This update includes new features as well various bug fixes. The main new feature we added is a direct camera support so people can take a photo directly via the app and write text right on top of it. We also updated the interface graphics to support the new iPad retina display, fixed some bugs and allow for larger images (2048px x 2048px). Oh, and we have a new icon... iTunes app link.
I am taking part in a Spark panel discussing mobile app development on April 19th starting at 6:30PM at Noble Desktop (594 Broadway, New York City).
Here is the event information:
Mobile Apps are exploding in popularity and forever changing the way we communicate. Find out the latest in apps innovation, and how some smart designers are using it. Our panelists will discuss:
• Concept strategies that make them relevant for clients
• How to scope and price them. What the production process and timeframe entails
• What is the unique interface vocabulary that is being created
Panelists Include:
Alon Koppel
Alon founded FusionLab, Inc. in 1999 after working in NYC as a designer and art director. FusionLab focuses on information and interface design for web and mobile devices. They believe in clean design, hard work, and exceptional client service. Clients include Thomson Reuters, The New York Landmark Conservancy, Condé Nast, The Population Council, The Joan Mitchell Foundation, Architectural Digest, The Authors Guild, Montefiore Hospital, as well as local nonprofit organizations and businesses.
David Link
David is the co-founder and creative director of The Wonder Factory, a creative company that creates and manages humongous, complicated site launches. Clients include WebMD, Martha Stewart, Newsweek, National Geographic, Food Network and Flock.
David is a designer at heart and is happiest collaborating with hi UI and design team.
Garrett Murray
Garrett Murray has been designing and developing web and mobile applications for more than 10 years. His clients include Delta Airlines, Pfizer and the United Nations. He designed and developed Ego, a popular and critically-acclaimed iPhone/iPad application for tracking all of your important web stats in a single glance.
Recently, Garrett founded Karbon, a design/development agency in New York City where he and his compatriots are building fun and useful new applications and products.
Moderated by:
Sheri L Koetting
Co-Founder and Chief Strategist of MSLK, a marketing and design agency based in NYC that just launched their own proprietary app, OTO.
image/words is a poetic discovery tool for photographers and writers Just choose a photo from your album (or from one of our publicly hosted images), add freeform text and you’re done! Experiment with your text, thoughts or poems. Or just make custom LOLcats. The text can be large, small, transparent or opaque and in two great colors: black or white—but with a variety of fonts.
When you’re done and happy with your creation, make an iPad™ slideshow of all your hard work (and LOLcats). If your friends are too far away to hand your iPad over to them, you can email them or share on Facebook straight from the app. And if you just want to take your images and go home, save them to your library—the high resolution images you sync via iTunes will retain their size.
When you’re not feeling creative or when your cats aren’t doing anything particularly funny, image/words connects you to our library of images with texts to get you started. We plan future updates that will provide additional and more refined typographical controls and a universal version that will work on an iPhone.
Features:
Steve Jobs recently published a succinct summary explaining why Flash is not used on the iPhone, iPod and iPad. The complex issue has been boiled down to a few key points:
As web developers, this makes a lot sense to us. Though Flash filled in a lot of weak spots in the early days of the web, we have been using it less and less in our development process as modern browsers have begun allowing us to use open web standards to achieve effects that were once possible only with Flash.
I hadn’t previously known that Apple had requested to see Flash working on a mobile device and that Adobe didn't deliver. This shows the recent discussions in a new light. What's the point of attacking Apple for lack of Flash in their devices if Flash simply doesn't run yet on those platforms?
This is something we thought about quite a lot when designing the iPad Marketboard app for Thomson Reuters. The touch interface requires a rethinking of how to approach and interact with content on screen. The touch screens allow an intimate, tactile manipulation of content and navigation on a personal level we haven't experienced in the past with point-and-click interfaces. Though Flash really works well with mouse manipulation, its limitations might hinder the creativity of developers working in this new area.
1. "Openness". Flash is not an open source platform, and since it's controlled solely by Adobe, there are questions future compatibility. Apple advocates the use of open source standards like HTML5/CSS and H.264 video.
2. Access to the "full web". Adobe claims that Apple's devices can't see the full web (which mostly means video content), but most modern websites are adding HTML5/H.264 encoded video which looks great and works more efficiently on mobile devices.
3. Performance & Security. Apple asked Adobe to demo Flash on a mobile device in the past, but Adobe has yet to provide an example. Though there are currently no mobile devices available on the market with Flash installed, according to Adobe, we should expect to see something in this area in the second half of 2010.
4. Battery life. Most Flash websites currently require software decoding which takes a huge toll on battery life. In Apple's tests, viewing video via Flash as opposed to H.264 (which can be decoded via hardware), results in an almost 50% loss of battery life - 10 hours vs 5.
5. Touch. Simply put, Flash websites use a lot of rollover effects for both aesthetic reasons and to improve user interfaces. So far, such rollovers don't work at all on touch interfaces, meaning those sites would have to have separate versions for them to work on touch interfaces, even if Flash were available.
6. Development control. Apple wants to control the development cycle of their own product. It's their software and their SDK (Software Development Kit), and they don't want a third-party solution acting as a layer between the user and the device. While it may be tempting for developers to use Adobe’s tools now (and certainly easier than writing Xcode), there is the fear that in the future Adobe will be slow to adapt to new features launched by Apple. This has happened before, for example, with the slow adaptation of Adobe's Creative Suite to Intel processors.
Apple's position is clearly defined and honestly written. While some people might miss Flash now, I think that the open-standards path make a lot of sense. And for developers, it's nice to read such a clearly written letter from Steve Jobs to clarify and explain Apple’s way of thinking. Read the complete letter.