iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

Do you have an idea for an app but lack the programming knowledge to begin building it? In this weekly blog series, I will take you, the non-programmer, step by step through the process of creating apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Join me each week on this adventure, and you will experience how much fun turning your ideas into reality can be! This is Part 24 of the series. If you are just getting started, check out the beginning of the series here.

In my previous column, I talked about some of the great new changes in Xcode 5, Apple's tool for creating iOS apps. In this post, I am going to move the iAppsReview project to Xcode 5 and iOS 7 and we'll talk about some of the challenges you will encounter as you move your apps forward. 

When I take my mountain bike out on the trails, besides getting a good workout, it relaxes me. For me it's a mindful experience being out in nature with only me, the bike, and the trail.

However, because I live in Colorado, when the snow starts falling my bike finds residence in my garage until the sun starts shining again, I can shed my North Face coat, and the trails start drying out.

During the winter, I usually find myself hanging out on the couch instead of getting the exercise I need. I absolutely hate going to the gym. 

So, that's why I was happy to hear about a fellow Colorado resident who developed an app designed to quiet the mind and make working out at the gym like being outdoors.

Is the iPhone 5C for Kids?

By Becca Ludlum

Apple released details about the new iPhone 5c today and with its plastic exterior, reduced price, and colorful case combinations it is easy to assume it's geared towards... dare I say it? Kids.

I know my son would give almost anything for the green model, and with a $99 price tag for the 16GB version it's a great addition to my holiday gift list for him. Is this what Apple had in mind when they designed the 5C?

For our family vacation next year, we've decided to take a trip to Costa Rica. I know it's still 10 months away, but I'm already dreaming of gorgeous beaches and zip lining through the jungles.

The problem is, most of our vacations have been to English-speaking destinations. So I've decided to learn Spanish.

Besides a one-year course in high school (which was a long time ago) and words I've picked up here and there by living in the Southwestern United States, I am not even close to communicating with someone whose only language is Spanish.

MEELECTRONICS Air-Fi Matrix AF62 Stereo Bluetooth Wireless Headphones ($149.99) are lightweight, comfortable, and provide great sound quality.

I'm usually an earbud kind of music listener, but these headphones have changed my mind. I loved not having any cords to get tangled in, and the ear pads are soft and cushy. They also provide wonderful sound isolation, which is a luxury in my noisy household.

The Matrix is a full feature set, providing wireless Bluetooth connection for smartphones and tablets that includes multipoint, voice prompts, and NFC connectivity.

Before you invest in a fancy macro lens for your iPhone, you may want to try this do-it-yourself project first.  

Here's what you'll need:

1. An old point-and-shoot camera (to harvest a lens);

2. Kneaded Rubber Eraser (from stationery or art supply store);

3. Super Glue.

Here's the camera I purchased at a local thrift store ($1.99).

This article is intended for advanced photographers and, of course, programmers.

As an imaging and iOS programming pro (see my latest Nokia Lumia 1020-specific article), people often ask me about the photo and video capabilities of iOS. While I'm currently working on no less than four major tutorials & roundups (panorama, HDR, low-light, and action shooting) I'll publish in the near future, I've decided to dedicate a “quick” separate article to a forum question HERE. Note that my HDR (High Dynamic Range) shooting article will build on the information in this article so that advanced users know how exposure compensation can be done in the best way on iOS.

Note that I'm discussing both bracketing and, generically, exposure compensation. The former is based on the latter—you generally shoot more than one exposure-compensated shot to get a bracketed series of shots, typically, for future (HDR etc.) processing. This also means that, as long as you understand what exposure compensation is, you'll also easily understand what bracketing is.

I have four regrets in my life:

1.  A tattoo of an arrow that starts under my right armpit and runs down my side, past my hip. It’s big, bold, and will most certainly look like a crumbled, smeared watercolor painting when I’m 60;
 

2.  The tattoo I got one Saturday night in Soho during a two-week trip to London circa 2004. This tat-ta-roo on my ankle of a heart the size of a fist looks like it was drawn by a 4-year-old with a permanent marker and underdeveloped motor skills;

3.  Letting my parents develop the disposable cameras from that trip. (My mom still can’t look me in the eye.);
 

4.  Dumping my iPhone 5 for the Galaxy 4. 

Sharp focus is one of the key aspects of capturing a great photograph. Focus and exposure are probably the two most critical technical areas photographers need to understand. In this post, I want to focus on focus (really sorry, couldn't help myself).

The iPhone, like all phone camera technology I'm aware of, gives us very little scope to play with focus at the point of capture. This is because the relationship between its optics and its sensor is such that typically the vast majority of the scene will be in focus, or almost in focus, even if we just point and click. We would describe this as a large depth of field or depth of focus.

There are many compelling reasons to teach children sign language at a young age. For some, it is a valuable skill they will have for the rest of their lives. For others, it is a necessity due to a medical condition or developmental delay. No matter the reason, there are apps out there that help teach little ones sign language. The icing on the cake is that all of these apps are free, which makes them accessible to anyone with an iPhone. 

VLC for iOS Returns to the App Store

By Werner Ruotsalainen

VLC is probably the best all-in-one multimedia player for both Mac OS X and Windows. It also has ports on mobile platforms (or will have when Windows RT and Windows Phone 8 are concerned).

The iOS port, which was released back in 2010, had a stormy history. Shortly after its release, it had to be removed from the App Store, only to return almost three years later, this week VLC for iOS (free). Before, the only VLC version available on iOS was from Cydia, the jailbroken App Store. The Cydia version of VLC has always been the same as the 2010 (initial) version of VLC.

The removal of the initial version of VLC has understandably caused quite much uproar because people tend to think of VLC as the best of all players no matter what platform it's running on. This, unfortunately, hasn't been the case of the initial (2010) version – actually, it has been one of the absolute worst players in terms of compatibility, features, and efficiency. As I've always recommended in all iOS forums, you simply didn't want to use the then-current (2010) version of iOS VLC, because it was plain inferior to the top App Store players (GoodPlayer, It's Playing, AVPlayerHD, nPlayer, HD Player Pro (currently unavailable), RushPlayer, BUZZ Player HD. etc.), and Cydia ones (XBMC, RushPlayer+).


Apple is preparing to upgrade its mobile operating system to iOS 7, and with that, we can expect to see a host of new features on our iDevices as well as significant improvements to already-existing features and apps. One of the things I'm excited to see is how mobile gaming evolves with iOS 7. On that note, it seems appropriate to feature a serious gamer’s headphone. Hardcore gamers and audiophiles alike will appreciate the quality of sound of the V-Moda Crossfade M-100s ($310) over-the-ear headphones. 

While many companies develop great headphones, very few pour as much time, energy, and resources into research and development as has V-Moda. The Crossfade over-the-ear headphones are very much the product of extensive crowdsourcing and feedback from a variety of audio experts and connoisseurs.

Although marketed primarily as a device for recording and broadcasting Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 gaming exploits, Elgato's Game Capture HD ($179.95) also can capture iPad games and productivity software. By pairing it with a laptop and an Apple Digital AV adapter, the Game Capture HD records and broadcasts iPad content in glorious high-resolution video. With the press of a button within the Game Capture's software interface, you can also stream the video to YouTube or gamer-centric Twitch.tv. Read on to learn more.

Elgato's support of the iPad has been surprisingly strong, producing both the eyeTV and eyeTV Mobile for iPad users.

I installed iOS 7 beta 3 on my iPhone 4S a few days ago and have had some time to check it out and the results are in—my iPhone works again!

For those of you who installed beta 2 on your iOS devices, you know what I'm talking about. With beta 2, I couldn't take a picture without shutting down and restarting my iPhone. I often had to tap the surface several times before my tap was recognized, and a few times each day, my iPhone would simply reboot itself.

This is par for the course for an early beta of any software, especially an operating system. However, I wanted to install the early betas of iOS 7 on the devices I use on a daily basis because it's the best way to become intimately acquainted with this revamped version of iOS.

This article is intended for iPhone 4S and 5 users who want to shoot video at 60fps (double the framerate) using iOS 7 as well as programmers wanting to support the new 60fps mode in their apps. No iPad or iPhone 4 users should read further since, to my knowledge, their hardware doesn't support 60fps.


Executive Summary

iOS 7 will support 60fps video recording at 720p (as opposed to iOS 6). While it does have image quality problems on current, compatible iPhones (4S and 5), at least it works.

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