Carousel was unveiled at Adobe’s Photoshop World 2011 conference this morning. It’s a new app for iPhone, iPad and Mac that will leverage Photoshop Lightroom technology to offer image fine-tuning and adjustments on all platforms, as well as automatic syncing, sharing and browsing of your collection via the cloud. Increasingly, the cloud is becoming the tent pole of mobile software, as we’ll see discussed in detail at Mobilize 2011. If you take a picture on one device, it should be available on all others immediately and automatically, according to Adobe. Edit on one device, and those edits are also shared, but your originals won’t be lost since Adobe’s tech uses non-destructive editing tech.

The catch is that Carousel won’t be free. When it launches later this month, it will cost $60 per year or $6 per month as a subscription service. That’s the introductory price; it goes up to $100 per year or $10 a month after Jan. 31, 2012. That’s quite a bit more than the one-time fee associated with most existing iOS or Mac photo editing apps, and it’s more expensive than the similar iCloud service, which provides free syncing of photos through Photo Stream, as well as the ability to purchase more storage for between $20 and $100 per year. Google+ also offers basic mobile photo syncing for free through its iOS application, though in a far more limited form.

Adobe’s offering provides more powerful editing tools, as well as sharing options that allow up to five non-Carousel members to collaborate on individual photos or a library of photos for free. Non-subscribers get a special download link for a single install of the app of their choice and can view and edit photos in shared albums. With Photo Stream, your options for collaboration are more limited; you can share through external social networks, but that’s about it, and Carousel has that angle covered, too; you can share to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr from within the apps.

Carousel definitely offers more than Photo Stream, but it also isn’t integrated at the OS level like Apple’s offering will be, so you’ll have to go to apps to use it. It also might be more muscle than the average mobile photographer needs, at a higher price than they’re willing to spend, though I can easily see the appeal for pro photographers who need to work with distributed teams on a regular basis. But Adobe is clearly targeting consumers, and talks mostly about uses average folks might have for the service, like creating and sharing family photo libraries.

You can sign up now to be notified when the service goes live, and Adobe is offering a 30-day free trial before you have to start paying for Carousel. Anyone interested in getting this level of control over your personal photo cloud, or are Apple’s upcoming built-in iOS features good enough?

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Collecting GPS information

Two important pieces of info are required for adding GPS data to your photos. The first is the latitude and longitude where the photo was taken. The second, equally critical piece of information, is the date and time the camera was at that location. This is the key to automatically matching up the GPS data with photos.

When it comes to figuring out where a shot was taken, there are three main sources that myTracks can use:

1. GPS data logger. One way to collect this information is to invest in a GPS data logger. There are several Mac-friendly GPS data loggers on the market to choose from. These standalone units will keep track of where you and your camera have been without draining your other device batteries. myTracks can then import the location information directly from the logger itself, or indirectly through GPX or KML files. Under the hood, myTracks uses the open-source library LoadMyTracks to support a wide range of GPS devices. If you find that your device is not supported, you may need to use a utility like HoudahGPS to convert the data to a format that myTracks supports.

2. iPhone sync. If you have an iPhone, then you already have a basic GPS logger. In fact, I’ve found the tracking capabilities of the iOS version of myTracks to be great, and it offers a built-in sync feature that will allow you to transfer location information directly from your iPhone to the Mac version of myTracks. If you prefer using a different GPS tracking app, then you’ll need to export the data and import it into myTracks using either the GPX or KML file format.

3. Track from photos. The simplest way to collect the location information you need is to take a series of reference photos along the way with the default camera app that came with your iPhone. Provided you are adding location information to your photos on your iPhone, myTracks can create a track from your iPhone’s library. From the Tools menu in myTracks, select “Create track from photos…” and select the photos you want to create a track from.

Adding GPS Information to your photos

Now that you have your track loaded into myTracks, the first thing you will want to do is ensure that your camera’s clock is in sync with your GPS data, as well as any of the other cameras you may use. Once you’ve made any time adjustments to your photos, you’re ready to add the GPS info. MyTracks supports adding GPS location information to photos in iPhoto, Aperture and Adobe Lightroom as well as any folder of images on your Mac. The following steps are for iPhoto ’11, since that’s the program most will likely use:

1. After importing tracks into myTracks, select the track that has the GPS information you want to sync.
2. Open iPhoto and select the photos you want to add the GPS information to.
3. Drag the photos from iPhoto onto myTracks.
4. Make any final adjustments in myTracks’s Pool of Photos to align the GPS track info with the photo time stamp.
5. Click Start in myTracks Pool of Photos and select the GeoTag option.
6. In iPhoto, select the photos you tagged, and from the Photo menu, “Rescan for Location.”

Reviewing and sharing your mapped photos

Once you have added the GPS information, using it to help illustrate your life’s adventures is much easier. You can sync your track and photos to the iPad version of myTracks, or post the images to one of the many online photo sharing sites that support geotagged photos, including Flickr.

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The iPhone camera has come a long way. In the early days, many complained about the quality of the camera. It started off with just a 2 megapixel sensor, and with a barebones stable of features. The iPhone 3G didn’t even update the camera’s megapixel count, though it does appear to have ushered in some slight improvements in picture quality. Finally, with the 3GS, we got a spec bump to a 3.2 megapixel sensor, but the real advantage with that generation was that it brought in touch-to-focus controls. The camera also seemed to just generally take better photos, in all but low-light situations, and it gained the ability to take videos (without jailbreak).

When Apple revealed the iPhone 4, it was clear that the camera was one big area of improvement. It gained a 5 megapixel sensor (which was also larger, and its the size and megapixel count combined that create better images), and one which is backside-illuminated, allowing for better performance in low-light situations, as did the new LED flash. Reviews of the photos taken by the iPhone 4 were almost unanimously positive, with many being quite free with the superlatives. The iPhone 4 also introduced HD video, and a front-facing camera for greater flexibility with video calling and other applications, like checking your tie just prior to a job interview.

But Apple is also clearly dedicated to improving iPhone camera software, mot just the hardware. iOS 4.1 introduced high dynamic range (HDR) photos built-in to the photo app, which takes three photos in rapid succession with three different levels of exposure, and then combines them to prevent photos from looking washed out. And, as mentioned above, iOS 5 brings many new software features, including quick access to the Camera app from the home screen, which shows Apple is aware that photography is a priority for many iPhone users. The new grid feature for framing shots, white balance correction and editing and enhancement abilities bring the iPhone even closer to feature parity with consumer point-and-shoots, without even the need for any additional app downloads.

The next iPhone is rumored to be getting an 8 megapixel camera, and possibly dual LED flashes, which should make it even less necessary for people to carry around another camera, unless they’re looking for DSLR-level quality. The iPhone 4 has already replaced point-and-shoots for many, apparently, since it officially became the most popular camera on Flickr on June 21, and was probably unofficially atop that list for much longer thanks to photos shared to Flickr through apps like Instagram.

The iPhone’s success is the result of how all of its parts work together, providing an overall user experience that can’t yet be matched by competitors. But the camera, with its steady stream of value-adding improvements designed to improve the once-dismal experience of using a camera phone, may be one of its biggest, and least talked about strengths in the ongoing battle for smartphone supremacy.

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Last week, Cisco made waves by announcing the closure of its recently-acquired Flip mobile video camera brand. The Flip brought cheap, portable, decent-quality, HD video recording to the masses and rode the wave of YouTube and online self-video publishing to become a popular portable device. But then smartphones, including the iPhone 4, gained similar-quality, HD video recording capabilities, and the Flip was no longer the hot commodity it once was.

The iPhone topped Flickr’s list of user cameras in 2009 following the release of the iPhone 3GS, and that was back when the best iPhone camera boasted only a 3.2-megapixel resolution. The iPhone 4 has a 5-megapixel sensor, but leaving aside tech specs, many agree that it performs better (on paper) than some of the more powerful cameras found on Android and other devices. The iPhone’s camera is another example of Apple’s philosophy that user experience trumps a hardware capabilities arms race every time.

This time, though, the data specifies the iPhone 4, not Apple’s entire line of iPhone devices, which speaks to the popularity of Apple’s latest smartphone. It’s also significant that this time around, Flickr-released data shows point-and-shoot cameras are steadily declining in popularity. The takeaway is that smartphones are nearing the tipping point in terms of camera quality when it comes to the needs of most average users (professional and prosumer DSLRs continue to do well), and the iPhone 4 is leading that charge. Phones provide a much more convenient on-hand camera experience than do dedicated devices, and the trade-offs in terms of quality and feature are becoming less significant all the time.

Android devices, despite the growing market share of Google’s OS, aren’t appearing in the top rankings for a couple of reasons. First, Android’s market share is far more spread out across a variety of devices, whereas new iPhone users have only a couple of choices when it comes to handsets. Second, Apple’s camera is still celebrated as being among the best available for mobile devices, despite its relatively low megapixel count.

Based on this data, and on general usage observations, I’d say the iPhone is about one or two updates away from rendering point-and-shoot cameras all but obsolete for most consumers. It’s true that really good analog zoom will likely remain out of reach for smartphones, but consumers who really want those features will increasingly gravitate towards the prosumer end of the DSLR spectrum, while everyone else will be well served with their mobiles. Expect a lot of disruption still to come from Apple in this area.

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The only real problem is a dearth of quality photos for the screensaver. My own photos aren’t up to scratch, and the limited ones Apple includes get old pretty quickly. What I really wanted was a screensaver with a large and constantly renewing set of high-quality photos.

Flickr Integration

The first thing I did was to have a look at the included Flickr integration to see if that provided a solution. You can use saved searches, and pull photos from Flickr contacts, but neither of those options really solved the problem. A saved search limits the scope and reduces the overall quality of the set, while contacts, no matter how good or prolific, just can’t provide enough material to keep things interesting. Eventually, I realized that the photos showing up on Flickr’s Explore page were the ones that I wanted.

Things Get Interesting

If you’re not familiar with how photos get picked to be featured on the explore page, it all has to do with a mysterious algorithm cooked up in the Flickr labs that calculates a photo’s interestingness. No one’s really sure exactly how a photo’s interestingness score is calculated, but it’s thought to involve some alchemical mixture of a photo’s tags, groups, comments, views, traffic, favorites, and other sundry properties. Whatever the exact ingredients may be, the top 500 interesting photos that end up on the explore page every day seem to be exactly what I’m looking for.

The problem is that there’s no real way to tell the Apple TV to use just those “interesting” photos for the screensaver. So, inspired by a couple of old and now defunct attempts to overcome this very same roadblock, I decided to write a quick PHP script and take advantage of the nice Flickr API to make it all work. I created a dummy flickr account named TABScreensaver which, thanks to my script, now marks each of the day’s most interesting photos as a favorite.

A Solution

Now, anyone who wants a large and constantly renewing collection of interesting photos for their Apple TV screensaver can simply add TABScreensaver as a Flickr contact and choose it’s favorite photos for the screensaver. Every evening, the set will be automatically updated with those photos picked to be featured on the Flickr explore page.

In the long run, I’d really like to see Apple improve the photo sharing features on the Apple TV so this kind of workaround isn’t necessary. It would be great if we could subscribe to RSS feeds with image enclosures, or add Flickr groups, or pull images from a Twitter stream, or combine sources, or lots of other cool stuff I’m too dim to think up. Who knows? Maybe if we get an App Store for it, our biggest problem will be sifting through a glut of Apple TV photo sharing apps trying to find the right one. It’ll be a nice problem to have.

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I downloaded the demo of the 1.0 release and ran it through its paces. The demo lets you have all the functionality of the full version, but you’re limited to running three different services or accounts. Which, honestly, isn’t much of a limitation for many users, myself included.

All Your Services, One Place

Socialite covers all the major bases, including Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. That would be enough for me, but it also will log you into Digg and Google Reader, or let you track RSS feeds yourself manually. For many people I know, opening Socialite first thing in the morning would clear their to-do list for the day.

Facebook integration lets you access status updates and photo albums, both yours and those of your friends. You can upload photos and update your status, but inbox access is still not a part of the deal, until Facebook opens that up to the API. Twitter gives you access to your timeline, mentions, and direct messages, and allows you to view your lists and lists you subscribe to. You can’t create new lists or modify them in this version of Socialite. Flickr includes contacts photos, but also Interestingness, which is one of my favorite parts of Flickr, so I’m glad it’s included.

Many Features, One Simple UI

None of these services share the same UI in their native formats. That’s why Socialite’s interface is so impressive. It manages to make the process of working with multiple services in the same shell incredibly intuitive and relatively painless. Well-designed icons, and consistent function placement across the board help make this happen.

Best of all, if you’d rather just deal with things as one big mess, you can work with updates from all your services at once in the macro view “Unread” menu, and all of the appropriate actions for each separate service still appears in the options section for each. And clicking on any update automatically brings up the quick input field related to that service.

Jack of All Trades, Master of None?

Socialite is a great program, and well designed, but it can’t take the place of Tweetie on my Mac. The problem is that since starting to use Twitter, I’ve become less and less dependent on other social networks I belong to. Facebook I can check twice a day really, if I feel like it, and Flickr is something I never really used to begin with. No matter how well Socialite does Twitter, Tweetie still does it better, and with a much smaller memory footprint.

Still, if you like to frequent many social sites, and especially if you’re a Google Reader user, Socialite could be the perfect program to help keep things organized and nicely aggregated in one convenient location.

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I have always been curious about what kind of tools people have used to liveblog events (especially those involving Apple). As many of you readers know, Apple recently held a media event on 9.9.09. I jumped on the opportunity to attend and represent TheAppleBlog. Naturally, one of my responsibilities was to liveblog everything.

Here’s the plan that was put together:

Hardware

• Macbook Pro
• iPhone
• Canon G10
• Eye-Fi Pro card

Software

• CoverItLive
• Text messaging
• Email
• Flickr
• Adium
• Eye-Fi Manager

Josh Pigford, TheAppleBlog’s editor, manned the computer to keep up a constant stream of updates on Twitter and  CoverItLive, an awesome liveblogging tool. Before I had access to a Wi-Fi network, I used my iPhone to send Josh text messages and email photos. I was warned by several other attendees that Wi-Fi never holds up during events. The proof? Everyone there appeared to have a 3G card for their laptops. I was extremely concerned, but at least I had my iPhone as a backup.

Once the press were allowed to check in and move closer to the building, I whipped out my Macbook Pro and jumped on the Wi-Fi network. I had to configure the Eye-Fi card so my Canon G10 would automatically upload photos as I took them. Configuring the card was quick and easy (thanks Eye-Fi!). The photos would be uploaded to Eye-Fi and then immediately sent to my Flickr account for Josh to grab.

Eventually we were allowed to enter and take our seats.  The end result was a comical combination of high and low tech. While photos were uploading (over the surprisingly reliable Wi-Fi network) I typed out virtually everything said on stage to Josh over AOL Instant Messenger (Adium). It was his responsibility to interpret and publish my never-ending stream of consciousness writing style into something you could read through via CoverItLive. I was surprised to see how much he let through (including my comments about Phil Schiller dancing in his seat).

I hope you all enjoyed the coverage, and if you have any suggestions on how to improve for next time please leave a comment.

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Around the time I first got my iPhone 3G, I used to use Exposure (now called Darkslide) for Flickr browsing, and I was well satisfied, until it became rather buggy with later versions. Not sure what the state of that app is, but I’m glad to see Yahoo finally step forward and release an official iPhone solution for the photo sharing site.

The Flickr app is available now in the App Store for the lovely price of free, and allows you to upload your own photos or videos to the site for publication. On first use, you have to enter your credentials if you want to upload or view your contacts, but Flickr takes you to Safari and then immediately back to the app afterward, resulting in a painless process.

I didn’t even bother doing that for probably my first five minutes using the app, though, because I was too busy just watching the home screen. By default, Flickr for iPhone shows a Ken Burns-style slide show of random photos from the site’s entire public archive. It’s a simple trick, but for some reason on the iPhone’s screen it looks so good it’s absolutely mesmerizing.

When you do log in, which you must do if you want to use any of the app’s features besides Search, the slide show on launch features only photos from your own and your contacts’ photostreams. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you have lots of contacts who are active Flickr users, but I would like to see a settings option in future versions that lets you pull from the general pool. It may not even be intended as a feature, but it’s the most visually pleasing thing the app has to offer.

Generally speaking, Flickr for the iPhone does a good job of looking good. It shows you when its loading using the familiar logo animation it shares with the regular site, and the UI is well and smartly designed. My only complaint is that in comparison to other apps like Darkslide, it actually does very little.

Like many non-photographers I know, I don’t actually use the site for uploading my own content, and I have very few contacts. What I do like to do on Flickr is just browse aimlessly, because while I may not take many photos, I appreciate a good one when I see it. Darkslide (the version I used to use, anyway) provides great features for browsing photos outside of your contact pool. This Flickr app does not, short of searching for keywords.

If you’re a Flickr user who takes a lot of mobile shots with your iPhone, then this app is for you. If you’re a casual appreciator like myself, you may want to look elsewhere for your Flickr fix, at least for the time being.

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My interpretation of minimalism in the home office is removing all distracting items that are not constantly utilized. For software, this is both easy and cheap. Becoming a hardware minimalist is slightly more expensive and time consuming and I recommend reading Apartment Therapy’s Unplggd for recommendations.

Minimal Mac

I recently discovered a website called Minimal Mac, and it is rapidly climbing the charts as my favorite blog. Naturally, it has a simple design that utilizes plenty of white space. Reading this blog has inspired me to clean up my iMac by reducing the clutter. Below are a few quick and easy steps to help you reach software bliss.

Clean Up Your Desktop

Open Preferences for the Finder and deselect everything. Organize your files in the Documents folder. Doing this will remove all files, folders, hard drives, etc. from your desktop.

Empty Out Your Menu Bar

Do you always use the same Wi-Fi network? Remove the Wi-Fi icon in the Network System Preferences. Time machine backs up every hour automatically, so there’s no need for the icon. Are you unsure if it’s AM or PM? First, get more sleep. Second, remove it in the Date & Time System Preferences. Use your keyboard to change the volume? Remove the Volume icon in Sound System Preferences. You get the idea.

For extra credit you can remove the Spotlight icon using Onyx, a thorough maintenance and optimization tool.

Warning: disabling the icon also disables the hot key to activate Spotlight. Only do this if you don’t use Spotlight or if you’re satisfied with using Command-F in the Finder.

Simplify Your iTunes Controller

The built-in mini controller for iTunes is simple to use, but it’s definitely too large and distracting. I recently discovered the perfect app for reducing your iTunes controller to a single line of text. It’s called Bowtie. It offers a variety of cool themes, but the one that is consistent with this post is Simple Bar. It provides previous and next buttons, the artist, the title, and rating controls.

I don’t usually rate songs in iTunes, so I got fancy and removed the stars from the Simple Bar theme by modifying its plist and html files.

Forget About iChat

Start using Adium. It’s extremely customizable and it supports a slew of networks (including Twitter). Below is a screenshot of my preferences that made my buddy list virtually unnoticeable.

Empty Out Your Dock

Leave only the most essential applications in your dock. For me that’s Mailplane, Adium, Safari, Google Reader Fluid app, iTunes, and Tweetie.

Search for a Desktop background

Find a desktop background that is both soothing and non-distracting. For me, that’s a nature-related black and white photo. Here’s the one I chose. You can find more by searching Flickr.

Ten Minutes Later

Below is my new desktop after following these steps. Smaller dock, quiet buddy list, empty menubar, serene background, clean desktop.

What are some ways you keep your Mac minimal?

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I have been using Mobile Fotos since its initial release for uploading photos to Flickr. It’s both easy to use and powerful. However, since purchasing the iPhone 3GS, the one feature I’ve been really excited about is uploading videos to Flickr without using email. Prior to the recent software update, if you wanted to upload videos to Flickr you had to email them to your Flickr specific email address, or email them to your computer and use software or the Flickr web site to upload.

Adding video recording and uploading functionality makes this the ultimate Flickr app. The iPhone’s API allows Mobile Fotos to not only record and upload, but also trim videos exactly like the built-in Photos app.

Uploading photos and videos in Mobile Fotos has all of the options one would expect: title, description, tags, privacy controls and location. Below are two screenshots from the app’s thorough upload process.

The Settings area is where you set up multiple accounts, Twitter integration and upload connection settings.

Mobile Fotos is definitely worth $2.99 if you share your content with Flickr. If you’re not interested in uploading videos to Flickr (maybe you’re a Twitter addict, or just looking for something cheaper), then you should check out TwitVid. Sharing a video is done in three steps: sign in to Twitter, record a new video (or select an existing video) and enter text for a tweet. Your Twitter account is instantly updated and the video is ready to view. Here’s an example tweet and the resulting page on TwitVid. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

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The real power of OS X lies in all of the hidden gems beneath what you see at first glance. Technologies like Expose, Spaces, Stacks, Spotlight and others help users tap the power of their Mac, while keeping the experience sleek and elegant. Aptonic’s Dropzone, a third-party application designed to further simplify your Mac experience, fits into this group perfectly and naturally.

It’s Like an Intern for Your Dock

Dropzone is an application that resides in your Dock like any other app. The power of Dropzone comes into play when you begin dragging files onto its icon. Similar to the appearance of a Stack, Dropzone will expand giving you options of what to do with the file or files you’ve selected. Think of it like Automator for your Dock.

For example, if I have a handful of files selected, and drag them onto my Dropzone icon, I am presented with a series of choices, one of which is “Zip files and email.” As simple as it sounds, dragging the files onto this icon zips the files automatically and attaches them to a new email message inside of Mail. Gone are the days of right-clicking to compress the files, attaching that to an email and then deleting the zip file when I’m done.

Another “destination” included is the ability to install applications quickly by dragging a DMG onto the “Install Application” destination. Behind the scenes, your Mac will mount the DMG file, locate the application inside, copy it to your Applications folder and launch it, unmount the DMG and move the DMG file to the trash.

Other destinations include quick access to uploading images to Flickr (including copying the image URL to your clipboard when its done) or upload files to your FTP server. Want those files zipped before upload? No problem. Just hold down the option key as you drag the files onto the icon. It’s quick and simple and really does save time.

I’m the type of Mac user who likes to keep my Dock as simplified as possible, but I do enjoy the ability to be able to drag files onto an application icon and force the file to open in that application. Dropzone allows me to throw applications I use frequently inside of it and then I have the ability to do just that. Compared to attempting the same thing with a stack in Leopard, I only spawn Finder windows.

Taking It Further

Several optional downloads can extend the functionality of Dropzone. There are add-ons to allow you to start your screensaver, mount/unmount firewire drives, and set your computer to sleep, in addition to many others. Dropzone even includes support for popular web services, including the ability to quickly share photos via TwitPic, shorten a dropped URL via the Is.Gd service (and copy it to the clipboard automatically), and quickly share photos and documents on Posterous.

If you are comfortable programming ruby scripts, Dropzone also offers a scripting API to allow you to create your own “destinations” to further extend the application.

If you’d like to try out Dropzone, it’s currently available for Leopard or Snow Leopard users. Aptonic does provide a trial version of the software, and the cost is only $10 to purchase the full version. The trial does limit you to 15 days of use and up to five “destinations” at a time. I spoke with the developers at Aptonic and they informed me that updates through 1.0 will be freely available to users who register, but the $10 price is likely just an introductory price. Download the demo version here.

I’ll be the first to admit, much like Quicksilver or Spaces, once you get used to integrating this app, it really does save you time. If you have tried out Dropzone, let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

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Record now, upload later

This is the most boring of the possibilities. iPhone users will record videos, watch them on the iPhone, and eventually sync with a computer to upload them. In this case they will probably appear in the Movies section of iTunes on your computer where they can be exported to iMovie or uploaded to YouTube directly. I’m limiting this scenario to YouTube because that functionality already exists in iMovie.

This will be a closed system. Third-party applications on the iPhone will not have access to videos. The only way to upload the videos to the Internet is through syncing with a computer.

Record now, upload through the camera app

This is another closed system. The difference is iPhone users will be able to record videos and immediately upload them to the Internet through the camera app. Possible services include:

• YouTube — Likely because it’s an established feature in iMovie.
• Flickr (with a maximum length of 90 seconds) — The latest version of iPhoto allows Flickr photo uploads, so this may be an expansion of that relationship.
• Facebook — Likely because it’s another new photo upload service in iPhoto. A video agreement between Facebook and Apple could significantly increase the number of video uploads to Facebook.
• MobileMe — Perhaps Apple will introduce a basic video upload service for MobileMe subscribers. Anyone can view the videos, but only subscribers can upload to the service.

This will most likely require a Wi-Fi connection since AT&T’s 3G bandwidth is so limited.

Record now, upload from any application

Videos will be able to upload through any third-party application on the iPhone. For example, Facebook’s iPhone application will have a new button for recording video. Flickr apps, like Mobile Fotos, will also have this new button. Now imagine your favorite Twitter app (Tweetie!) adding a video record button. The recorded video will automatically upload to a video service, and a tweet will be generated with a link to the video. Cool!

Sadly, this will still require a Wi-Fi connection.

Record now, upload any way you want

Upload from any application. Upload with any connection speed…except Edge. This is obviously the most “open” format, but it seems it would fight against Apple’s desire to control the details.

What do you think? If and when video comes to the iPhone, what do you think the functionality will be like?

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Get your spoon and prepare to swallow a whole tub of awesome because we’ve got the freshest picks from the App Store to stuff in your mouth.

Before we get in to the latest releases, I’ve got a couple of interesting picks from the week’s Apple news.

First big thing, file sharing has been activated for MobileMe. Great news for users of the service, although when it comes to sharing files I’m a big fan of Dropbox – it’s packed with features, more so than MobileMe’s option, and integrates with OS X seamlessly.

Next up, Microsoft is joining the high street retail fray. Fresh from Wal Mart, David Porter is now onboard as Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Retail Stores.

A potentially profitable suggestion came from JB in TheAppleBlog’s comments: “They could put a McDonald’s inside to attract customers!” If that does happen, I’ll take my Windows Vista with a large cola and a side-serving of disappointment. Only joking, I don’t drink cola.

In this week’s roundup I’ll be looking at Harvest Time Tracker, Room, Kern and Flickit.

Harvest Time Tracker (free)
Being a freelancer I’ve got to keep track of my time, particularly which of my clients are making use of it — Harvest is a fantastic tool that keeps the brain-ache out of this task. The iPhone Web App does the job for me, but now there’s a streamlined native iPhone app dedicated to keeping track of time and tasks. Plus it’s totally free, so users of Harvest and those looking for such a tool should grab it now.

Room (free)
I’ve stayed in an array of hotels this year, tweeting my adventures across Europe, and yet for all the comforts that come from being a globe-trotting freelancing journo, I’ve hit on a major problem: there comes a point when the ever-changing rooms become a bit of a blur. This aptly-named app solves that problem, allowing you to enter a room number which — and here’s the excellent feature — is displayed as a badge on the app icon. A clever solution to a recurring problem.

Kern (99 cents)
I instantly fell head over heels for this game, created by U.S. design-studio FORMation, the folks behind color-matching iPhone dueler EYE vs. Eye. Kern is kind of a typographical take on Tetris as you slot individual letters in to different words while the leading rapidly shrinks. A super smart concept for a game which fellow designers in particular will adore.

Flickit (free)
This is the iPhone Flickr uploader to beat all others. The app has all the essential features — shoot within the app, batch upload, tagging and more — plus it really does look like it could have come straight out of Cupertino: designed purely with the user in mind. It’s totally free and I don’t know why — this is the sort of app that most Flickr users would certainly shell out a few bucks for.

That’s all for this week, I’ll see you next Saturday for more apps and more chat. In the meantime, drop by the comments and let me know which apps you recommend.

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• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide

Unholster your iPhone and boot up iTunes because it’s that time of the week when we all gather round the App Store and have a look at some of the freshest picks from the last seven days.

While I’ve been wandering the boutiques and bars of Berlin this week, things have been busy for Apple. First up was the Q1 conference call where Tim Cook — standing in for Steve Jobs — revealed that the $199 iPhone price point is working well. 

Less pleasing for those in Cupertino was a court ruling that, due to the fact that the first generation iPod Nano is overly susceptible to scratch damage, Apple is going to have to pay up to $25 to owners of the tiny damaged device.

Setting the serious stuff aside, let’s get down to business with this week’s App Store Roundup.

This week, I’ve been looking at iSniper, Slingshot Lite, Fantastic Contraption and Haruzou – Photo Uploader.

iSniper ($1.99)
Back in my student days, I was an avid online gamer; favorites included Counter Strike, Team Fortress and Battlefield 1942. My class of choice was always sniper — you need to be cunning, patient and then quick on the draw when the time comes. While I’ve ditched the gaming PC for my luxurious but FPS-free Macbook Pro, my trigger-finger still itches for the thrill of shooting faces off. Imagine my joy therefore at discovering iSniper, a game which strips away all the running and jumping, leaving just the satsifying snipey bits.

Slingshot Lite (FREE)
Slingshot Lite brings applied physics to your iPhone, as you literally slingshot your missiles ’round planets in a bid to destroy your target. It’s a game of trial and error, constantly refining the variables until you achieve success. The best thing though is that, due to all the number balancing and variable tweaking, you feel exceedingly clever after completing each stage. It’s like an ego-boost in your pocket. And, if you dig the lite version, the full edition is available for a few bucks.

Fantastic Contraption ($2.99)
First things first, let’s get this out the way: this game is an absolute must have. It should sit in your iPhone game collection alongside  that other essential title, Rolando. The idea is that you craft your own clever contraptions which move themselves — through the joys of phsyics — to the goal area. Chuck together a device using cogs, wood and other bits and bobs, then set your creation in to action. The game even features a built in level editor, extra levels and the ability to share your contraptions with the community. If you’re still not positive that you should immediately purchase this game, go try it out now, online.

Haruzou – Photo Uploader (free)
Even though I’ve just purchased an awesome new camera (Panasonic  DMC LX3, for those wondering), my iPhone (with the help of Polarize) is still getting some photo love. In the past I’ve recommended Klick for uploading to Flickr, it’s feature-rich, polished and free; however, some users may want a more bare-bones solution to getting their snaps on Flickr. Haruzou  uploads to both Flickr and Picasa, includes multiple-image uploading, re-size and rotate, plus it’s totally free.

Just One More Thing

Back in the Summer of ’08, Kentaro Kumagai released an app for touch and iPhone called iview. The description on the App Store was lacking, there was only one preview image and, despite being free, the app has only notched up one review on the store (albeit a four star rating).

General App Store fluff? No, it’s anything but, this is an entertaining toy for passing the time and, at best, a feature-rich re-blogging tool for users of Tumblr. The problem is that Kumagai just ain’t the world’s best copy-writer — he’s not so hot at marketing his wares — as such, this app got lost amidst the general onslaught of App Store releases.

The app allows you to view images from several image book-marking services such as FFFFound!, We Heart It and Vi.Sualize.Us – it’s a great way to wallow in weird imagery or browse for creative inspiration.

For users of Tumblr — a site that is somewhere in between Twitter’s micro-posts and traditional blogging — iview takes it to the next level, allowing users to reblog any image with a quick tap of a button. No forms to fill in, no multiple taps, no text entry. Just click the reblog button and it’s posted to your esoteric corner of the Internets.

For creatives on the look out for inspiration, Tumblr users looking for their next potential meme or iPhone owners with a penchant for visual stimulation, iview is a wonderful app in need of some serious championing. Grab it, use it and tell me if you dig it.

That’s all from the App Store this week, I’ll be back next Saturday with more of the latest releases. In the meantime, drop by the comments and let me know which apps you’ve been looking at.

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When highlighting the new updates to iLife ’09 today, Phil Schiller probably spent the most time highlighting the new features in iPhoto. There’s lots to like in this ’09 update and the crowd was definitely “wowing” at some of the cool stuff that was demonstrated.

First up are two brand-new features to help you organize your photos. Apple has had a really positive response to the Events feature in iPhoto ’08 and now Faces and Places will allow you to further organize your pictures by who appears in the picture and where it was taken.

Faces

There are two aspects to Faces in iPhoto ’09. The first is face detection which allows iPhoto to automatically discover all the faces that appear in the photo. This allows iPhoto to present the people to you for identification, but also shows up in other features like slideshows where the photos are automatically centered and cropped so that the faces in the frame will be visible and prominent. The tech worked beautifully in the demo we saw at the Keynote.

The second part of Faces is face recognition. iPhoto ’09 will learn to identify people in your photos as you tag the faces in photos. This feature is hard to evaluate without trying on your own photos, but the demo is impressive. Schiller was quick to point out that no facial recognition system is perfect, but Apple feels that they have the best software technology available on the desktop. It was impressive to see how seamlessly it all integrated.

Once you start tracking faces, those people show up on your corkboard organizer with snapshots for each person (centered and cropped to focus on the face detected in the picture, of course).

This feature is going to be great for organizing all my pictures of the kids, but I suspect that iPhoto may get confused by pictures of the same person at different ages, say from age 3 to age 14. We’ll see how it works out in practice.

Places

iPhoto ’09 also lets you organize your pictures by where you took the photo by using geotags from a GPS-enabled camera, or an iPhone 3G. You can also add geotags to photos that do not already have them. This feature is also incredibly well-integrated into the iPhoto app. To add a geotag, you can select a spot on the map or just type in the name of a location. iPhoto will automatically georeference the location to nearby landmarks and the city and country.

You can then use a map or an iTunes-style browser to drill-down and filter photos on locations in your library. Places is integrated into photo books as well. As an example, iPhoto will automatically generate maps with pins for the location of the photos on that page in your book.

Facebook & Flickr Sharing

iPhoto also adds new sharing capabilities that integrate directly with two popular photo sites — Flickr for your good photos and Facebook for all the crappy snapshots of your friends. The Facebook integration is particularly cool. iPhoto uses the face recognition technology to automatically tag your photos with the Facebook profile of your friends. You need to enter their full name and email address so that iPhoto can link them with a Facbook profile. The cool thing is that this feature works both ways. If someone tags a picture on Facebook that you have uploaded from iPhoto, that tag will automatically get synced back down to iPhoto. You can then choose to track that person in Faces and iPhoto will use face recognition to automatically tag pictures in the future.

The Flickr integration is cool as well, and a definite blow to the well-liked FlickrExport from ConnectedFlow.

The Rest

iPhoto also adds some enhanced editing features that look like they were taken from Aperture. The color saturation sliders are particularly helpful in Aperture for bringing out highlights and making the sky look like something that actually resembles blue if you forgot your polarizing filter. I’d love to get some of that power in iPhoto.

There are also new themed slideshows that look absolutely fantastic. Shatter is going to blow your mind when you get chance to see it in action on the keynote video (up later today on apple.com). They use face detection to automatically center and crop your images so that you don’t end up with people out of the frame or other problems.

A Must Buy

I left the keynote address this morning with my wallet screaming to buy iLife ’09. Honestly, if iPhoto were the only app in the suite, I would probably still want iLife just for that. The face detection and recognition features give me some hope of organizing all my photos so that I can quickly find actual people in my library and geotagging with Places is an OCD dream. Facebook and Flickr pushes it over the top for me as I use those two sites extensively.

Check out the info on apple.com and share your impressions below.

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It was only two months ago that Flickr unveiled a beta version of their mobile site optimized for iPhone and iPod touch users, but now it’s official.

Compared to their previous mobile endeavor, this update of the site is nothing short of leaps and bounds ahead. Beyond a svelte new interface that makes browsing, not only, your and your contacts’ activity a breeze, it also puts Flickr’s much touted “interestingness” photos within easy reach.

However, undoubtedly the biggest boon to come with this update is the ability to play back videos — or “long photos” as Flickr so poignantly likes to refer to them as. (It should be noted, though, this only applies to videos uploaded since December 3. Videos on the site previous to that date will be updated for mobile playback in the coming months.) Without delving into the technical details, Flickr is able to do this by utilizing their parent company’s, Yahoo!, Video Platform. Via said platform, Flickr can serve video to the dizzying array of available handsets on the market that support it, and accommodate for their varying screen sizes and codec dependencies, including the iPhone/iPod touch.

After putting the site through its paces, short of an upload dialog box, the new mobile site feels right at home. The design and layout, as well as the video playback, were obviously very well thought out and the execution is nearly flawless, though some will have their minor quibbles. While touch devices still have the option to browse the site in full, Flickr took great care in providing convenient access the most common features you would want while on the go. For example, just as easily as you can “favorite” a photograph or video you like, you can set/update the privacy or safety level setting of your own. Which is great for those moments when you have a lapse in judgement and realize the upload you just made via your mobile wasn’t meant for the world at-large.

Needless to say, It’s good to see that, while most ventures have moved away from iPhone/iPod touch optimized versions of their web apps/sites for official apps — and in unfortunate cases, nothing more than Webkit wrappers — Flickr is still focused on its core competency of helping people “make their content available to the people who matter to them,” by continuing to provide an enjoyable experience to its growing number of mobile web users. Though, that’s not to say an official Flickr app wouldn’t be welcomed, right?

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