iBooks Author

Creating layouts in iBooks Author is easier than any comparable tool I’ve come across, including Adobe’s InDesign and Quark Xpress, and the ability to instantly see on your iPad through iTunes how the final product will look and feel really helps with the design process. Switching between portrait and landscape orientation is as easy as tapping a button.

You can add any kind of media using a pop-up media drawer, or by dragging and dropping elements from your desktop. Apple provides ready-made widgets for interactive galleries, images, in-line video, chapter review, Keynote slide shows, 3-D .dae files and HTML code. Each of these offers additional custom settings, like captions and headings, to make sure you can present your multimedia elements exactly as you want. The interactive image feature is particularly cool, because it requires almost no media creation skills; you can simply upload your photos, then set view points that zoom in and pan on the image as required when clicked, and also provide a helpful description of what a reader is looking at.

If you just want to publish your work for private distribution, it’s easy enough once you have the elements in place; just hit the “Publish” button and save it to the folder of your choice. Then you can distribute the file to whoever you want, and they can manually upload it to their iPad via iBooks through iTunes.

For those looking to publish their title in the iBookstore, there are only a few more hoops to jump through. Create an iBookstore seller account at Apple.com, download the iTunes Producer application, create an active contract if you don’t have one at iTunes Connect, and then make a sample version of your book. Books on the iBookstore max out at 2 GB and are of course still subject to Apple’s approval process. Apple has more about the distribution process in its official iBooks Author FAQ.

I have a confession: I used to publish poetry anthologies in college when I was doing my graduate studies. I admit that here only to point out that this would’ve been a great way to create something like that quickly and cheaply. It’d be even better if Apple would update iBooks Author to also work with iOS’s Newsstand, but this is still a lovely start. Especially since while titles can be distributed through the iBookstore, they don’t have to be, with the big caveat that Apple’s licensing agreement specifies you can’t charge money for iBook Author books distributed outside its own marketplace.

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Now, with iCloud and Photo Stream, that hassle has been eliminated. Once I take a photo with my iPhone, as long as all my devices are connected to a Wi-Fi network, my photo will appear on all of them. My photos also appear on my Mac (in either Aperture or iPhoto, so long as they’re installed), or in the My Pictures folder on Windows. It’s one part of iCloud I can say worked exactly as advertised, but even so, it has both strengths and flaws.

Setting up Photo Stream

On a Mac: Go to the iCloud System Preferences pane and make sure Photo Stream is checked.

iPhoto: To enable Photo Stream in iPhoto, just go into the Preferences and make sure Photo Stream is checked.

Once you’ve done that, click on Photo Stream in the sidebar and you’ll see your photos.

Aperture: To enable Photo Stream in Aperture, just go into Preferences and make sure Photo Stream is checked. In this case, I’ve intentionally left Upload unchecked since I don’t want photos imported from my DSLR to go into the Photo Stream; just those I sync.

Once that’s done, click on Photo Stream in the sidebar to see your synced photos.

On a PC: First, download and install the iCloud Control Panel. Once you launch it — you guessed it — make sure Photo Stream is checked. You will also need to click on Options next to it to specify the Upload and Downloads directory.

The gotcha: You can’t delete from Photo Stream

Photo Stream’s directive is simple: keep either the last 1,000 photos you’ve taken or the last 30 days worth, whichever comes first. Update: It’s only the last 1,000 photos you’ve taken on an iOS device, not on iCloud.com. But right now, it seems to require a chicken, two goats, and a shaman to get a photo deleted. None of my devices can delete directly from Photo Stream, and deleting the source image on the device where it originally appeared doesn’t delete it from Photo Stream.

I’m perfectly fine with Photo Stream uploading my Camera Roll on a moment’s notice. What I’m not thrilled with is not being able to delete from Photo Stream. Part of my job description is taking iOS screenshots and during a heavy review week (like this week), I’ll take a ton of screenshots. I don’t need them or want them after they’ve been put in the article. Now, I’m kinda stuck with them. There’s been a lot of attention paid to this Photo Stream failing, so I expect Apple to issue a fix soon.

Update: Apple points out that you can delete photos, but only by completely resetting your Photo Stream data, and removing all images stored there:

• You can reset your Photo Stream at icloud.com. This removes your photos from iCloud but keeps photos already on the device. For more information, see Photo Stream Help.
• Photo Stream photos can be removed from your device by turning Photo Stream off in iOS settings or in OS X Lion System Preferences. You can also delete any photos imported into your iPhoto or Aperture library on a Mac, or in the folder they’re imported to on a PC.

Until then, be careful what you take pictures of if you plan to make Photo Stream a part of your digital life.

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Many people have a collection of recipe clippings culled from magazines, newspapers, and the supermarket. But where do you put the clippings? Ideally, you type it out and put it in a recipe manager (my favorite is SousChef). If I only had the time. What I do instead is either scan the recipe directly into iPhoto from my Mac, or if I can’t easily clip the recipe, I’ll take a picture of it with my iPhone. When I see a recipe I like on the web, I take a screen shot to easily get it into iPhoto, too.

Once in the iPhoto, I rename the photo to match the actual recipe title, and then in the keywords I put the important ingredients that I’d need to know when shopping such as “chicken breast” or “celery.” This is also a handy way to search for recipes when something is on sale or in season. Then I just drop it in an album I call “Cookbook.”

I also have an album called “Current Recipes.” I, and other members of the family, will put especially interesting recipes into this album. I’ll sort them in the album to create both variety and efficiency in shopping. I have the recipes synced to a password-protected MobileMe site as well for ease of browsing. With iCloud’s Photo Stream feature, which arrives in September, this should be even easier.

You can also sync those albums to your iPhone and iPad so that you always have all your recipes close at hand, which can be useful if you stop in at the grocery store on the way home from work. Not only is this a great reference, but recipes can be easily emailed from the iPhone to whoever’s doing the shopping.

With the recipes in digital form, cooking with iOS in the kitchen is also breeze. I’ll use either my iPad or my iPhone to check out the recipe(s) I need. After cooking, I’ll return to iPhoto and modify the ratings and notes for the recipe so we know whether to make it again. If it was lousy, we delete it from the album.

Keeping my recipes in iPhoto has reduced our reliance on eating take-out, as well as being a great way for everyone to contribute to dinner. Considering every Mac comes with iPhoto, it’s also cost-effective and easy, too. Anything you think might add even more to my system?

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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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After only a few days use, Syncomatic has already become one of my most-used apps, since it lets me keep my iPhone’s camera roll clear and uncluttered, while also making sure I don’t lose a worthwhile clip or snapshot in the process. It works by monitoring your iPhone’s on-device photo and video library, and automatically grabbing new photos and videos when you’re near your Mac, putting them in either a folder of your choosing, or your iPhoto or Aperture library. Photo Stream in iOS 5 will do something similar, but Syncomatic is available now, is only limited by the size of your hard drive, and also offers multiple destination syncing options instead of just one. Here’s how to get it up and running yourself:

1. Install the Syncomatic iOS app to your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
2. Download and install the Syncomatic Mac companion client (direct link to download file).
3. Click on the Syncomatic icon in the Menu bar on your Mac and go to “Preferences.”
4. Choose whether you want Syncomatic to launch automatically, and pick a destination for your synced iPhone photos and videos. You can choose a folder, sync to either iPhoto or Aperture, or choose a combination of all three.
5. In the iOS app on your iPhone (or other iOS device), click the gear icon in the top right corner to enter the Settings menu.
6. Choose your destination Mac from the “Mac to Sync With” menu. If you have the Mac client installed correctly and are on the same Wi-Fi network, it should automatically appear.
7. Your Mac will display a four digit PIN. Enter that PIN into the iOS app when prompted.
8. Turn Sync on.

Now, whenever you’re within range of your Mac and connected to the same local Wi-Fi network, photos and videos will automatically be transferred to your Mac from your device. Syncomatic will also display a badge number with a count of how many photos or videos remain to be synced since it last connected, so that you know when everything’s been moved over to your Mac.

If you’re looking for a similar option, but would rather save the $2, PhotoSync offers similar functionality, albeit without automatic background syncing. For me, the set-it-and-forget-it aspect of Syncomatic justifies the extra expense.

My iPhone camera roll has always been a mess, but thanks to Syncomatic, I have little excuse not to get in there and clean it up once in a while. This is a must-have for mobile photo geeks, especially until iOS 5 arrives this fall, and likely beyond because of its customization options.

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Google+ is already popular, and it isn’t yet showing any signs of slowing down. If you’re already in, or if you’re eagerly awaiting an invite, there are a few ways you can improve the experience when accessing Google’s new social network from Mac and iOS devices.

Mac

Create a Google+ Mac app with Fluid. Earlier this week I talked about the newest version of Fluid, which lets you create full-screen web apps for Lion using specific websites. Even if you don’t have Lion, Fluid is a great way to create a Google+ application that looks and feels more like a native Mac app than a website. You can even grab a nice Google+ icon to use with your Fluid app, like this one from deviantart user KillaAaron.

Better interaction with bookmarklets and extensions. You can change how Google+ looks and how it behaves with custom extensions for Chrome and other browsers. Go2Web20 has a great list of some of the best tools out there. One of the best is a +1 extension that lets you save any web page you come across to your +1 list in Google+, but that specific link on the Go2Web20 site is currently broken, so check out this similar option from the Chrome web store instead. If you’re not using Chrome, you can grab this bookmarklet for +1 recommendations that should work with most other browsers.

Import your iPhoto albums with Picasa for Mac. You’ve got a lot of iPhoto events, and now you want to share those photos on Google+, which actually has a great photo viewer. Apple has built Facebook support into iPhoto, but obviously there’s no direct method for getting that content to Google+. But with Picasa’s free native Mac app, you can import your iPhoto content and share it to your Picasa Web Albums right from your desktop. Depending on your sharing choices, the pictures will be visible in your Google+ galleries.

iOS

Use third-party Picasa apps to upload your photos. There’s no instant upload for iPhones and iPads as there is for Android devices. But you can get your photos from your mobile to your Google+ account without having to upload to a computer first. Just choose one of the available iOS Picasa photo uploading tools, like Web Albums, and then upload the pic you want to share to a public gallery on Picasa. Once you’ve done that, navigate to the photo in the Google+ mobile browser app and comment on the photo to share it to your stream.

Bookmarklets for sharing. For sharing sites and saving content to your +1 list, bookmarklets that work with mobile Safari are your best bet. The one I mentioned above should work for your iOS devices, too.

Share from desktop to mobile. You can use Google+ as a handy way to quickly share links between your desktop and mobile devices, by adding an email address that you have registered on your smartphone to one of your sharing circles on Google+. So, for instance, you could create an iPhone reading list and re-share interesting links in your Google stream to a specific circle called “for iPhone” that just contains your own email address, or you could set up a circle with the email addresses of your coworkers or project team for easy forwarding of interesting links and notes.

Google+ will likely improve as it iterates, and it will offer even more avantages for Mac and iOS users, especially when (and if) Apple approves the official Google+ iOS application. But even at this early stage, I’ve found that it enriches my computing experience on any Apple platform. Any advice you can add based on your own use of Google+?

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Welcome to another instalment of Tips and Tricks, the series of articles aiming to teach you something you didn’t know about your Apple products. Let’s continue by looking at iPhoto, and some ways of speeding up your workflow.

Quickly Change the Thumbnail for Events and Faces

When you first open either the Events view or the Faces view, you are presented with a series of thumbnails, called the Key Photo, for each event or person. You can change which photo is the Key Photo by viewing the Event or the photo series for a person, right-clicking the photo you want to use and choosing Make Key Photo. There is also a quicker way; without clicking, move your mouse over the current thumbnail in the Events or Faces view. As you move around, you’ll see all the photos in the event. When you see the one you want to use as the Key Photo, just hit the spacebar. When you move your mouse away, you’ll see that photo has been set as the Key Photo.

Rotate a Photo in the Opposite Direction

In the Edit view, there is a button which rotates a photo and does so in a counterclockwise direction by default. There is a setting in iPhoto’s preferences to make the icon rotate a photo clockwise instead, but you can also swap the direction on the fly. To temporarily switch the direction of the rotation, hold the Option key before you click Rotate. The icon of the button will change to let you know what’s happening, and your photo will be rotated the opposite way.

Unmount a Connected Device

Since iPhoto can import photos directly from a device, there is a list in the iPhoto sidebar of all the devices you have connected. It’s possible to unmount these devices from within iPhoto, rather than ejecting them from the Finder. To do so, right-click the device’s name and choose Unmount. This has the same effect as unmounting from Finder. You can also drag the device’s name to the Trash item in the Recent list of iPhoto’s sidebar. As you drag the name, the Trash icon will change into an eject symbol with the label Unmount. Just drop the device’s name onto the Unmount item and it’ll be ejected for you.

Confirm or Reject Multiple Faces Matches at Once

Often, iPhoto will recognize faces in newly imported photos and ask you to confirm that it guessed the identify of those faces correctly. When you open the ‘Confirm Faces’ view, it can get tedious clicking each one in turn. If there are a lot of photos which are all correct (or all incorrect), you can, instead of clicking the photos individually, drag a selection over all of them. This will mark all the photos you selected as confirmed, and if you do the same again, they’ll all be marked as rejected.

Assign Keywords Without Typing

Keywords are iPhoto’s equivalent to tags, and are useful when searching for specific photos in your library. Normally to add keywords, you select one or more photos, then type the keywords into the Keywords section of the Info panel. However, it’s possible to add keywords using just the mouse and keyboard shortcuts. Under the Window menu is an option to Manage My Keywords. If you choose this option, a window will open with a list of all the keywords you have used in your library. If you now select some photos, you can then click on a keyword in this list to add it to the photos without typing.

If you have a keyword you use a lot, you can also assign it a keyboard shortcut. In the Manage My Keywords window, click Edit Keywords. You can now select a word from the list and click Shortcut. You can’t use shortcut modifiers such as Command or Option, but you can use single letters or short sequences of characters. Now you can apply this keyword to photos by selecting them and typing the shortcut. You don’t even need to have the Info panel open.

I hope you’ve learned something new, and as always, leave your own additional tips in the comments!

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Take Photos of the Current Time in Safari

First, you’ll need a photo of the current time taken from each camera whose internal clock is out of sync. Be sure to disable the flash to avoid screen glare before you complete these steps:

1. Launch Safari on your Mac and open the URL of an established “time authority” that will display the current time  (http://www.time.gov/ for example).
2. Using each camera, take a photo of Safari as it displays the correct time.
3. Import the photo of the correct time from each camera into your iPhoto Library.

Create Smart Albums for Each Camera Model

Now that you have photos of the correct time imported into your iPhoto Library from each camera you own, you will need to isolate the photos for each camera:

1. From the File menu on iPhoto, create a new Smart Album (one for each camera).
2. Use the drop down list to set the “Camera Model” condition of the Smart Album to match the relevant camera model for each album you create.
3. Keep creating Smart Albums until you have a unique Smart Album for each camera.

More Than One Camera of the Same Model

If you happen to have multiple cameras of the same model, then you must add a second field, “Any Text”  to the conditions of the Smart Album and set the value for this field will be set to the serial number of the camera as follows:

1. Select one of the photos for each camera of the same model.
2. From iPhoto’s File menu, select “Reveal in Finder” to show where the original photo is located in the Finder and open the photo using the Preview application.
3. From Preview’s Tools menu, select the “Show Inspector” menu item and navigate to the EXIF tab to find the value of the serial number.
4. Enter the serial number as the value for the “Any Text” condition of the Smart Album.
5. Again, keep creating Smart Albums until you have one unique Smart Album for each camera.

Determine the Time Adjustment for Each Camera

By comparing the time represented in the photo to the time stamp on the picture itself, you can determine the amount of the adjustment that must be made.  To determine the adjustment for each camera:

1. Select only the photo of the correct time as it was displayed in Safari within each Smart Album.
2. From the Photo menu in iPhoto, select the “Adjust Date and Time…” menu item and copy down the time difference between the time shown in the photo and the time stamp of the image file.
3. Click cancel, and repeat for each camera’s Smart Album.

Adjust the Time for Each Camera

Now that you have a unique Smart Album defined for each camera, and you know the exact time adjustment required for each camera, all that’s left to do is adjusting the time for all photos in the iPhoto Library for each camera.

1. Select one of the Smart Albums you created and select all of the photos in the same Smart Album.
2. ‘From the Photo menu in iPhoto, select the “Adjust Date and Time…” menu item and modify the date/time of all of the photos in these Smart Library, using the interval you discovered when comparing the time displayed in the image to the time stamp of the photo from that camera.
3. Be sure to check “Modify original files.”
4. Click Adjust, and repeat for each camera’s Smart Album.

It may seem like a lot of work, but once you’ve done it once, it should hopefully help keep your iPhoto Events in chronological working order for a long time to come, without requiring you to make manual changes each to the metadata of each photo you add.

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1. Use TidyUp To Purge Duplicates. TidyUp (download link), by Hyperbolic Software is a great way to search your iPhoto library for duplicate items. Every now and then, my iPhone will re-import photos, or forget it already imported them. TidyUp lets you search using some fairly granular criteria to eliminate duplicate files.

2. Keywords are your friends. I tend to go a bit keyword crazy. Every photo or image I import has keywords. A presentation image of a clock might have the keywords “presentation, time, clock, timepiece” assigned to it. A photo of my friend Mindy in Boston will have “Boston, Mindy, harbor” attached to it. Using keywords will make the next step, Smart Albums, a lot easier.

3. Use Smart Albums. I’m not a big fan of iPhoto’s Event-based organization. For starters, I hate how events are created by day. I don’t know about you, but the amount of true events (weddings, vacations, etc.) I shoot on an annual basis is minor. Instead I get a lot of onsey-twosie photo events that are a pain to organize. Also, a lot of images for me are multipurpose. Earlier, I mentioned I tag images I might use in presentations, so I’ve got a Smart Album built on the presentation keyword. I don’t like to rely on iPhoto’s Faces and Places intelligence, so I will also build Smart Albums based on areas I shoot a lot; I’ve got albums for Boston, Boothbay, and New York.

You can also use multiple keywords or criteria to create yet more specific albums. For example, you could create a Smart Album of wallpapers with the Apple logo you’ve created in the last year, that also have a ranking of five stars or higher.

4. Keep Events Window Clean. Like I said, most of the photos I take are random shots off my iPhone. My OCD really kicks in when I see events that aren’t events, so I keyword them and move them into a miscellaneous general purpose event. Periodically, I’ll go through that holding bin and, since most of the time my “I don’t know what else to do with this” event really is an “I don’t know why I took this photo” and I’ll purge 99 percent of the images there.

5. Empty the Trash and Purge. iPhoto has a separate trash can from the rest of OS X. Deleting an image won’t immediately delete the file from your hard drive. Instead you need to go in and manually empty the trash. Checking the trash periodically will let you permanently get rid of bad or duplicate photos, and might reveal some lost gems that look much better than you remember.

iPhoto is a great program, but it isn’t yet so perfect that it can’t stand improvement. These small changes take only a little time but add result in a markedly different user experience. Any other iPhoto tips you care to add?

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• new advanced editing tools: layer mask, content-aware spot healing
• new organizer software
• improved repair tools
• copy and paste photo “styles,” texture, contrast, tone, tint, etc.
• new guided editing effects: portraits, out-of-bounds, pop art
• improved panoramic photo merging
• create calendars, greeting, cards, and photo books for printing or purchase
• more sharing options, including Facebook, Flickr, and Adobe Online albums

However, the bulk of the program really boils down the first two points: the organizer and a couple of editing tools.

Adobe Elements Organizer 9 replaces the previous Bridge software, but it’s clearly designed as an iPhoto replacement, too. Organizer can access the iPhoto library, copying photos into its own directory in the Pictures folder of your User directory.

Like iPhoto, Organizer scans photos for faces and other attributes, and automatically tags them, often with similar mixed results. Also like iPhoto, Organizer has editing features like automatic color and levels, as well as the one-button Smart Fix, which is much better than Enhance in iPhoto. As in iPhoto, you can make cards and books, as well as share photos online, though not with MobileMe. If it weren’t for the lack of integration with MobileMe and iTunes syncing (which isn’t Adobe’s fault), I’d switch to Organizer in a heartbeat.

In terms of editing, to my surprise, I found Layer Masks. Until now, that’s been an “advanced” feature found only in Photoshop. Even better, the Spot Healing tool is now content-aware. Using that tool, it took four stokes to remove the unwanted people in the waterfall photo above. The Spot Healing tool draws on surrounding content, so the bigger the “spot,” the less impressive the results. Still, it’s a nice feature.

If there’s one problem with Photoshop Elements 9, it’s probably the price: $79 after an annoying $20 mail-in rebate. While that’s over $500 less than Photoshop CS5, it’s also the price of iLife ’09, which includes the adequate iPhoto along with iMovie, iWeb and GarageBand. Luckily, there’s a 30-day free trial that lets you judge for yourself. If you’ve tried both, let us know which you prefer in the comments.

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I’m sure I know what you’re grumbling right now: “iPhoto/Aperture does that, what’s the big deal?” Well, if you want to get right to the good stuff — all the good stuff — without scrubbing through the chaff first, there may be a better way to address the situation.

The situation as I see it, looks something like this:

• Over time, I’ve used iPhoto, so I have some photos there.
• I also, and exclusively now, use Aperture.
• I’ve got random video clips from the point-and-shoot camera that are scattered around Finder and iPhoto.
• I’ve got Flip video in the Flip version of iPhoto.
• I’ve got photos and HD video from my iPhone 4 in Aperture.

I realize that maybe I’m just sorely disorganized (ok, I know I am), but I’m guessing similar conditions probably exist in many a household out there in reader-land. Sharing all of this from my Mac is one thing. At least it’s all right there, so even if I have to switch apps and dig a little bit, I can get to it. But then there’s the real kicker: How do I elegantly get all of the good stuff synced to my mobile iDevice to share on the go?

My Solution

The solution I came up with isn’t necessarily the best (please share your own in the comments for the good of the community!), but it has certainly proven to suit my needs. Basically, I siphon all of the photos and personal video from their various locations (older iPhoto libraries, various Aperture libraries, Flip Video, Finder, and so on) and drop them all into a single iPhoto library (which I’ve named ‘sync’).

If you’re unfamiliar with creating a new iPhoto library, it’s quite easy. When you launch iPhoto, hold down the Option key, and a dialogue will ask you if you want to select a different library, or create a new one. Once I created the new library and dragged all my media in, I made sure it was organized in a way that made sense for me to show it off. So I’ve got ‘Family 2009′, ‘Family 2010′, ‘Photography’, and ‘Home Movies’ albums for easy access to everything. Of course, you may want to drill down to specific events like iPhoto and Aperture do, so do whatever makes most sense for your needs.

The beauty of this particular solution is that since Aperture is my main photo application, iPhoto is left untouched. Therefore, leaving the ‘sync’ library as the default in iPhoto means it’s always available for syncing to my iPhone. And of course if I’m at home I can pull up iPhoto on the MacBook or big screen to easily share the content that I want without having to sift through tons of other media that isn’t nearly as interesting.

The downside here is that whenever you have new photos or videos, you have to manually drag and drop them into your new ‘Sync’ iPhoto library. Although with a little time and know-how, Automator could be utilized to solve this problem as well.

If you’ve run into the same problem, and developed your own workaround, we’d love to hear your solution as well.

iTunes

The first time you noticed a smart “anything with a purple icon” was probably in iTunes. Besides OS X, iTunes is the only piece of software to ship with several built-in smart items. You’ve seen them before, specifically the 90’s Music, Classical Music and Recently Played playlists, to name a few. If you’ve read our previous articles, you know how those work now (and can just right click them to edit their criteria).

But when it comes to iTunes, one thing that invariably also comes to mind is an iPod. If you have at least one iPod, chances are you probably have several iPods. As such, you can set each iPod to sync specific music, playlists or even smart playlists. But since oftentimes our music libraries are larger than the capacity of our iPods, Apple has built in a few unique twists in smart playlist support for iTunes to “shuffle things up.” Here’s a few ideas to get some unique use out of them. (Keep in mind, you can sync multiple playlists, allowing you to mix and match some of these unique smart playlists with your own favorite content.)

Random Tunes

If you have a small iPod, such as an iPod shuffle, you might try a smart playlist that just pulls a random sampling of your music.

Music I Never Listen To

As Apple (perhaps secretly?) wants iTunes to become the Google of your media collection, it has built in tracking of how often you listen to your content. You could create a playlist that showed you all items with a play count of less than 1 for a jam list of music you’ve never heard.

My Top 10

If you are one to tag your songs with star ratings, you could create a playlist of your all time 10 best tunes, based on rating and frequency of play.

iPhoto

The iPhoto equivalent is, as you might have guessed, called Smart Albums. Similar to iTunes, iPhoto provides support for specialized criteria for searching, including criteria based on camera settings and support for Faces and Places. Here’s some ideas for unique iPhoto smart albums.

Group Shot

Keeping track of family photos is easy with faces. If you want to easily see all the photos from your own family, create a smart album that shows pictures based on the faces of any of your family members. (Make sure to set this one to “match any” instead of “match all.”)

European Vacation

In addition to tagging your photos by location (or GPS, if your camera is equipped), you could create a smart album that automatically grouped any photos taken in the countries you visited.

Those Pesky Movies

Newer cameras support the ability to record film, and for lack of a better place to store them, iPhoto imports them right along with your photos. But they’re all mixed up in albums and there’s no simple way to pick them apart. Just create a smart album that looks for the usual video extensions in any text. This should find them by their filename and let you view them all in one place.

Holiday Photos

If you have lots of family and friends who all love to take and share photos, you could create a smart album based on the date photos were taken. For instance, all photos that are in the range of December 20 through December 28 are likely my holiday photos. As more people send you their photos from the event, provided their camera tagged them with the correct date, they will automatically populate the album.

Aperture

Apple’s high-end photo management application also takes advantage of smart file management. Similar to iPhoto, you can use criteria based on EXIF metadata (aperture, ISO, shutter speed, etc.). Despite the fact that Aperture doesn’t support Faces and Places like iPhoto, there are a number of additional options that can make photo management even easier.

A word of caution with Aperture, however. When creating a smart album, Aperture will only search the root level of the location where you store the album. For instance, if I’m viewing my entire library and create one there, it’ll search all photos. If I am in a particular project, however, the smart album will only search photos within that project. As usual, remember that deleting a photo in your library will also delete it from the smart album. You’re just “reorganizing” the same content with smart albums and not actually making a duplicate. (This applies to all smart items: folders, albums, playlists, etc.)

Missing Captions & Credit

Aperture provides extensive support for IPTC data (the metadata you add to your photos after the camera is done with them). You can use this to create albums that show which of your photos are missing captions or copyright information, should you wish to make sure all of your photos are properly tagged.

Need the Ratings

If you’re a photographer who loves to use Apple’s star system to rate your photos, consider a smart album that is based on showing you photos without a rating. It’s a quick and easy way to find any of those photos that slip through the cracks.

Apple’s own apps are certainly not the only to take advantage of “smart” organization. 1Password and NewsFire are just two examples of a growing breed of third-party applications that really harness the power of OS X’s database infrastructure to deliver content organized on the fly by your rules. If you’ve found interesting uses of smart playlists in iTunes or Smart Albums in Aperture or iPhoto, share them with us below.

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One of the interesting rumors that has come up after the official announcement of Apple’s event on the 27th is that a new version of iLife will also be announced there. Whether or not this rumor is accurate is less interesting than what an Apple tablet might mean for iLife.

As we all know iLife has been a key selling point for the Mac lineup ever since the first version was announced at Macworld in 2003. In many ways it epitomizes the difference between Macs and the competition, as iLife gives any Mac user easy to use and well-integrated tools to explore their creativity on a computer.

Whether iLife, or some version of it, will make it to an Apple tablet is a matter of debate, it depends on whether you think the tablet will be a complete computing platform or just a content-consumption device a la the iPhone. I tend to agree with John Gruber that what Apple is aiming for with the tablet is redefining the computing experience, that is replacing entry-level computers rather than complementing them. That leads me to believe that Apple will try to reproduce at least some of iLife on its tablet device, even if it’s just a matter of consistency in branding.

So what would that look like? Let’s look at each application in turn and consider what might be left in and what would be taken out.

iPhoto

In:
Thumbnail browsing is obvious and I imagine the event browsing view will also be a core feature. I also expect the editing features to remain intact, including non-destructive editing. Uploading to MobileMe, Facebook or Flickr will almost assuredly be included.

Out:
Faces may be the most obvious feature not to make it into iPhoto on a tablet due to its impact on the processor. Places might make it, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it left out. I also expect the ability to create books, calendars etc. wouldn’t make it to a tablet.

GarageBand

In:
This one is tough, I frankly wouldn’t be surprised to see GarageBand left off a tablet entirely. That said if Apple does decide to put the iLife suite on the tablet it’s unlikely to pick and choose apps so what would GarageBand on a tablet do? I’d expect basic functionality, like trimming and arranging audio clips. Perhaps some fun effects and instruments that can be thrown in.

Out:
Don’t expect to be able to record and produce your own music on the tablet. GarageBand has always been one of the most impressive parts of iLife, I would not expect it to keep that badge on a tablet device.

iMovie

In:
At the very least simple trimming of clips will be in (see the iPhone). I also expect the ability to combine clips, add transitions and titles and perhaps even add your own music or voice-over. Uploading to YouTube or MobileMe will also definitely be included.

Out:
Advanced color editing and the ability to pull audio out from a video clip will probably not be included. I also wouldn’t expect the ability to import AVCHD files.

iWeb

In:
Like iPhoto, iWeb’s interface lends itself to a touch capable tablet device. It’s really just a drag and drop operation. Thus I expect most features of iWeb to make the transition to a tablet.

Out:
I wouldn’t expect the ability to export your site to a local folder as I don’t expect a tablet device to have much in the way of a file system. Other than that I can’t think of any major features that might be left out.

iDVD

In:
Ah, the red-stepchild of the iLife suite. Let’s be frank, there’s no way in heck anything resembling the current iDVD makes it to a tablet. That said there have been rumors of a re-worked iDVD that might become the publishing tool for things like iTunes LP. If that happens then some version might make it onto a tablet device.

Out:
Everything.

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iLife X

Probability: Guaranteed
When the last version of iLife launched, it adopted the moniker “iLife ’09.” Recently however, Apple has modified most of its website to drop the date from the title. Now simply called “iLife,” I wonder if Apple will be quick to release a new “yearly” iteration at the outset of 2010.

Based on previous versions, the next iteration of iLife will require Mac OS X 10.6. By requiring Snow Leopard, this does make iLife an Intel-only release. Though some users will be left behind, significant performance gains should be recognized by taking advantage of 64-bit technology included in Snow Leopard.

Within the apps themselves, I believe we’ll continue to see significant updates. Here’s the roundup.

iPhoto

Probability: Possible
The addition of Faces and Places to iPhoto ’09 was just the beginning. The next version of iPhoto will support more accurate facial recognition and integration with Twitter. Those who enjoy the photo slideshow themes that were added to the last version will enjoy a larger selection of new themes that will be added in the new version. I also predict that the next version will bring support for bulk renaming of files (similar to how Aperture can do this upon import) and better performance when dealing with larger libraries. I also predict revised or better photo editing controls with additional effects.

iMovie

Probability: Possible
I believe the next version of iMovie will boast support for posting videos directly to more Internet services, such as Facebook and Flickr. An expanded set of new themes as well as more advanced title options will be present as well. The user experience of the application will be refined, for those who are still frustrated by the intense switch from iMovie HD to the last two versions.

iDVD

Probability: Guaranteed
iDVD will likely see one of the most significant updates that it has ever seen in quite a while. 2010 will mark the beginning of new ways of enjoying media. From the possibility of the first out-of-the-box Blu-ray drives on the Mac to iTunes Extras & LPs to the elusive Apple Tablet, the presentation of digital content remains a key focus for Apple.

The next version of iDVD will help push this agenda forward, allowing users to create Blu-ray discs or optimize their video content into formats like iTunes Extras. Such a dramatic update would likely warrant changing the name of the application, but that’s also within the realm of possibility. iDVD has definitely been late to the party for the past two years, seeing only small maintenance updates. While many speculate that Apple plans to axe DVD creation altogether (foreseeing the death of the digital disc in favor of digital distribution), I believe Apple has been working on a successor application to take advantage of new forms of distribution (a la Blu-ray or iTunes Extras-styled media).

iWeb

Probability: Possible
iWeb is one of those apps that is difficult to pack full of compelling new features every year. I predict the next version of iWeb will support more themes and a few more widgets, including a widget that provides a live feed of your Twitter stream on your website.

GarageBand

Probability: Possible
GarageBand will likely see an expanded music lesson store with more artist lessons and lessons for drums and bass. I also predict Apple will make it easier to share GarageBand creations beyond iTunes and iWeb. Similar to the other apps, I believe we will see support for exporting to other web services such as Facebook or YouTube.

iWork X

Probability: Possible
I predict the biggest improvement to the iWork suite will be a tighter integration with the iPhone and iPod touch. On the short side, I see iWork.com coming to the iPhone as an app to allow quick browsing of documents. In an ideal world, Apple will eventually build lightweight mobile versions of its iWork apps to allow users to create and edit Pages, Keynote and Numbers files on the go.

I believe we’ll see an update to the “beta” of iWork.com, including a paid plan if Apple deems the project a huge success, or inclusion with MobileMe if Apple feels the product isn’t strong enough to stand on its own footing.

All three applications will see new templates and a refined Inspector palette. It seems very un-Apple like to mandate users bring up a palette for colors, a separate one for fonts, another for media and yet another master Inspector to control everything else. Additionally, I predict the Media Browser will be updated across all apps to support Faces and Places from iPhoto.

I also predict Pages will provide support for (or perhaps work directly with) third-party applications like bibliographic software such as Endnote or Refworks for academic publications.

iTunes

Probability: Guaranteed
iTunes is an interesting application as every version seems to bring about a large number of extra features that many people don’t expect, or at first glance, really need.

I predict the next major version of iTunes, iTunes 10, will bring support for syncing with the mythical iTablet, as well as better syncing support (including over the air syncing of content if on a Wi-Fi network). Furthermore, iTunes 10 should feature better support for managing larger libraries of content and the need to split those libraries across multiple hard drives in a simple but effective manner.

Conclusion

Finally, I’d like to see iWork and iLife dropping in price back to the familiar $49 from years past. In light of economic conditions and Apple’s vocal attempts of providing quality products to more and more users, a price drop seems wise as it would also help generate better market penetration.

Again, many of these predictions are pure speculation and hopes and dreams on my part. What do you think we’ll see in these areas over the coming year?

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The greatest strength of iWeb, its ease of use, is also its greatest weakness. Through themes and templates, iWeb rigidly controls the fundamental design of web pages. While you can create custom pages with the use of HTML, iWeb offers templates for essentially two types of web pages: photos and blogs.

Creating a photo page in iWeb is as easy as dragging an iPhoto album from the Media Browser. Creating blog entries is also easy; just start typing over the placeholder text in a new entry template. Adding individual photos to a blog entry is drag-and-drop simple as well, but drag an album into a blog entry and iWeb will only create a separate photo page. What iWeb doesn’t tell you is that’s the first step to adding a photo album to any page in iWeb.

Actually, the first step is to create an Albums Page, a web page that’s acts as a directory of a group of photo albums, and one that’s left out of your web site map. I named mine “Misc” and use it to keep photo albums I use on non-album pages. For the above example, I created a photo page with a few images of an antique desk.

You then create the non-photo page for the album, in this case a blog entry about the antique secretary desk.

Going back to the photo page, select the rectangular frame that is the album and copy it. As you can see, it’s now in the clipboard.

Finally, you simply paste it into another web page, in this case at the bottom of the blog entry. Upon publishing, there is now an inline photo album on a blog page. The inline album can have all the features of the one on the actual photo page, too, including the option of a slideshow and image downloading. You can see the actual page here.

When you want photos in iWeb, but not a photo page, remember that an inline album is only a few steps away.

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