iOS Photography (pt. 2)

As I mentioned at in pt. 1, I'm going to look at Camera Awesome and Camera+ next.

Camera Awesome

Developer: Smug Mug.
Price: Free (incremental in app purchases or $9.99 "Everything!" unlock).
View in iTunes here.

Camera Awesome came out around the beginning of March this year. The app was released by the popular image hosting site SmugMug. This kind of came out of nowhere and generated a lot of well deserved buzz upon it's release. Camera Awesome, much like King Camera, is free to try, however, CA features various in app unlocks ranging from $0.99, $3.99 and the $9.99 "Everything!" unlock. Unlike King Camera however, there is no resolution limit or water marking on images taken with the free (or base) version.

Let's take a look at Camera Awesome in more detail shall we?

iOS Photography (pt. 1)

iPhoneography (pt.1)

One of the main reasons I picked up the iPhone 4S was because of its new camera. I am a bit of a photobug and an app addict. As such, I quickly started trying and buying a slew of the apps being offered in the Photo & Video section of the iTunes App Store. This can be more daunting than it may sound as there are literally hundreds, most of which are not worth your time.


There are two main types of photography apps. There are apps that primarily center around filters and having fun with photography, the biggest examples being Instagram and Hipstamatic. Then there are apps that enhance the iOS photo taking experience, the two big examples are Camera+ and a newer entry, Camera Awesome. Those are some of the more well known ones. I've tested quite a few different apps, my personal favorites being Hipstamatic and a relative uknown called King Camera.

I'm going to look at quite a few different iOS photography apps. I won't lie, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with this post. It's been sitting in a draft state (in one form or another) for a month or more now. I finally decided to make it a fairly extensive guide to iOS photography. I will note that I've only tested the following apps with the iPhone 4S. I only make that distinction because it does have a better physical lens than the previous iOS devices so keep that in mind if your running an earlier model iOS device.

Another thing I struggled with was where to start.  What App should I get into first? It was kind of daunting until the obvious smacked me in the face so hard it hurt. Camera. Yep, the built in, default camera that almost everyone took their first iOS photo with. That's where I have to start. That's the baseline. Camera is, for better or worse, what all these apps are trying to enhance or improve upon.

I'll start with a few basics then we'll start looking at some different apps.

One last thing, I'm going to add a pros/cons to the bottom of the app articles so if you want a quick idea of what a certain app is about start there.

(more after the jump)

imo

imo is free a multi protocol instant messaging application. That's basically a fancy way of saying you can connect to multiple instant messaging services (including Steam) from this one app.

This is one of those apps that can save you some clutter. It supports all the major instant messaging protocols so if you're okay with using all in one applications you can potentially delete quite a few single use IM apps by switching over to this one.

There really isn't any way to argue with free either.

imo supports the following protocols:

• imo
• MSN
• Skype
• Yahoo!
• Google Talk
• Facebook
• AIM / ICQ
• Jabber
• VKontakte
• My Space
• Hyves
• Steam

And yes, once again, that last one was not a mistake. imo allows you to connect to Steam! That alone is a reason to have it on your device, providing of course you are an avid Steam gamer.

Now, this isn't a 100% perfect application. The interface is a bit clunky but you can adjust to it easy enough. It's also a cross platform IM client so you can use it on iPhone / iPad / Android / Blackberry / Nokia (Symbian).

Hopefully they will come out with a Windows Phone client at some point.

You can set it so that when you sign into one account, they all sign in. Something I like, but if you only want to sign into one specific network at a time you will want to leave that off.

Again, the things really like about this app is that it replaced my need to have MSN and Google Talk installed on my device. It also adds the ability to connect to Skype chat (sans video) but that again saves me from running Skype for no reason. Did I mention this works with Steam chat? Also, free.

Sreenshots:


Linkage:
My imo screenshots here.
imo website here.
imo iTunes link here.


Price: Free.

Downcast

The first app I wanted to write about is Downcast. This is probably the best podcast app I've ever used. It does cost $1.99, but if you listen to podcast on a frequent basis, it is a must have.

Downcast allows you to download, manage and listen to podcast from your iDevice without having to sync with iTunes. It's very straight forward and easy to use.

I've only had two issues with Downcast personally, one of those being an iOS issue that is out of there control. The first issue, is that I've never been able to get an episode to stream successfully. I can download and play them back just fine, which is what I do 99% of the time anyway, but streaming has never worked for me. I would bet that its something I'm doing wrong, but either way, if you plan on streaming everything (which kind of defeats the purpose) this may be a bigger issue for you.

The second issue is that it won't run all night and download new episodes as they come out unless it is the active application. That's an iOS behavioral thing so I'm not knocking Downcast for this by any means, however it is annoying. For those not familiar with how iOS works, an app is only active while you are using it. Once the device is locked or the app is in the background it will only run for a maximum of 10 minutes before it is set to a suspended state. You can read a much better and more detailed post about iOS multitasking here and here.

You can also search for and sign up for podcast directly from within downcast as well.

The features that make Downcast a must buy for me are the following:

• Ability to download podcast directly to the iPhone.
• Limit downloading to WiFi only.
• Automatically delete episodes after they have been listened to / watched.
• Ability to lock episodes so they won't be deleted.
• Listen to episodes in the background.
• Gesture controls (great for fast forwarding / rewinding).
• Customize skip forward / back times.
• Create playlist from within the app.
• Sleep timer.
• Manage subscriptions.

Those aren't necessarily all the features of Downcast, but they are the reasons I like it so much.

Need a few podcast to check out? Here are a few of the ones I listen to:
/Filmcast. Great movie and television discussions. Official podcast of /Film.com.
FilmRiot. A look at how movies are made.
Totally Rad Show. Nerd is the new cool. Comics, video games, TV shows, movies, board games...
Weekend Confirmed. All things video game related.

Screenshots:


Linkage:
My screenshots for Downcast here.
Available via iTunes here.
Downcast website here.

Price: $1.99