Top five photo apps for the iPhone

People tend to thing that mobile phone cameras are crappy. I guess they tend to think like that because they instinctively compare them with cameras like Nikons or Canons. But Nikons and Canons, besides of not being comparable with mobile phone cameras, are a bit expensive, and for snapshots, the iPhone camera actually does the job.

Now, talking about the iPhone camera... sometimes it takes pixelated photos, with saturated colors and stuff like that, but the truth is that it's not the camera's fault. It's our fault, because, most of the times, we forget one very important thing in photography: LIGHT.

If you take photos with low light conditions you can't expect to have great images. Many people use the iPhone mainly to take photos at home, with inappropriate lighting. But if you use the iPhone outdoors in a sunny day, you'll be able to take awesome photos!

The only thing that could be better is the resolution. Bigger images give you the ability to crop parts without sacrificing the resolution too much. But that's what the iPhone has, and believe it or not, I've had several mobile phones, like Nokias, Sony Ericssons, Samsungs, Qteks and HTCs, and I find the iPhone camera to be better than most of those phone cameras.

On the App Store, there are lots of photo apps to help you achive nice results with the iPhone camera. I've used a few, and picked up five I consider worth buying. They give you nice results and allow your creativity to flourish!

My top five photo apps for the iPhone are:

1. Night Camera, by Sudobility
2. Picoli, by Alazar GmbH & Co. KG
3. CameraBag, by Nevercenter Ltd. Co.
4. ColorSplash, by Hendrik Kueck
5. QuadCamera – Multi shot cam, by Takayuki Fukatsu

Now, lets go through a quick review of each one of them, and finally, I'm going to show you how they can complement each other, giving you endless creative possibilities.


Night Camera

This little app will really help you take steady shots. I think its name might mislead you, since it is not just for night use. In fact I use it all the time now. It almost completely eliminates shaky photos simply using the iPhone accelerometer.

You can use this app in one of three modes: standard, stable and timer.

To use it as a standard point and shoot camera, you just have to go to settings and choose standard. Then, on camera mode you'll have a button at the bottom center of the screen. Touch it and the photo is taken.

You can also use it in stable mode, which is the best mode to achive super steady shots. Once you select it on the settings, you'll get additional parameters such as sensitivity and auto shutter. You can then choose the sensitivity level you prefer and if you want to have the auto shutter or not. When the auto shutter is off, you'll still have the button at the bottom screen, on camera mode, but if you touch it the photo is not automatically taken. Instead, the app starts to use the accelerometer to detect movement, taking the photo once the iPhone is steady.

If you prefer to have the auto shutter on, two additional settings will appear: delay and timer beep. The delay is the time, in seconds, that will pass by before the app starts to detect movement, so, you won't have any button to start the movement detection.

If you choose to use the app in timer mode, you must also choose the delay in seconds. In this mode you will still have a button to touch, and when you do so, the countdown starts, according to the chosen delay. When it ends, the photo is taken, without any prior movement detection.

On settings you can also choose to have the whole screen area as a shutter button. Also whether you want the iPhone to vibrate or not when a photo is taken, and finally if you want the photo to be automatically saved, or you prefer instead to preview it and choose whether you want
to save it or not.



Picoli

Picoli is a very useful app. One of the most useful apps when it comes to photo “tweaking”. And when I say “tweaking” I mean changing parameters like brightness, sharpness, saturation, illumination, contrast and color balance. Picoli does all that, and even more!

With this app you can change your photo color scheme. You can use tools such as sepia, color dither, grey dither, night vision, posterize and sunburn.

And finally, you can rotate your photo or flip it, either vertically or horizontally.

After applying the changes you want, you can save your photo. Rest assured that the original photo will not be deleted. Picoli will instead create a new file.

Picoli loads photos from two sources:

• The iPhone foto album, for previously taken photos;
• The camera, for photos taken on that moment.

CameraBag

CameraBag is a very cool app. It simply changes the colors, effects and framing of your photos, so they resemble famous photo styles, old and new.

First of all, on photo style mode, you have four buttons:

Use an image captured at that moment.
Directly email your currently displayed photo.
Save your photo using the currently displayed style (you can also save the original).
Use an image from your iPhone image library.

The styles CameraBag mimics are:

• Helga: crops the photo to make it square, applies a soft filter, which brightens it a bit, and adds some vignetting;

• Instant: creates a polaroid photo style. Used colors are in the pastel range, and a soft vignetting is added;

• Mono: turns the photo black and white with a narrow white strip frame;

• 1962: like Mono, but darker and without frame;

• Fisheye: creates a fisheye lens effect;

• Infrared: transforms the color scheme, to infrared tonality;

• Lolo: crops the photo to make it square, applies color saturation, brightens the photo and adds a white frame;

• Cinema: crops the top and bottom to create a panoramic styled photo. Contrasts are enhanced and the photo tends to become darker;

• 1974: the framing is similar to Mono style, but the colors are in the pastel range, without vignetting.

The app settings allow you to specify whether you want, or not, to:

• Immediatly save your original photo;
• Immediatly save your photo using the current selected style;
• Use borders;
• Use cropping.

You can also set what output size you prefer. CameraBag gives you four options for size: 400, 600, 800 and 1200.

You can select which filters you want to see applied when you run across your styles by sliding your finger on the screen. You can always apply a non selected style, by touching the style name, on photo style mode, and choosing it from the list (see next image).

Finally, you must enter your email settings if you want to send photos directly from CameraBag.


ColorSplash

The concept is really simple: ColorSplash converts photos to black and white, but preserves in memory their original colors. You can then use your finger to remove or bring back the original colors. With this technique you can create fantastic cutouts.

It will only take a while for you to get used to the interface, but once you get it, it's a walk in the park.

You can choose from four brushes: opaque hard edged, opaque soft edged, transparent hard edged, transparent soft edged.

Then you slide your finger and, if you're on color mode, the color will appear, if you're on gray mode, de color will disappear. If you wish to bring back color, or remove color from small details, you just have to zoom in using two fingers. This is a clever trick because the brush is always the same size, since it is your finger! Zooming in is the same as if the brush gets smaller, and by zooming out is as if the brush gets larger. Nice feature!

You have also a Pan & Zoom mode. In this mode, you can safely pan and zoom, knowing that you won't apply or remove color.

There is also another awesome feature: a red mask you can use to see where the colors are still present. This can be used to check, and adjust, the boundaries between colored and black and white areas.

If you accidentally do a brush stroke, you can undo it. In fact, you can undo any number of accidental brush strokes.

Some other features are:

• Save/load multiple sessions;
• Save the image;
• Take a photo from the iPhone camera or load one already stored on the iPhone;
• Help within the program;
• Landscape or portrait mode;
• Hide or show the toolbars.

QuadCamera - Multi shot

This app is so simple, and yet so wonderful! It takes four or eight serial shots and creates an image with six selectable effects (bright, vivid, dull, hi-con, black & white, and no effect). The results are great when you photograph a moving object, or, generally speaking, a scene where there is some movement.

Besides the effects, on the settings:

• The time between shots can be adjusted, from 0,1 seconds to 3 seconds;
• You can choose one of four layouts: 2x2, 4x1, 4x2 and 8x1;
• If you want to preview the photo you’ve just taken, or not.

On the iPhone default settings, you can also choose:

• Whether you want a border line on your photo, or not;
• Whether you want vignetting on your photo, or not;
• Whether you want to tap anywhere to take the shots or on the bottom screen button;
• Whether you want the shutter sound to be on or off.

Finally, the photo has a resolution of 800x600 pixels.


Some examples of interaction between apps

Now I'm showing you an example on how you can use some of these apps together, boosting your creativity to achive some nice results.

First of all I took a set of four pictures using QuadCamera:

Then, I gave it more brightness using Picoli:

After that, I isolated the colors of the baby and his toy, using ColorSplash:

Gave it more contrast with Picoli:

Also with Picoli, gave it more sharpness:

Again with Picoli, enhanced the colors:

And finally, once again using Picoli, adjusted brightness and contrast to reach pastel tonalities. This is the final photo:

So, as you can see, there are endless possibilities for your creativity with these awesome apps. Wish you guys may achieve some great photos too!


Cheers!

Remember The Milk review

Remember The Milk (RTM) is a great tool for task management. And if you think closely, you don't need to be a CEO of a big company to have lots of tasks to manage. In fact, everyone has lots of tasks everyday, but we instinctively try to memorize them and prioritize them using only our brain. The problem is that if you try to memorize and manage lots of tasks you might fail here and there. So it is better to rely on an "external backup", so to speak.

Many use a planner (some people like to feel the paper, the book itself), others use a computer, or a PDA. As long as it can record the info, you can use any kind of method you like, from a simple sheet of paper to the most advanced software.

But, of course, one thing must never fail: the method. And the method implies several things, such as:

• The discipline you must acquire to write down every task that comes up;
• You must make sure you have your tasks with you all the time;
• You must have your tasks adequately organized. It's no use to write down everything if after that the task management itself fails. You must categorize tasks, prioritize them. Sometimes you need to accomplish some before beginning others. And you must have ways to insure you do it all efficiently, which means you are able to accomplish your goals as fast as possible without much effort.

Computers and hand-held devices might come in handy here. After all, if it's of organization and portability we're talking about, they certainly can do the job. This is where RTM comes in!

RTM developed an advanced task management app that gives you all of these features: easy of use, available when you need it and rock solid in what concerns to organization.

When you sign up for a free account on RTM you get access to their web based app, you also get access to a nice feature: an offline client, which only requires Google Gears... but no worries, RTM installs it promptly for you! This offline client is a must when you have no Internet connection but you still need to manage your tasks. And once you have connection again, it syncs all your data, so your web based app stays up-to-date.

If you do not use an hand-held device and do not intend to use one, this service will be more than enough, as long as you have your laptop with you. But if you have an iPhone, a Blackberry or a Windows Mobile device, RTM gives you excelent tools to take advantage of your device capabilities. The downside is that you must upgrade for a Pro account to have access to these tools. Having a Pro account will cost you $25,00/Year but, if you have an hand-held device, chances are that you'll find the Pro account really useful.

Besides these services, RTM also provides other ways to manage your tasks. But, first and foremost, lets get to the web based app review and the iPhone app review, and after that, we'll explore some of those complementary services.

1. The web based app

First of all, we want to remind you that the web based app and the offline client are identical, so by reviewing the web based app we are also reviewing the offline client.

1.1. The Overview

When you sign in on the web based app, the first screen you'll see is the Overview screen. Here you have a simple organization of your tasks: the tasks due today, tomorrow, and the overdue tasks.

On this screen you also have:

• Access to the Weekly Planner view, which gives you all the tasks you have in the next 7 days, including the recurrent ones;
• The Task Cloud which is a visual depiction of your task lists. Lists with more tasks will be displayed in larger font. The priorities and due dates of tasks in each list are also taken into consideration (i.e. lists with higher priority tasks or tasks due sooner will display larger relative to those with low priority tasks or tasks due later). If you tag or locate your tasks, tags and locations will also display in the Task Cloud in much the same ways as lists (tag and location names are blue, while list names are grey). In the Task Cloud, you can click on a list to go directly to that list, or click on a tag or location to see all of the tasks with that particular tag or location.

On the top right corner you have links to other views, and below these you can find a search box, which is always available throughout the app. Lets now check out the Tasks view.

1.2. The Tasks

On the Tasks view you have your Inbox tab, as well as the tabs of your own lists, the Sent tab and the All tasks tab. Inside of all these (except inside the Sent tab) you have a couple buttons and a pull-down menu with more actions. The buttons are used to complete tasks and to postpone tasks. Whether you want to complete or postpone, you must first select the tasks and then press the complete or postpone button. When you postpone overdue tasks RTM will assign them to the present day. If the tasks are due today or in the the future, RTM will postpone them 1 day.

The pull-down menu is used to send, share, duplicate and delete tasks, as well as to prioritize them, move them to one of your lists, and undo the last action. Off course, you must also select first the tasks you want to change, and only then you can choose an option from the pull-down menu.

When you prioritize one or more tasks, a color code is used. The tasks with Priority 1 get the orange color, those with Priority 2 get the dark blue color and the tasks with Priority 3 get the light blue color. Tasks with no priority get no color.

There's also another pull-down menu to sort your tasks. This pull-down gives you the options of sorting by priority, due date and task name. You don't need to select any tasks before you use this tool. It will sort all your tasks regardless they are selected or not. Below this pull-down menu there's a link to add a new task.

And you can also use the quick select links. These will give you the ability to select all, or only those due today, tomorrow, or overdue, or, you can also deselect all tasks.

On the column to your right you can see a box with three tabs: List, Share and Publish.

On the List tab you can see how many tasks you have on the actual list, and of these you can see how many are due today, how many are due tomorrow, how many are overdue. You also have a link that will send you to the completed tasks for the current list.

You can print your tasks as well and send them to iCalendar, and, you have also a link to get the Atom feed.

On the Share tab you can choose to share your tasks with your contacts, or not share them at all.

The Publish tab allow you to publish them for your contacts only, for the public in general, or choose not to publish.Below this box is another box with some info about the color code and formats used on RTM, and their meaning.

1.2.1. Adding a task

To add a new task, click on the add task link and an empty field will come up on the current list tab. On that field write the task description and press enter. Make sure you select the newly created task.

On the right column, a box will come up. This box is connected to the tasks it relates to by a dotted line, and it has a couple tabs: task and notes.

On the task tab you can enter:

• The due date. You can do this using a straightforward input method. You just need to write the due date using common expressions like these;

• The repeat pattern. You can set up a repeat pattern also using a similar input method to the one used on the due date. See more here;
• The time estimate. Here are some examples of time estimate input;

• The tags. You can enter one or more tags, separated by commas;

• The location. You can enter the location where the task will take place. Before entering a location you must define it on the locations view (we'll take a look at this view in a while);

• The URL, if your task is simply to visit a site or if a site is somehow related with your task.

There's also the number of times the task was postponed, the contacts with whom you share the task, and the number of notes it has associated.

On the notes tab, you can view, add and print the task note(s). To add notes see the following screens:

Now you can set the priority for your task (on the image below the task is not selected.

Then, you can move it to the list it belongs to, as you can see:

1.3. Locations

Here you can manage your locations. First of all you can find locations using the search box located above the map. You can choose if you want to show tasks with no due date, or not.

On the map you have several buttons that allow you to define which tasks you want to see displayed on the map. You can choose to see only those due today, or those due tomorrow, or due this week, or the tasks due beyond this week. Because this tool is powered by Google Maps, you can also choose if you want to see a map view, a satellite view, or an hybrid view. You can also zoom in and out like you do on Google Maps.

1.3.1. Adding a location

You can add a new location by clicking on the link positioned above the right column. After doing this you must click on the map. An empty box will come up on that map spot for you to enter the location name. After doing this, the new location is added and available on the right column.

If you want to delete a location, or set one as your default, you must click on the Manage Locations link. You can find it on the right column, below your locations. This link will get you to Settings view (later on we will talk about the settings view).

1.4. Contacts

On the contacts view you have three tabs: Contacts, Groups and Invites.

The contacts tab allows you to add and delete contacts, as well as to add or remove contacts to and from groups you've created.

The Groups only gives you the options of create and delete groups.

The Invites tab is a form with three fields: First name, Email and Note. You can use this form to send an invitation to your friends.

Contacts are useful when you have a group of friends or even co-workers who have the same tasks. For instance, you might have a meeting with some of your contacts, and perhaps you want to share this task with them, or you might have a basketball game scheduled with some friends, and wish to share this task with them, or even other tasks associated with the basketball game. And they also might want to share some common tasks with you, of course. On the images below, see how you can send/share tasks with your contacts:

1.5. Settings

Here you have eight tabs: General, Lists, Tags, Locations, Reminders, Services, Sync and Info. Lets take a look at them.

1.5.1. General

This is your account settings. You can change your first and last names, password, email, date and time format, you can choose if you want to have the task cloud on your tasks view or not, you can choose the language, country and timezone. And you can even close your account.

There is also the private addresses option. This option exists to enable Atom and iCalendar feed URLs, and RTM created this because many feed readers and calendars, particularly those online, don't support authenticated feeds like RTM's (which require your RTM username and password to access them). To work around this problem, they've created an option to turn on private addresses, so that you can subscribe to your tasks with products such as Google Reader and Google Calendar.

With private addresses, each of your list feeds is given a very long, hard to guess URL. You can use this URL to subscribe with your feed reader or show your tasks on your Google Calendar. After you've enabled this feature, you'll find the private Atom and iCalendar feed URLs available in the list details box for each list (private addresses are available for both regular and Smart Lists).

Private addresses are designed for your use only. If you accidently share your private address, click on the "Reset Private URLs" link, available on this tab, to create brand new private address URLs.

1.5.2. Lists

On the lists tab you can add and delete lists, set a list as default or remove this setting. You can also archive or unarchive lists. When a list is archived, it will be removed from the tasks view, so you won't be able to assign it any more tasks. If later on you wish to get it back you just need to unarchive it, and it will be ready for action again!

1.5.3. Tags

Here you can delete and merge tags. To create a new tag you just have to type it once you're entering a new task. Merging tags is the same as replacing them with another designation. Of course, this might be useful to better organize your info.

1.5.4. Locations

Here you can delete locations. You can also set one as default and unset it, if you like. To add locations you have a specific view, as we've seen already.

1.5.5. Reminders

Here you can specify when and how you want to be reminded. You can specify how many days, hours or minutes, before the task is due, you want to be reminded. And you can also specify how shall RTM remind you. You can be reminded via email, AIM, GaduGadu, GoogleTalk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Skype, Yahoo, or even SMS. It's a nice feature! But, if you wish not to be reminded at all, you can disable the reminders.

1.5.6. Services

Any third-party services that you have given permission to interact with your RTM account are listed here.

1.5.7. Sync

On this tab you set your preferences for MilkSync. MilkSync is a way to synchronize your RTM tasks with other software and devices, such as Blackberry or Windows Mobile devices.

1.5.8. Info

Here you have your inbox email address, so you can sent tasks, via email, to your inbox. See how to do this here. You have also iCalendar service and events addresses, the Atom feed address, and the public lists you've got, if you have any.

1.6. Smartlists
RTM has also another feature you might find useful: smartlists.

Smart Lists are special lists that are created based on criteria that you define, and are automatically updated as your tasks change.

To create a Smart List, first you need to perform a search to set the criteria that you want your Smart List to be based on. For example, you might search for tasks with high priority or tasks tagged with 'mall'.

• In the Search Results list, make sure you have no tasks selected so that the list details box appears on the right;
• Click on the 'Save' tab;
• Enter a name for your Smart List;
• Click on 'Save'.

Your criteria will now be saved as a Smart List, which will appear as a blue tab on the Tasks screen. When you go to that Smart List, any tasks that match the criteria you searched for will be displayed.

RTM has a nice demo to show you how to do this. See it here.

2. The iPhone App

Since the iPhone app has almost all of the web based app features, with only a different interface, we will not review it extensively as we've done with the web based app. Instead, we will show some of its screens, with annotations, and we'll comment just on what is actually relevant.

On the screen bottom you have a set of five buttons. You can change all of them, replacing those you want, by others, except the one at the right, called More. The default buttons are Today, Tomorrow and This Week, all of these to manage your tasks. There's also the Lists button, to manage your lists, and of course, the More button, giving you access to more options.

Below there's a schematic explanation on how to manage tasks. You can do this on the Today, Tomorrow or This Week views.

As you can see, on the bottom right of the screen, just above the More button, you have the Add Task button. Touching it takes you to the add task screen, where you can define all the fields of a task.

The Add Task button, as well as the Sync button, are available also on the Tomorrow, This Week and Lists screens.

On the Lists screen you can view the tasks by list. You just have to touch the list you wish.

You can also edit lists, by touching the Edit button.

When you edit lists, you can change them of course, but you can also add lists by touching the Add List button.

The More button will take you to a screen where other options are available. By default these options are those on the image below.

However, you can assign some of these to the bottom screen buttons. Lets see more about the options available here:

• Tags: allows you to manage your tags the same way you manage your lists;
• Locations: allows you to manage your locations the same way you manage your lists also;
• Search: you can perform searches and thus create smartlists;
• Nearby: shows the tasks that need to be done nearby. You can define nearby distance on the settings screen, by changing the nearby radius setting;
• Settings: here you can manage the account info, the app badge, and several other features.

To assign other options to the bottom screen buttons, touch the Edit button and drag those you want to the bottom positions where you want them.

3. Some accessory services

3.1. RTM for Twitter

You can use Twitter to interact with RTM. Go to this page, and see how.

There has been reported some issues with this service. You can send tasks to RTM via Twitter, but you might have some troubles with commands, because RTM won't be able to reply. RTM claims that this issue is beyond their control, and is due to Twitter only. You can click here to learn more about this problem.

3.2. RTM for Gmail
You can used RTM from within your Gmail account by doing one of the following:

Installing a gadget (you need Gmail Labs). Check here how to install this gadget;

Installing a Firefox extension. You can go here to download the extension and leran more, from a small tutorial.

3.3. RTM for Google Calendar

RTM for Google Calendar adds a small task icon to the top of each day in Google Calendar. Click on the icon to:

• Review your tasks for the day;
• Add new tasks and edit existing ones;
• Easily complete and postpone tasks;
• Review your overdue tasks;
• Optionally show tasks with no due date;
• See where your tasks are located on a map.

You can check it out here.

3.4. iGoogle gadget

With the iGoogle Gadget you will be able to review your tasks alongside your calendar, mail, weather forecasts, and feeds.

• Review your upcoming tasks for the week;
• Add new tasks and edit existing ones;
• Easily complete and postpone tasks;
• Review your overdue tasks;
• Optionally show tasks with no due date;
• Display tasks from a particular list or Smart List.

To learn more, and/or add the gadget to iGoogle, go here.

3.5. Netvibes module

This module is similar to the iGoogle gadget. You can add it, or learn more about it here.

3.6. Mobile version

To use this feature, you just have to point your web-enabled mobile device to http.//m.rememberthemilk.com. It's as simple as that!

There are other services, such as Milksync for BlackBerry, Milksync for Windows Mobile and Quick Add Bookmarklet. We encourage you to check more about these, especially if you have one of those mobile devices.

• Intuitive interface;
• Clean design;
• Free account gives you a lot of features;
• An offline client;
• An iPhone app, and Milksync to sync with BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices;
• Locations, backed up with Google Maps;
• Share and send tasks to your contacts;
• Create smartlists;
• Lots of accessory services.

• Pro account somewhat expensive;
• Difficult, if not impossible, to use commands with the Twitter service;
• The iPhone app does not allow you to use maps nor to manage contacts;
• Instead of having Milksync, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile users would be better with an app like the iPhone app.

Remember The Milk is one of the best task management services out there. It doesn't matter if you have lots of tasks and need a state of the art tool to manage all of them, because RTM gives you a solid answer to your task management needs whichever they are.

The Pro account has a cost of $25,00/Year, but if you have an iPhone or other hand-held, and don't want to carry your laptop with you all the time, it will give you total control and portability.

Click here to watch the introduction video.

Cheers!