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THE AUSTRALIAN APP IS LACKING

I loaded up The Australian newspaper app and was disappointed.
The app reads well and the interface makes for great skimming and concise overviews but the screaming lack of the weekend ‘good bits’ left me slumped.

I have emailed twice asking how, and if there is a way to get Mystic Medusa, WISH magazine, The Review and the Weekend Australian….no response.

I would happily pay extra.

PENULTIMATE FOR iPAD

I am one of those people that fall under a category with no name.
“ordered chaos” is not for me, but sadly “chaotic order” speaks of one with an ordered mind that fails only when it comes to placing the shit in one pile.
I have scrapbooks, a beautiful leather-bound ideas journal, post-it notes, foolscap sheets taped to walls, a kitchen cabinet whose back door has whiteboard pens attached to it alongside a myriad of obsolete reminders, to do lists on my mac, scraps of hastily jotted ‘groundbreaking’ ideas clammering for attention at the bottom of my super sized handbag……etc, etc……
and so PENULTIMATE could be for me.
You get as many virtual notebooks as you want to create; you scribble onto a page and then you can email that scribble to staff (instead of digging in the paper bin for the brief that you wrote up in the meeting the day before and forgot to stick onto their monitor) or to yourself.
Unfortunately, I am still heavy handed with my iPad and so my scribbles are large.
I would also like to be able to add an image or a link.
Writing this has made me think…..is there something like PENULTIMATE that lets a page be scrawled and typed and contain links and images.
There is NEUNOTES and MENTALNOTE.
MENTALNOTE let’s you scribble and add images but the photos land at a size of their liking and all has to sit around that decision.
NEUNOTES lets you import images and scribble around the edges but the format is dull and the interface us very base.
My ask is that PENULTIMATE let’s you import images and resize them as you can in neunotes; let’s you type or cut and paste text from emails or websites, lets you zoom in so as to rule more neatly, and then it would be perfect
Pics below show PENULTIMATE, then MENTALNOTE then NEUNOTES

iBOOKS IS SHIT BUT STILL LOOKS THE BEST

First of all; let me rant……iBooks nearly made me throw my iPad in the bin!
What a rude, lazy, crap and unreasonably marketed piece of software if you live in a country that is not America (or possibly Europe).
Half the reason that I bought an iPad was to read whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and so I jumped on and downloaded iBooks then started pulling my hair out!
Yes, I got a free bloody book that I didn’t want; then spent ages searching like a loony for a book to buy. All I could find were free classics and free classics and free fuckin’ classics.
I trawled forums to work out how to find the reader store – all the time wondering how I could be so moronically inept at such a ‘must be’ simple task.
Finally the truth was there….6 pages into some apple/iPad forum…..iBooks has no books to sell to Australian users at this point!
Why not direct the sales staff to let you know this; or have a pop up letting you know that this title is not yet available in Australia (as kindle manages to do) or something!
However – there are very good alternatives that do work on the iPad so that you can delete iBooks and move on.

Kindle by Amazon has a great range of books…they still have the issue that many books are unavailable to our ‘sad, lowly populated and therefore not worth the bother extending virtual copyright nation’ but at least you can see that.
I was looking for a book called Ilustrado, by Miguel Syjuco…I couldn’t find it in 3 physical stores nor any apps, but ‘good old, Kindle had it sitting there with the ‘one click and it’s yours’ button flashing merrily to the right of the book cover!
Their interface is ok and has a great dictionary tool that works clearly without you having to leave the page.
You can’t copy and paste or share any text which is a pity.

Borders app is fine if you want a bestseller.

Stanza started as an iPhone app.
It has the ability to share lumps of text by emailing them directly to yourself or a friend.
There is a dictionary function but you have to use a pop up and then return to the page which is a pain in the ass.
The book store is also a pain in the ass as Stanza acts as a landing site whereby you have to search through one of 5 or 6 different providers. there is no overriding search function that finds the book, then let’s YOU choose which provider you will pay.

There was the Sony READER which I used, as you can download books that are for US readers only, simply by putting in a fake American address (i.e: Martin Lindstrom’s Brand Sense is only available for download through the Reader Store
However, it seems that none of the readers on the iPad will accept the books purchased through the Reader Store.

So, Kindle it is…..although I flare nostrils and shake my head as I have to say that iBooks interface wins hands down!
Have a look at the lowly dictionary setting on the book I wanted by Kindle vs. iBooks lovely dictionary on its patronising ‘giveaway’.

iPhone to iPad PHOTO TRANSFER

There is an app. called ‘photo transfer’ that is brilliant and a necessity with an iPad.
You download it onto your iPhone or computer and your iPad.
To transfer images from your phone or computer takes a wifi connection and 2 minutes….
Turn both apps on.
Click on the photos that you want to transfer to your iPad and when you click ‘done’, a URL address appears.
Type that address into the empty flashing ‘type here’ URL address bar on your iPad.
Click the ‘yes, now please do it!’ button on your iPad; do a couple of salutes to the sun and ‘Bob’s your uncle’, the photos are sitting pretty in iPad’s photo bucket.
This is a link to a youtube video showing you how to do it….but for gods’ sake MUTE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S79KnIdlcI

TILTSHIFTGEN vs. TILTSHIFT

There are 2 apps that make a model from the mundane.
Miniaturisation software in a moment!
TiltShiftGen has a better interface…you can look at what is happening while you do it, rather than have the tools sit over the image.
Tiltshift has a more malleable blur area – you can make it an ellipse, a circle, big or little; whilst TilitShiftGen is a circle only…..however; the shape doesn’t help much as the blur is much too defined and thus too obvious to work.
They both have tools that bring a up the contrast and the saturation (which makes for a more realistic miniature) but again; TiltShiftGen wins the race with the addition of a vignette tool that darkens the corners and makes for a tackier yet more realistic finish.
I took a photo of my keyboard and grabbed a lo res image from the net.
In each case…the first is ‘original’, 2nd is my preferred app.- and the 3rd is Tiltshift.

Here’s some links where you can get more info and see better examples than my paltry efforts!
http://artandmobile.com/tiltshift/
http://www.fuelyourapps.com/tilt-shift-iphone-app-review/
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tiltshift-generator-fake-miniature/id327716311?mt=8
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1453968@N22/

TYPEDRAWING

Pick a word; pick a font; pick a background and then draw delicately with your finger.
I sketched an eyeball, using the word eyeball, in 5 seconds and it looks like I spent a long time with Adobe Illustrator being a typographic legend!

PHOTOGENE APP.

Photogene is the best iPhone app for fixing up photos.
Really simple; previews as you do it.
Rotate, crop, level, saturation…
and my favourite – sharpen.
I took a dodgy photo of some ceramics then photogened it.
Then camerabag the photogene and a crap photo could almost look OK online.

WORDPRESS APP. & CAMERABAG

I have taken a photo of my fantastic beanbags ( leather beanbagswww.bean-bag-chairs.ca/) using camerabag.
This experiment will show you what amazing effects you get from a dodgy iPhone photo using this brilliant app.
I am experimenting to see what the results are using the iPhone wordpress app. in combination with this photo app. in relation to my blog.
Here goes adding the pics…..