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GeniusCam for iOS 7

It’s been two years since Apple announced the iPad 2, and the company still thinks that bringing Photo Booth to the iPhone isn’t worth it. It’s also been two years since Italian developer Libero Spagnolini released FaceMan, but, unlike Apple, today he’s back with a sequel to his original Photo Booth alternative, GeniusCam.

Made for iOS 7 and Universal, GeniusCam is, essentially, Photo Booth ported to the iPhone with some extra flair. There are 20 filters and effects to choose from, ranging from artsy ones like black & white and technicolor to fun ones like variations of Apple’s “Space Alien” and “Chipmunk” effects. You can see a live preview of the camera with each effect in the app’s main screen, which is a grid of live thumbnails; tap one, and the thumbnail turns into a larger camera view with the effect still applied, previewed live on screen. The animations and physics that power GeniusCam are sparse but constantly playful, and, together with the graphics and photo engines, they prove how developers can take advantage of the new iOS 7 APIs in cool ways.

GeniusCam’s camera interface is simple: at the top, you can switch between photo/video and front/rear facing camera, while at the bottom you’ll find a shutter button and a slider (you have to swipe to see the slider). In my tests, GeniusCam has been stable and fast with photos, but I have experienced crashes when saving videos. The slider allows you to tweak the intensity of effects in real time, and it’s cool to play around with it just to see your face morphing on the screen as you reduce or increase an effect’s intensity.

GeniusCam is a fun, impressive utility that provides a great follow-up to 2011’s FaceMan to take advantage of iOS 7. The app is free on the App Store but limited to 4 effects; you can unlock UI themes with a $0.99 In-App Purchase, all 20 effects for another $0.99, or buy the All Inclusive IAP for $1.99.

TED for iOS 7→

I enjoy watching videos via the official TED app every once in a while. I’m especially a fan of the “Inspire Me” section, which lets you pick videos from categories such as “Persuasive” and “Informative”, further specifying how much time you can dedicate to a video.

For iOS 7, the TED app has been redesigned to have a cleaner look that focuses more on video thumbnails and descriptions. It’s not revolutionary in terms of design, but it’s still TED, and free on the App Store.

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iPhone 5s Camera For Photographers→

I often get phone calls asking me what camera I use, and I first have to clarify “Do you mean for work or pleasure?”. The answers are very different. My workhorse cameras are no-compromise performance tools, with no concessions at all to being easy to carry or enjoyable to use. They are all business, and they’re the last thing that I would want to take with me on holiday. I see the iPhone 5S as an attempt to make the opposite, a no-compromise fun phone-camera that adds to life. Each does its job better for not trying to do what the other does so well.

An in-depth and enjoyable review by Dean Holland. Make sure to check out the 5/5s comparison shots and examples.

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Enhanced for iOS 7, Dispatch 1.2 Brings Background Fetch, Advanced Search, and Custom Salutations

Dispatch, which I first reviewed in June, is an innovative email client for iPhone that eschews social features and push notifications for more power user-oriented functionalities such as default salutations, snippets, and built-in app actions. Here’s how I described message actions:

Dispatch has multiple sets of actions for message content and iOS data detectors – web links, dates and times, phone numbers and emails, and addresses can be tapped to bring up different actions. For third-party apps, Dispatch supports Due, OmniFocus, Things, Asana, Evernote, Drafts, Chrome, 1Password, Instapaper, and Google Maps; native iOS integrations include Messages, Maps, Reminders, Safari, Copy to Clipboard, Calendar, FaceTime, and Contacts. These actions are presented either by hitting the Share button in a message or by tapping a link or other bits of text that are recognized by iOS as, say, addresses or dates.

Being able to save a message to OmniFocus or directly into Evernote (preserving formatting) is incredibly handy, and I’m surprised that nobody else thought of this before. For years, I used Apple Mail and profoundly despised the round-tripping that it forced upon me to send text to other apps such as my task manager or text editor. Some email apps enable you to open links in other browsers, but Dispatch takes it to the next level with one-tap message sharing.

When I’m on my Mac, I can put together a Keyboard Maestro macro to archive a message for reference in Evernote, but when I’m on iOS, that’s a problem because there’s no native communication between Apple Mail and Evernote. The developers of Dispatch understand that people who work on iOS need to use multiple apps, and they’re trying to fix email’s inter-app communication problems with their own take on an email client.

I have been testing Dispatch 1.2, released last week alongside iOS 7, for a few months now, and I think it’s a good update that takes advantage of the new OS in interesting ways. Read more

Pod Wrangler for iOS 7 Review

“I knew from the start that I would never win in a feature arms-race against apps that have been around for so long and developed so highly”, says David Smith, independent developer and creator of Feed Wrangler, a popular RSS service launched after the shutdown of Google Reader earlier this year. His new app and service, Pod Wrangler, launches today with an iOS 7 app for iPhone and a web backend to handle sync across devices and platforms with an API. Based on Feed Wrangler’s engine, Pod Wrangler is a podcast syncing and listening service that is completely free for existing Feed Wrangler customers.

Pod Wrangler is, in its first version, an iPhone-only app that uses the same API that Smith is launching and opening to third-party developers today. An iPad version is being considered, but its development will depend on the amount of requests and feedback from initial iPhone users. Following Smith’s tradition, Pod Wrangler is extremely simple and focused – in some areas of the app, perhaps a little “un-designed” and too simplified. Read more

Apple Updates iMac→

This morning, Apple refreshed its iMac line with new CPUs, GPUs, faster WiFi, and faster PCIe flash storage options. From Apple’s press release:

Apple today updated iMac with fourth generation Intel quad-core processors, new graphics, next generation Wi-Fi and faster PCIe flash storage options. The updated iMac brings the latest technology to the stunningly thin design and gorgeous display of the world’s leading all-in-one desktop.

“iMac continues to be the example that proves how beautiful, fast and fun a desktop computer can be,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Inside its ultra-thin aluminum enclosure, the new iMac has the latest Intel processors, faster graphics, next generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi and faster PCIe flash storage.

Aside from Intel’s new processor and graphics, the new iMacs come with 802.11ac support, which was also added to the company’s AirPort Extreme station earlier this year. According to Apple, this will deliver up to three times faster performance than the previous generation.

The new iMacs are available today from the Apple online store.

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GIF Finder for iOS 7→

GIF Finder already was one of the most powerful tools in my arsenal of GIF discovery tools:

The app is free and it can search for GIFs on Tumblr; you can search for GIFs matching queries like “excited” or “sports fail” and tap on a thumbnail to view a GIF in full-screen. Tap the share button, and the app brings up a menu with options to Copy URL (which doesn’t work for me), share on iMessage and Twitter, but also open in Google Chrome and Tweetbot. The app is universal for iPhone and iPad.

With iOS 7, the app has been relaunched to have a tweaked UI, a new icon, and the same price tag of Free. You can still search for GIFs matching a specific keyword, but the great addition of this version is that imgur’s reactiongifsarchive is now supported within the app, allowing you to browse GIFs by standalone categories. So if you’ve been looking for a way to quickly find Not Bad or Didn’t read lol GIFs, you can now do that with the Categories tab in GIF Finder.

I like the app’s new interface and possibility to save favorite GIFs in a dedicated area, but I’d like to see improved performance, especially on the iPad mini. The app always takes several seconds to load GIF screens, and it’s been crashing frequently on my iPad. That’s a nope.

I’m looking forward to future updates, but, overall, GIF Finder gets my thumbs up as a great free tool for finding GIFs. I approve.

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