Android App of the Week I’m not a big enthusiast of mobile phone photography. As long as the end result is in focus and the lighting doesn’t make it look like it was taken on the surface of some distant planet orbiting a green sun, I’m happy. If I want better, I use a real Camera.
The sketchy UI
But if your photographic emphasis is more on fun than verisimilitude, JFDP Labs new Paper Camera app is worth its asking price. In a nutshell, it takes pictures and converts them into graphic art right there on your handset. Read the rest of this entry »
iOS App of the Week A very long time ago, graphics guru Kai Krause – a name sure to make any Mac user over a certain ago go all misty eyed and nostalgic – created an app – or ‘program’, as we called them then – named Goo. It allowed you to morph and distort photos in various, vaguely amusing ways.
It was primarily just a bit of fun, but Goo did also employ some seriously clever graphics algorithms that Krause had originally developed for a series of pro-oriented Photoshop plug-ins.
Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey
Fluid FX reminds me very much of Goo, as it uses some high-end graphics tech from Autodesk for the sole purpose of fooling around with photos. You can distort photos simply by selecting one of its preset ‘warp’ effects and then just using your finger to shape the image as if it were clay. Read the rest of this entry »
Android App of the Week We’ve all lost our phone at one time or another. Actually, that’s a lie – I’ve never lost my phone, wallet or car keys in my life. But assuming that to err is indeed human, Cerberus provides a simple, reliable and fairly cheap way to locate and, if necessary, disable your Android pride and joy.
The Sims, the settings (right)
Install the app and once you’ve set up a user ID and password, you can log in through a web browser and locate your handset in Google Maps. If your handset’s GPS pick-up is off, the app will switch it on for pinpoint accuracy, only falling back on a cellular location if it can’t get a satellite fix. Read the rest of this entry »
iOS App of the Week Looks like there’s trouble a-brewing in the cosy iOS ecosystem. Amazon has just rewritten its Kindle app as an HTML 5 ‘web app’ in order to circumvent the restrictions of the App Store – not to mention the 30 per cent cut that Apple skims off the top of every sale.
It’s not the first to do so either. The Financial Times has already taken the same route, and other publishers and booksellers also seem to be looking into the HTML 5 alternative.
Get Kindle Cloud Reader from the web, not the App Store
From a user’s point of view, the HTML 5 version of the app doesn’t really look all that different. Yes, you start off by visiting a website, but the result is an app icon you can tap and run whenever you want to, just as you would with a native iOS app. Read the rest of this entry »
iOS App of the Week The British Library already has a ‘Treasures’ app that is a kind of ‘greatest hits’ romp through the Library’s archives. However, this new iPad-only app specifically focuses on books and documents from the 19th century – the era of Dickens and the great Victorian explorers and travel writers.
Home screen and collections
You can download the basic app for free, and this will give you access to about 100 books as a taster. You then have the option of taking out a monthly subscription of £1.99, which will give you full access to the current selection of 45,000 titles, with a total of 60,000 planned by the end of the year. That’s less than the tube fare for a single visit to the British Library itself, so it’s well worth it for anyone with an interest in 19th century studies. Read the rest of this entry »
