the Photo Journal feature it will go a long way toward making customers happy, especially the people thinking about moving from the PC to the Mac. For my friends who have recently made the switch, they often mention the simplicity of MobileMe galleries. Tim Cook hinted last fall that some of the expiring MobileMe features could be rolled into iCloud, and this seems to be a start. Maybe that good idea is not dead yet. Readers, how about you? Do you want to see Photo Journals across the entire Apple product line?
Apple using OpenStreetMap data in iPhoto for iPad
If you purchased the new iPhoto for iOS yesterday, you may be surprised by the map tiles in the app. As noticed by 512 pixels, they are not from Google Maps. After some initial confusion over the source of the map data, the OpenStreetMap Foundation confirmed that Apple is using map data from the OpenStreetMap project. Apple is using the OpenStreetMap data to render its own tiles in iPhoto. The map data Apple uses in iPhoto is supposedly old (circa 2010) and is used without attribution, a situation OpenStreetMap is working with Apple to remedy. This move is a welcome step away from Google Maps, which Apple uses in other apps like its iPhoto desktop app and its Maps application for iOS. It's also nice to see Apple moving towards its own mapping solution, especially after acquiring map companies like PlaceBase and 3D mapping company C3 Technologies.
Hands-on with iPhoto for iOS
Apple has released iPhoto for iOS, a $4.99 version of the consumer-grade Mac photo management app. While the Apple marketing gears it toward the iPad, it can definitely be used on the iPhone. This completes Apple's porting of the iLife apps to its mobile platforms, and it's arguably one of the strongest of these ports. For this review, we're focusing on the iPad. iPhoto doesn't take the place of Photos on the iPad but works alongside it. If you're familiar with iPhoto on the Mac, then this app won't be new. But, Apple has managed to make the existing iPhoto better and integrate it with bits and pieces of the abandoned iWeb to enhance sharing photos. At the core of iPhoto are photo manipulation tools that are managing to reach the same depth (on some levels) as the recently released Adobe Photoshop Touch. When you bring up an image to be edited, you can tweak it in several ways -- correcting exposure, fixing red eye, repairing minor areas, cropping and more. Pro-level fixes can be done with finger gestures, which adds an amazing amount of control. %Gallery-150174% Where iPhoto really shines is how these tools are presented to people who might not have that much experience with fixing photos. iPhoto for Mac has always made this easy, but iPhoto for iOS visually represents these tools in a way that even the most non-tech-savvy person could get it. This is an app I could hand my in-laws and they would be able to fix a photo. Rotating a photo is represented by either rotating your hand on the screen or adjusting a dial that lets you rotate and crop at the same time. Color adjustment uses common names rather than technical terms to address what you're doing. For example, in nature photos, you're adjusting "greenery" and "skin tones," which are easy to grasp. The most advanced tools are represented in a spectrum of paint brushes and tools that let you visually understand what you're about to do to your photo. The help menu is robust. For each tool selected, activating the help menu lets you know exactly what that tool does and how to use gestures to do it. While I am not a fan of Apple's Marker font, used in the help area, it gets the point across in simple terms. From iPhoto, you can export to various locations, but the most attractive option is the ability to create journals with photos. This is where some of the old iWeb comes in as you manipulate photos and arrange them on the screen, adding dates, quotes and more. It's not that customizable -- I'd like to see Apple throw in extra fonts and the ability to fine-tune pages a bit more -- but it does a good job at getting a basic album of images on iCloud. Yes, journal pages can be uploaded straight to iCloud, and you can share them via links with family and friends like the Mobile Me galleries of old. It makes sense for Apple to fold this functionality into iPhoto rather than break it out into a separate app. iPhoto is $4.99, and it's one of the very first apps that should be loaded on any iOS device. With Adobe Photoshop Touch more than twice the price and not as user-friendly (13 tutorials? Really?) this is perfect to have on any iOS device for tweaking photos. On the iPhone, I can see this giving popular apps such as Camera+ a run for their money. It requires upgrading your iOS device to iOS 5.1 before you can install.
Apple's March 7th event roundup: the new iPad, Apple TV refresh and everything else
Weren't able to keep up with all the news from the unveiling of Apple's new iPad today? Don't worry, we've got you covered! Whether you're looking for more info about its Retina Display and LTE-connectivity, the refreshed Apple TV or related bits, we've listed links to our coverage of everything "new and noteworthy" after the break. Happy perusing! Oh, and be sure to check back to our the archive of our liveblog and pre- and post-event broadcasts for a few extra doses of "amazing."
Apple releases Mac updates for iPhoto, iTunes, GarageBand and Xcode
Apple has issued updates to the Mac versions of iPhoto, iTunes, GarageBand and Xcode. iPhoto is now up to version 9.2.2, which lets users delete images from Photo Stream. Hooray! iTunes 10.6, as we mentioned earlier, adds the ability to play 1080p HD movies and TV shows from the iTunes Store. According to Apple, the new version of GarageBand, 6.0.5, "...supports general compatibility and addresses overall stability and performance, including the following: Updates compatibility with GarageBand for iOS projects Fixes a playback issue with the GarageBand Lesson preview videos Corrects issues with some software instruments triggering incorrect or stuck notes" Finally, Xcode 4.3.1 "...is now distributed as an application," Apple says, "rather than as an installer. This change enables Xcode to be updated directly from the Mac App Store." Other changes include a new code signing workflow which supports signing OS X apps with Developer ID and the addition of command-line tools to the Downloads preference pane. They're all available now, so have at it.
Apple unveils iPhoto for the iPad
Besides the updates to iWork, iMovie and GarageBand, Apple also announced iPhoto for the iPad! iPhoto will let you browse and edit photos on the iPad, especially those nice ones you can take with the new 5-megapixel camera. iPhoto for the iPad will include tools like crop and auto-enhance. There's alos a variety of effects and multi-touch editing. For all your DSLR owners, it supports up to a 19-megapixel photo. As an added bonus, you can even beam photos directly between devices. It'll be available today from the iOS App Store for US$4.99. It's universal so you can install it on your iPad and your iPhone. It'll also run on the iPad 2, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.
Apple introduces iPhoto for iPad, updates Garage Band, iMovie and iWork
Apple's busy introducing a whole bunch of new apps to go along with its shiny new iPad, and iPhoto is near the top of the list. The "reinvention" of the iconic photo software will be available today for $4.99, and offers a plethora of features, such as bezel gestures, effects, multi-touch editing and direct beaming. You can also easily tweak white balance, exposure and saturation, and you can add geotags, notes and captions. Another highlight of the new iPhoto is the Journal, which allows you to pick and choose certain images to push to iCloud for web viewing. Interestingly, the announcement comes right on the heels of Adobe's competitive offering. To complete the circle of iLife at today's event, Apple announced significant updates to iWork, iMovie and Garage Band. iWork's refresh utilizes the new iPad's Retina display and offers 3D charts, and each individual app -- Keynote 1.6, Numbers 1.6 and Pages 1.6 -- will be ready for purchase today for $9.99 (or free, if you already have the apps). Next up is iMovie, available for $4.99, which now offers the ability to turn your HD movies into trailers and adds a few more advanced editing tools. Finally, Garage Band introduces a new feature called Jam Session, which lets you and three of your friends connect iOS devices together wirelessly and play together in real-time. Just as before, newbies can get the updated app for $4.99. For more coverage of Apple's iPad event, visit our hub!
Considering Aperture for iOS
Gabe Glick over at Macstories has a proposal: Aperture for iOS. On the surface, it sounds like a pretty silly idea -- Apple's high end camera app is really made for a desktop environment, and with the hassle required to get high quality photos onto iOS devices, there really isn't a point bringing Aperture over to a platform like the iPad. But Glick, though he agrees with the naysayers to a certain extent, is willing to take the opposite position. He says that he thinks Aperture is coming to the iPad with the announcement (expected sometime this year) of the iPad 3. So we'll let him make his case. He says the Retina Display is a big benefit, for photographers who really want to see their pictures close up and in full color. Of course, the iPad 2 doesn't have a Retina Display, but if the iPad 3 gets the same kind of high definition screen that the iPhone 4 already has, Aperture would be more likely. iCloud's photo stream would make it easy to get pictures on the mobile device, a better A6 processor would make editing RAW photos and other high end resolutions easier as well, and finally, Glick says that a "professional workhorse" app like Aperture shouldn't be automatically dismissed from the iPad. Most people would have said the same thing about iMovie and GarageBand on the iPad, and both of those have done quite well. When you put it like that, well, sure. Obviously this is all just speculation -- we won't know that Apple is releasing an app like this until it's actually announced on stage. But I will say as well that I've been trying to make noise lately for a sort of "iCamera" -- a more professional DSLR camera made and produced by Apple -- and I've been answered most of the time with the suggestion that Apple is betting on the cameras in its mobile devices rather than a separate dedicated device. If that is true, then sure, why wouldn't we want to see better official tools to deal with photos than the current Camera app offers?
Best of 2011 Nominations: Mac photo / video apps
During December and January, The Unofficial Apple Weblog is soliciting your nominations and votes for the best products for Mac, iPhone/iPod touch, and iPad. We'll start with nominations in a category, and then tally your votes for the top-nominated products a few days later. The winner in each category receives the highly-coveted title of TUAW Best of 2011. Today's category for Best of 2011 nominations is Mac photo and video apps. Your Mac can manage thousands of photos and help you to create video masterpieces, so this is a crowded category. You might be a fan of Apple's iPhoto (US$14.99) or Aperture ($79.99) apps. Maybe you love to create HDR images with HDR Darkroom (on sale for $7.99) or apply stunning effects with FX Photo Studio ($9.99). The ease of use of Flare ($19.99) might be more your cup of coffee. Video fans might be excited about Apple's iMovie '11 ($14.99) or Final Cut Pro X ($299.99). Perhaps you're developing screencasts and use either ScreenFlow ($99.99) or Camtasia 2 ($99.99) in your work. Whatever your favorite Mac photo or video app is, we want to hear about it. Leave your nomination in the comments below. This is the last Mac-specific category for the 2011 awards -- tomorrow we'll begin gathering nominations for iPhone apps and accessories. Nominations close at 11:59 PM ET on December 15, 2011.
How to use PhoneView to fix your iPhoto camera roll woes
If the Camera app and Photos app on your iPhone disagree about the contents of your camera roll, you may find yourself needing to get "under the hood" of your iPhone to fix the issue. Fortunately, you can do this without having to jailbreak and hopefully without losing any pictures. You may know the name Ethan Marcotte from the world of web design, particularly the idea of responsive web design. This week Ethan posted on Twitter that he was having a problem with his iPhone. The Camera app saw pictures in his Camera Roll, but the Photos app claimed the Camera Roll was empty. This was preventing iPhoto from synchronizing his pictures. The first problem was figuring out how to get all the pictures off his iPhone. The second problem was figuring out how to getting the Camera and Photos apps to agree about the contents of his camera roll. A few years ago, when I had a similar problem with my iPhone camera, I was able to solve the problem using Ecamm's $20 Mac utility PhoneView. I've written about PhoneView before, and two years ago Dave Caolo even wrote about fixing a bug in iPhone's camera roll, but obviously this is still an issue. PhoneView gives you access to the data on your phone, regardless of whether it is jailbroken or 'vanilla.' Obviously there are some limitations to what it can access, but for things like pictures and music it can be invaluable. The first step is to enable the "Show Entire Disk (Advanced Disk Mode)" preference in PhoneView. Turning on that feature will pop up a disclaimer that if you aren't careful you can cause data loss. Let's proceed with caution, but without undue fear. Once you have Advanced Disk Mode enabled, click on the "Disk" folder under "Data" and look for the two folders highlighted here: DCIM and PhotoData. Select both of those folders (as shown here), and then click "Copy From iPhone" from the toolbar. This makes sure that you have a local copy of the information, including your pictures and videos. You must confirm that you have all your pictures and videos before continuing. Aside: there may be another folder called "Photos" which I believe contains the pictures which are synchronized to your iPhone from your Mac via iPhoto or Aperture. Leave that alone. Once you are sure that you have copied all of your pictures and videos from your iPhone to your Mac, click the "Delete" button. Now, unlock your iPhone and take a new picture, and you should find that the iPhone has re-created the necessary folders and started a new fresh Camera Roll. Problem solved. PhoneView costs $19.95, however a free demo is available. Check out the website for a fuller description of all the various features that PhoneView offers. It's definitely worth the cost if you want to backup lots of various pieces of information such as SMSes, phone call lists, even voicemails.
iPhoto 9.2.1 now available
Apple has released iPhoto 9.2.1 via the Mac App Store and Software Update. It's a minor update which, according to Apple, "Addresses an issue that could cause iPhoto to quit unexpectedly on Macs with the 3ivxVideoCodec plug-in installed." If you're rocking the 3ivxVideoCodec plug-in, grab this puppy and say good-bye to "unexpected quitting," which is the nice way to say "crashes like the Hindenburg."
Mac 101: Disable automatic uploads to Photo Stream
It seems as though Apple is designing a lot of new Mac and iOS features from the perspective of people whose internet access is the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet. Photo Stream is a perfect example. The feature, built into Apple's new iCloud service, automatically uploads photos taken on any of your devices to iCloud, which gives you near-instant access to them on all of your devices. It's a great feature, and it's already streamlined the process of getting photos from my iPhone onto my iPad and Mac. But it was only this morning that I realized with grim horror what might happen if I imported 8 GB of RAW files from my DSLR into Aperture. With Photo Stream's default settings, those multiple gigabytes of data would be uploaded to iCloud automatically -- and since I live in an area with strictly metered data and very expensive internet access, a single import session in Aperture could cost me dearly. Fortunately, both Aperture and iPhoto allow you to disable automatic uploading very easily. Go into the preferences for whichever application you're using and select the Photo Stream pane. Once there, uncheck the box next to "Automatic Upload." As easily as that, your photo manager of choice will no longer send hundreds of photos into the cloud the next time you connect your digital camera. The followup question you must be asking now is, "That's great, but what if I want some of my imported photos to go to Photo Stream?" Fortunately, Apple made it easy to manually upload photos to Photo Stream. Just select the photos you want, then drag them to the Photo Stream item in the sidebar. You should see a green plus sign when you hover over Photo Stream. Release the photos, and they'll be uploaded into the cloud. Whether you're trying to avoid massive data charges or simply don't want hundreds of photos clogging up your Photo Stream all at once, it's quite fortunate that Apple has made it so simple to disable automatic uploading and manage your Photo Stream uploads manually instead.
10.7.2 update adds some Lion interface tweaks
Amid the flurry of software updates Apple released yesterday was OS X Lion 10.7.2. The big feature of the latest delta release of Lion was, of course, iCloud. But the 10.7.2 update also brought other features, such as a speedier Safari web browser and stability improvements. However, there are also some small, very welcome, interface changes I've been noticing as I've been using 10.7.2 over the last 24 hours: Launchpad icons got bigger. The most noticeable UI change is that the size of the icons in Launchpad got much larger. About 60% larger actually. This is a very welcome improvement for those with less than perfect eyesight. It makes finding and launching an app in Launchpad that much easier and faster. Desktop preferences got iPhoto Places country flags. Another small, but useful, tweak is in the Desktop & Screen Saver System Preferences pane. Since OS X 10.6, you have been able to navigate your iPhoto photos by Places in the Desktop pane, but now under 10.7.2 Apple has added country flags that sort where you photos were taken. You can then navigate down through the hierarchy by State/territory (highway sign icon), city (building icon), and location of interest (globe icon). Before 10.7.2 you had the navigation hierarchy, but it was much harder to distinguish between countries because of the lack of flags. Remove apps from purchase history in the Mac App Store. A final tweak I've noticed is that now you can remove purchases from your Purchased history in the Mac App Store. Click the Purchased button at the top of the store then move your cursor over an app from your purchase list. You'll see a small X appear at the far right. Click it to delete the app from your purchase history. Deleting a currently-installed app from your purchase history won't delete it from your computer. If you've found any other unadvertised interface tweaks in 10.7.2 let us know in the comments!
Daily Update for October 12, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Apple pushes new OS X, iCloud, iPhoto builds to developers
Apple has dropped new builds in the mix to developers for OS X, including Lion 10.7.2, and new updates for iCloud and iPhoto. These are of course developer only builds that are designed for testing and usage before they had out to the public at large. The Lion build asks developers to look at the apps AirPort, AppKit, GraphicsDrivers, iCal, iChat, Mac App Store, Mail, Spotlight, and Time Machine, so that's where most of the updates will come from. All of those builds are available to developers right now through the developer hub site.
iLife updates add full-screen Lion support, change iPhoto UI elements to match Lion
Today's earlier iLife updates are a sign that Lion is set to drop any day now. Not only do the updates add full-screen support to the iLife apps under the latest Lion Developer Preview release, they also tweak some UI elements of iPhoto to match the upcoming UI Finder elements found in OS X 10.7. The image shows a side-by-side comparison of the source list of iPhoto '11 (version 9.1.4) and iPhoto '11 (version 9.1.5). Both are running under Mac OS X 10.6.8. Gone are the colorful icons designating Events, Photos, Faces, and Places. They've all been replaced with grayed-out counterparts that mimic the look of the Finder's source list in Lion. The source list in iWeb has retained its color icons, though that's no surprise as iWeb (and most likely iDVD) has no future as part of the iLife suite and their minor updates today were solely focused on 10.7 compatibility.
iPhoto, GarageBand & iMovie updated in Mac App Store (Updated)
A brief moment of confusion overtook us this morning as we got reports of new versions of GarageBand (6.0.4), iMovie (9.0.4) and iPhoto (9.1.5), with minor bug fixes plus tweaks to iMovie's ability to import projects from the iOS editions of the app. When several of us fired up Software Update to grab the new builds, the updates were nowhere to be seen -- yet our tipster was insistent that the new updates were there. Our friends at MacUpdate also had them listed... and that's where we figured out the mystery. So far, only the Mac App Store versions of the apps have been revised; the conventionally-installed iLife versions have not yet been released. While we're sure the 'classic' updates will be forthcoming momentarily, this split-update did give us a moment's pause. As far as we can recall, this is the first time any of Apple's products have been available in newer versions on the MAS than via Software Update. Times, they are a-changin'. Thanks, Jason! Update: iMovie, GarageBand, and iPhoto updates are now showing up in Software Update. Update 2: iWeb 3.0.4 and iDVD 7.1.2 are also available in Software Update.
iPhoto updated to version 9.1.3
Not a week after the last update, iPhoto 9.1.3 is available via Software Update as well as on Apple's support site. The update is pretty thin -- it simply fixes an issue where split events could be merged back together. Still, it's recommended for users of iPhoto 11, so if you use that version, you might as well install it. Enjoy!
Dear Aunt TUAW: How can I edit my EXIF data?
Dear Aunt TUAW, Help a guy out. How do I edit EXIF data on my Macintosh? I need to know, like, yesterday -- so thanks in advance for a quick answer. Love and hugs, Dave