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Best Income Tax apps for Android and iPhone

admin — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:18:52 +0000

Best Income Tax apps for Android and iPhone

The deadline for filing your taxes is days away, at best. For those of you with active lifestyles, or an aversion to actual computers, we bring you five of our favorite tax apps. We’ve found Android and iPhone apps for estimating taxes, checking on refunds, filing your taxes, and answering your many questions.

It’s that time of the year again, when you have two days left and you’re taxes still aren’t done. Luckily, mine are, so I have time to share a few apps with you. We’ve compiled five of the best Android and iPhone apps for managing different aspects of filing your taxes on the go. Some of these apps help estimating taxes or checking on refunds, one will actually file your taxes, and two contain helpful reference material. In any case, make sure you e-file your taxes if you’d like to get your refund within 10 days.

IRS2Go

The IRS needs to learn how the Web works. It does not yet know how to remove the “www.” from its Web address (heading to http://irs.gov is a dead end). With that said, it’s lack of Internet prowess hasn’t stopped it from releasing an official IRS smartphone app this year for Android and iOS devices. While the app is pretty bare bones and doesn’t allow you to file your taxes on your smartphone, it does let you check the status of your tax refund and get updates from the IRS. It also has numbers and times when you can call and ask questions. If you e-filed your taxes, you can check on their status in this app within 72 hours. You can download IRS2Go for free on the Google Play store or iTunes.

H&R Block Tax Central

If the IRS app isn’t doing it for you, H&R Block has a free, more fully featured, app available on Android. Tax Central will let you check your refund status, but also has a Help section full of terms and answers to basic tax questions and a checklist feature that helps you create a tax filing to-do list for yourself. Many users have complained that the Tax Estimator is a bit inaccurate. We recommend you use it for broad purposes only. The Tax Quiz is purely there for entertainment. Still, if you have some basic questions that you want to research on the go, H&R Block’s Tax Central may be a good option. More information and links to download it on the various app stores can be found here.

TurboTax SnapTax

If you’re taxes are excessively simple (just one job, one state of employment, no deductions, make you less than $80,000, etc), the TurboTax SnapTax may be the best way for you to file your taxes. It allows you to answer some basic questions, make a profile, and take a photo of your W-2. In theory, you could finish your taxes in minutes. Not sure if you’re qualified? It’s a free download and after you answer some basic questions, it will tell you if you can use the mobile app to continue or if you need to use the full online version of TurboTax to proceed. If you are capable of using the phone, you’ll have to download a $19.99 key to file.

The only downside to SnapTax is its simplicity. Sometimes the app doesn’t explain, in full, why it has rejected your application and it only gives you two options once you finish: continue online or start over. Starting over erases all of the, admittedly short, work you’ve just done. Still, SnapTax is the best option (and possibly only) for filing taxes on a smartphone. It is available on the Android and iPhone app stores. Download SnapTax here.

BNA Quick Tax Reference

Like IRS2Go, this app isn’t pretty and it doesn’t explain itself well. However, it does provide some valuable reference material, should you need it. Mileage rates, corporate tax rate schedules, individual tax rate schedules, standard deductions, retirement plan limits, and more are all in here in unfiltered tables. Head here for links to download or to learn more.

TaxCaster

Yes, this is another TurboTax app, but it is a bit easier to use and more detailed than H&R Block’s Tax Central Tax Calculator. TurboTax is the leader in its category for a reason; its apps are functional, pretty, and easy to use. Obviously, this is an app for those with relatively simple taxes and a single job. You don’t have to sign up to use it. Simply enter your wages, marital status, earnings, and deductions and TaxCaster pumps out a quick estimate of what you kind of refund you might receive. The app is available on Android and iPhone, but if you’re bored, an online version is available as well.

That’s about it…

While we’re impressed by the array of smartphone apps that TurboTax offers — SnapTax, MyTaxRefund, and TaxCaster — no other apps currently offer the ability to file using your phone. We’re not quite sure you want to file on your smartphone, but it would be nice to have a few more options. Hopefully app makers will get on the ball when next tax season rolls around.

via Best Income Tax apps for Android and iPhone.

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VezTek USA – the mobile solutions company – develops custom mobile apps for all major platforms. Need an iPhone or Andorid app for your business or want to have one developed from your innovative idea? Request a Quote today.

iPhone & iPad Users Gravitate Toward Product Videos!

admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:29:01 +0000

Ever clicked on a video link on your mobile phone only to encounter a video that – gasp – didn’t play? Yep, thought so. Me too.

Even in this mobile-centric day and age, I still run across videos that just don’t start on my smartphone, or videos that require the viewer to scroll back and forth across the screen.

But brands and businesses should do whatever it takes to optimize their videos for mobile devices because consumers are increasingly watching product videos on their handhelds. About half of smartphone users and 61% of tablet owners have watched product videos on

their devices in the last three months, according to an Invodo study conducted in partnership with e-commerce consultancy the e-tailing group. “Tablets may have greater long-term potential for effectively delivering the product videos that today’s consumers currently gravitate towards,” the study said. “Monitoring all mobile devices will be important as ‘devices’ grow in importance and forever alter the daily lives of shoppers.”

The study surveyed consumers who had watched product videos. Of those, about 60% said when they encounter a video on a retail site they watch it, and about one-third have watched five or more product videos. Perhaps even more promising for brands — product videos are being watched in many categories, such as auto, consumer electronics, music/DVD/videos, toys/video games and computer hardware/software.

Okay, so maybe we aren’t watching too many videos on how to apply deodorant or get a better brushing from your toothpaste. Even so, the appeal of videos for more complicated or sophisticated products is fairly broad.

Videos that are educational or instructional in nature draw the most viewer attention. About one in three consumers watched educational or instructional videos for more than three minutes.

via MediaPost Publications Mobile Phone, Tablet Users Gravitate Toward Product Videos, Study Finds 04/09/2012.

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Want to Dream of a Serene Beach? There’s an iPhone App for that.

admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:48:22 +0000

HATFIELD, England – A British psychologist created an iPhone app to help people manipulate their dreams by playing pleasant “soundscapes” during slumber.

Professor Richard Wiseman, who claims to be the most followed psychologist on Twitter, hopes an experiment to influence sleepers’ dreams will attract as many as 10,000 participants.

Owners of iPhones who download the app will turn their phones into a “dream factory” able to play a customized “soundscape” designed to influence the mind into dreaming about pleasant scenes, such as lying on a beach.

‘We know very little about how to influence dreams. This experiment aims to change that.’ - Professor Richard Wiseman

The sounds will be played only when the iPhone app’s motion sensor detects that sleepers are not moving — the time when dreaming begins.

Wiseman, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, southern England, said, “Getting a good night’s sleep and having pleasant dreams boosts people’s productivity and is essential for their psychological and physical well-being. Despite this, we know very little about how to influence dreams. This experiment aims to change that.”

Wiseman, who describes himself as a “psychologist, author and magician,” teamed up with app-development firm Yuza to create the Dream:ON software, and participants will be encouraged to share their dreams via Facebook and Twitter.

via http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/10/psychologist-launches-app-to-manipulate-dreams/#ixzz1rejLG4Nu

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How to make money from mobile gaming apps for iPhone & Android

admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 03:28:58 +0000

Mobile game developers are some of the leaders in app development. They push the bounds of what devices can do, how to implement constructive user experiences and handle privacy situations. By studying mobile game developers, one can see the macro environment of the mobile app ecosystem at large. Yet, when it comes to making money off of apps, game developers are often groping for solutions along with everybody else.

There are advantages and pitfalls to all types of monetization schemes. Freemium games with in-app purchases can be heavily reliant on a small portion of users. Mobile advertising only works for large-brand publishers and games that go viral. Monetization is the trickiest question an app publisher can face. What is a game developer to do?

Avenues to Monetization

There are several options for game developers to make money. They are not mutually exclusive, as different types of monetization schemes can be layered within a single app. The general categories are pretty broad: paid apps; in-app purchases and virtual goods; mobile advertising; and sponsorships.

The game developer ecosystem understands that most users are not going to load up on paid apps. Casual users may pay for a couple of games, but for the most part, they are going to go the freemium route and use games as a way to kill time or entertain themselves for short stints. That is why the two different avenues, in-app purchases and mobile advertising, become so important.

From a very high level, the key is to pick the monetization scheme that fits your game. I see a lot of people trying to fit freemium games into a game that clearly will not monetize on freemium,” said Adam Telfer, VP of game development for XMG Studio. “I see people throwing into paymium games which do not have an effective in-app purchase strategy. In-app purchases cannot be retrofitted. Freemium game play has to be built in from the beginning.”

Telfer makes a good point. Monetization strategies need to be conceived from the very beginning. It affects every decision of the development and design process. Where are in-app purchases going to live within the user interface? If we use mobile ads, what type of screen real estate are they going to take up? Do the color schemes of the ads match our game design?

In a perfect world, game developers would make games that are so crazy awesome that consumers would line up to put money in the publisher’s pocket. The reality is that is not going to happen.

“That is what we think is ideal, what we are striving for: a user base that loves your game so much that they are willing to spend as much money as they can on your game,” Telfer said. “The realistic method is that your producers, your game designers, have to become half salesmen and half game designers. So, they have to be able to understand what makes people tick, what makes people change their opinion about a product from being just something they distract themselves with to something they are willing to spend money on.”

When thinking of monetization schemes from the beginning of development, there are a variety of factors to be considered. Whether it is advertising or in-app purchases, analytics are extremely important. What types of actions are gamers taking on a day-to-day basis? When do they tend to purchase virtual goods? By understanding user behavior, developers can create the proper logic within a game to optimize revenue return.

Thinking About Ads

“It is a neat time to watch mobile advertising get its legs and be a constructive revenue stream within the game environment,” said Victor Milligan, chief marketing officer at Nexage.

Not all in-game ads are the same. There are banner ads, inline videos, rich media interactions and cutaways (such as when you get an ad after making a move in Words With Friends). These ads can be integrated through a direct partnership with a brand, by integrating an ad library or by creating a bridge to an advertiser through real-time bidding exchanges like Nexage. For example, Electronic Arts gave a good sample of four different ways to integrate ads in social games to AllThingsD earlier this week.

Nexage believes that mobile ads are the way to go to build revenue for games. To be fair, of course it does – it works on behalf of the advertisers. Nexage also focuses on premium brands, such as Rovio, so its perspective does not always align with smaller publishers. XMG has a couple of high level games, like Powder Monkeys, but it also focuses on niche demographics where mobile advertising is not worth the effort because the amount of eyeballs reaching the ads does not equate to considerable revenue.

“The ad libraries, there are tons of them and they all have their pros and cons. And in the end, it just comes down to the number of eyes that you have in your game. For the most part, we have a lot of niche games, so we won’t be able get the eyes as something like a Farmville. Farmville or any game that has 10 million active users on a daily basis are the only ones that are going to be able to make money on advertising,” Telfer said.

If in-app purchases must be figured into the game’s logic, that goes double for mobile ads. Milligan points out that game developers, unlike other app publishers, always put the game experience first.

“What I find most interesting about the game developers is their maniacal focus on the game experience to the customer. One of the concepts of designing from engineers, you can really tangibly feel that game developers build their game as if they were going to play it themselves and the joy they have in that,” Milligan said.

The goal of mobile advertisers should not just be about how to reach as many eyeballs as possible. Milligan points out that advertisers are coming up with ways to work with developers in meaningful ways to increase relevance and insert ads into game flow. A diligent developer with a popular game could do well working in cohort with a mobile advertiser that has the ability to focus on particular aspects of game logic and design.

It is a tricky line to walk. Game developers that do not have an astronomical amount of users are probably not going to want to bother with mobile advertising. It is a time-consuming and intensive process (from implementation, privacy concerns, tracking and analytics) and is often not worth the reward. Yet, if a game developer suddenly publishes a hit (such as Rovio did with Angry Birds, the 52nd app it developed), a lot of revenue can be missed by not having an advertising solution.

The common theme, from game developers and advertisers, is simple. Build the best game possible that keeps bringing users back to the app. The best gaming experience will lead to monetization because users will buy in-app goods and be tolerant of advertising.

Mobile Game Developers Reconcile Monetization: In-Apps or Ads?.

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Why iPhone App Developers Should Create Windows Mobile Apps?

admin — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 03:12:28 +0000

The secret to populating an unpopular smartphone platform: cash incentives

Rovio is making Angry Birds Space for Windows Phone

A nice piece of reporting by Jenna Wortham and Nick Wingfield landed on the front page of the New York Times Business section Friday morning, two days before the launch of the Nokia Lumia 900.

When free phones and promises of prime real estate on the Windows Phone app store wasn’t enough to get reluctant developers to write software for the new device — the first fruit of a collaboration between Microsoft (MSFT) and Nokia (NOK) — Microsoft reportedly starting writing checks to cover some of the cost of development, which can run anywhere from $60,000 to $600,000.

Among the developers that, according to the Times, have been paid to write for the Windows Phone OS:

Foursquare, creator of Foursquare
Cheezburger Network, creator of I Can Has Cheezburger?
and (reading between the lines) Rovio, maker of Angry Birds

By the time the Lumia 900 is released, the Times reports, the Windows Phone app store will have more than 70,000 titles, including Netflix, YouTube, the Weather Channel, Amazon Kindle and Fruit Ninjas. Still missing: Pandora, Instagram and all the Zynga games.

“We are by no means satisfied with our catalog,” Casey McGee, senior marketing manager for Windows Phone, told the Times. “That’s something we can get better at, and do better at, every day.”

via How many iPhone app developers can Microsoft buy? – Apple 2.0 – Fortune Tech.

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Microsoft Investing in Mobile Apps

admin — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 07:15:13 +0000

Last fall, Microsoft aggressively recruited Mr. Weingarten to convince him to build his nutrition app Fooducate for its Windows Phone. Microsoft proposed putting a Fooducate engineer in Tel Aviv through a weeklong boot camp, and offered a new Windows-based Nokia phone for software testing.

Yet despite the enticements, Fooducate skipped the boot camp and chose not to develop a Windows Phone app.

“We decided to focus our energies on the bigger platforms” of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android, said Mr. Weingarten, the 41-year-old chief executive of Fooducate. He said he plans to develop for Windows Phone eventually.

His experience highlights how Microsoft is actively trying to woo developers to the Windows Phone—as well as the hurdles the software maker faces in getting app makers on board.

Last year, Microsoft hosted more than 850 sessions world-wide to coach developers on Windows Phone software design, more than triple the number the year before. Microsoft also has sped up the process of launching apps, expanded ways app makers can make money from selling their wares on Windows Phone and cut checks to some developers to help pay for apps.

Apple and Google also regularly cozy up to app makers. For example, Google said it recently began offering online classes and a training site for building apps. But developers say the scale of Microsoft‘s efforts is unprecedented.

Associated PressA man walks past a banner of a Windows phone at the Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest mobile phone trade show, in Barcelona, Spain, in February.

Microsoft is desperate to break the stranglehold of iPhone and Android. Its 18-month-old Windows Phone, which powers devices made by Nokia Corp.NOK +0.79% and Samsung Electronics Co., has just a 3.9% share of smartphones in the U.S., compared with 50.1% for phones powered by Google’s Android software and 30.2% for Apple’s iPhone, according to comScore Inc.SCOR -0.34%

Apps are a major attraction for smartphone buyers, but there are only about 70,000 available for Windows Phone, compared with a half a million or more for Android phones and iPhones.

On a recent day, of 60 top iPhone apps, only 13 were available for Windows Phone. The holdouts included popular apps such as Zynga Inc.’s ZNGA -2.54% ”Words With Friends” and Pandora Media Inc.’s P -1.29% digital-music service.

“Some of those apps I wish we have,” said Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s Windows Phone business who added that Windows Phone has alternative apps that parallel missing favorites such as Pandora. In some cases, he said, “we have a different brand that’s better.”

To promote the Windows Phone brand to consumers, the Redmond, Wash., company plans a significant marketing push soon, Mr. Myerson said, though he declined to give details. The Windows Phone group recently hired an advertising executive behind Verizon Wireless’s “Can You Hear Me Now” campaign.

Microsoft, Nokia and AT&T Inc. also are each starting significant marketing campaigns for the new Lumia 900 handset. This Nokia-made phone, which goes on sale Sunday, will be a key test of consumer demand for Windows Phone devices.

“What we need to do is go invest in telling the Windows Phone story to people around the world…and we haven’t done that,” Mr. Myerson said. “When that is achieved, it will start a virtuous cycle with developers.”

Plenty of developers doubt Microsoft can catch up to Google and Apple. They also say they’re reluctant to commit to Windows Phone until Microsoft clarifies whether apps will work with future software releases, including Windows 8, the next computer operating system expected this year for desktops and tablets.

But many developers say Microsoft does have an edge when it comes to dedicated support.

The company’s app tools are easy to use, they say, and Microsoft is more attentive than other companies. Jake Poznanski and Sam Kaufmann, who quit their software-developer jobs last fall to develop Windows Phone apps, said Microsoft replied within a couple of days when they complained about a snag in Windows Phone’s mobile advertising system.

Mr. Poznanski said when he reached out to Amazon.com Inc. about a question with a try-before-buying feature of that company’s app store, Amazon never got back to him. Amazon declined to comment on specific conversations with developers, but the company said it has a team of people dedicated to answering inquiries from developers.

Microsoft also is incorporating input from app developers into Windows Phone updates. In recent months, Microsoft also said it was opening Windows Phone app sales in more than a dozen countries including China. And Microsoft has followed other app companies in paying developers upward of $100,000, or paying a third-party company to develop a Windows Phone app on their behalf.

Some developers are starting to buy in to Microsoft, in part because they are growing disenchanted with the prospects of struggling BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. (A RIM spokeswoman said “There has been a clear commitment from BlackBerry to developers.”)

The Weather Channel said starting in November, it reassigned employees designing software for BlackBerry to Windows Phone apps. Cameron Clayton, Weather Channel’s executive vice president of digital, said just under 10% of the company’s 100,000 daily app downloads are coming from Windows Phone, up from less than 0.5% three months ago as Weather Channel signed deals to come preloaded on Windows Phone devices.

“Versus a year ago, they have a shot now,” Mr. Clayton said of Microsoft. At the same time, he conceded, “This is a war for developers time and attention, and Apple and Android are winning.”

via Microsoft Woos App Developers in Windows Phone Push – WSJ.com.

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Favorite Mobile Apps of the Week | from Mashable

admin — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:16:32 +0000

This week brought tons of great new apps. From a long-distance relationship app that allows you to “thumb kiss” your partner from far away, to a new app for storing your sketches, notes and other thoughts and sharing them on the web — there was plenty of new app action in the past seven days to download on your favorite smartphone or tablet.

Some of our favorites this week also include a new space discovery app that combines 3D graphics with video, text and photos and allows you to explore seven different realms: Subatomic, Atomic, Solar System, Stars, Milky Way, Galaxies, and Universe.

If you’re interested in exploring other countries rather than space, Babbel’s language-learning apps are now available for Android. And if you prefer to keep your travels a little closer to home, another new app this week lets you explore the art available on NYC’s transit system, as well as plan your own transit art tour.

When it comes time to pay your friends back for your portion of the dinner bill this weekend, this week brought with it an app that lets you send cash via PayPal by just tapping your phone against theirs.

Check out our favorite new apps from the week.

Pair

If you’re in a long-distance relationship, then Pair is an app you need to own. The app creates a private shared timeline for couple, allowing them to swap photos and share videos photos and their locations. The app also includes “thumb kiss” feature that vibrates the screen when both people touch the same part of their iPhone screen.

Bump Pay

When PayPal updated its mobile app in mid March it removed one way you were able to pay others: Bump. This week Bump introduced its own standalone app Bump Pay, which allows you to pay others via PayPal by simply “bumping” your phones together.

Fuze HD

Fuze updated its video conferencing software this week, now optimizing the experience for the new iPad’s retina display, A5X chipset, 1080p camera and 4G data. Fuze HD offers multi-party video conferencing for up to 10 users at once, where all of the parties on the call can not only been seen, but also interact with video, text, images, and other media during the presentation.

Babbel for Android

Babbel announced Android support this week for its language apps. Babbel Android apps are now available for French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian, Turkish, Dutch, Polish, Indonesian and English, and offer audiovisual learning material with 3000 vocabulary words, sounds, images, speech recognition and a personalized review manager.

MTA on Meridian

NYC’s transit system is actually the cities largest museum. This week the MTA became part of theMeridian app. The Android and iPhone application provides comprehensive details on the wide variety of permanent artwork installed throughout the subway and rail system in New York. You can use the app to browse art of a particular line or plan your own transit system art tour.

Paper

Paper is a new app that allows users to create diagrams, illustrations, sketches and notes and then share them with others on the web. The app is designed to work as a journal of sorts, allows you to keep all your thoughts in one place.

Wonders of the Universe

If space is your thing, then HarperCollins’ new app Wonders of the Universe is the iPad app for you. The app lets you explore space through 3D graphics and visuals, and incorporates 210 full-color articles, hundreds of photos and two and a half hours of video from Brian Cox’s award-winning series of the same name into a single space discovery app.

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New iPad’s display and apps earn top grades

admin — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:41:27 +0000

New iPad’s display and apps earn top Grades

When I wrote about the third-generation iPad at its introduction (Business, March 7), I noted that in my brief hands-on time I wasn’t immediately struck by the increased resolution of its Retina display.

Now that I’ve used an iPad extensively in the past two weeks, I can report that the Retina display is brilliant. Especially when interacting with a lot of text — keeping up with Twitter or Facebook, reading e-books, checking email, browsing the Web — my appreciation for the increased pixel density grows the more I use it. Really, get to an Apple Store and spend some time with one to see for yourself.

And yet the display is just a layer of pixels if there isn’t anything interesting to run on it. Apple updated its iLife apps for iOS devices — iMovie and GarageBand — and added a new one, iPhoto, which provides features not found in the company’s desktop consumer photo editor.

The built-in Photos app does a fine job of viewing your photos, whether you sync them from your Mac or import them using Apple’s iPad Camera Connection Kit accessory. A recent update to iOS even added a few basic image adjustments — rotation, one-tap enhancement, red-eye removal, cropping and straightening — but those are fairly limited.

IPhoto goes far beyond that.

The exposure and color-correction tools include sliders for adjusting attributes such as brightness, contrast and saturation, but those are for fine-tuning. IPhoto’s preferred method is to touch an area of a photo that needs fixing, such as dark shadows. A control appears with arrows indicating which adjustments can be made: for example, drag up to lighten shadows, down to darken them, or left or right to decrease or increase contrast.

So, even if you don’t know how to manipulate a slider to adjust white point, black point and midtones, you can intuitively point and say to yourself: “I want to fix this area” and likely end up with a good adjustment.

One feature I particularly like is one that you won’t find in the Mac version of iPhoto: edits to selective areas of a photo. In its attempt to be easy to use, iPhoto on the Mac applies edits to an entire image.

In most situations this is fine, but occasionally you may want to lighten the exposure of foreground items without blowing the background out to white, or maybe boost the saturation of a small area instead of the whole photo.

For example, I have a photo of Mount Rainier exposed for the sky and mountain, which put the landscape in the foreground into almost silhouette. After performing a few adjustments to the sky and mountain in iPhoto on the iPad, I grabbed the Lighten brush and painted over the foreground. (An option to make the paint strokes visible is helpful here; tap the Settings button and turn Show Strokes on.)

To my surprise, that area contained a lot of detail, including a person walking in the bottom-right corner. With some passes of the Saturation brush and a boost of green using the Color adjustments, my photo was dramatically improved. (I posted some before-and-after examples at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffcarlson/sets/72157629324382600/.”>my Flickr page IPhoto also contains a set of effects for applying preset looks, such as vintage film or artistic filters. And I should mention that the app looks great on the new iPad’s Retina display, but it will also run on the iPad 2 and iPhone 4 and 4S. The latter devices make possible a neat feature: You can take a photo using an iPhone (which is a better camera), and then “beam” the image to an iPad directly.

There are a few areas that point to this being a 1.0 version. I ran into a few bugs, such as iPhoto updating the photo library at odd times while I was editing. Also, the app doesn’t interoperate with iPhoto on the Mac. You can’t update albums, and edited photos need to be saved to the device’s Camera Roll before they can be imported.

But this 1.0 version is impressive and polished. iPhoto for iOS costs $4.99, and is available from the iTunes App Store.

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VezTek USA – the mobile solutions company – develops custom mobile apps for all major platforms. Need an iPhone or Andorid app for your business or want to have one developed from your innovative idea? Request a Quote today.

via Business & Technology | New iPad’s display and apps earn top grades | Seattle Times Newspaper.

Is the iPhone the Only Camera You Need?

admin — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:22:19 +0000

I, POINT-AND-SHOOT, hereby call to order the inaugural meeting of the Secret Society of Digital Cameras That Are Sick and Tired of the iPhone. Ultra Zoom. Micro Four Thirds. Budget Digi Camera that takes AA batteries. Thanks for coming.

I think everyone knows why we’re here in the basement of this abandoned Circuit City in Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J. I mean, it’s in the name of our club: the iPhone. A lot of you have been sitting in junk drawers, so I’ll bring you up to speed. It ain’t just a phone. It has a camera. And not one of those 1.3-megapixel numbers from a decade ago. This is the real deal. People have already started documenting their breakfasts with it. We’re in trouble.

Have you checked out Flickr lately? The iPhone is the site’s most-used camera. Instagram, an app that let’s people share photos, reached 27 million users to become one of the world’s biggest social networks. It hit that milestone purely with the iPhone. Last time I checked, we took photos. Where is our piece of the zeitgeist pie?

There was a time when we were renegades ushering in a new era of photography. Mavericks, really. We kicked those old film cameras into flea-market stalls. Now only pros and artsy types use them. Guess what? We’re the ones starting to collect dust. And don’t think anyone’s going to revisit us. Film cameras occupy the same hip space as vinyl. Where are we going to fall on the technological nostalgia spectrum? Next to the LaserDisc.

The digital photography revolution was a promise to streamline things for the everyman. To let him shoot as many sunsets and cats wearing bread (seriously, Google it) as he wanted without having to worry about film. Anyone with a laptop could edit like a pro. Like the Brownie and Polaroid before us, we were democratizers of photography.

Not any more. The iPhone hijacked our vision for the future—our legacy!—while we were busy fooling people that more megapixels meant better pictures. (Sorry, Budget Digi Cam, it doesn’t.) Talk about simplifying the photographic process—you can shoot, edit, share and order prints without taking your mitts off an iPhone. We’re on our way to becoming a footnote on its Wikipedia page.

I know what you’re all thinking. Some of us can edit photos. Some of us can post to Facebook. But not like the iPhone. It’s quick, intuitive. We’re not. Great-looking pictures are so fun and easy to produce that it makes anyone with an Instagram account feel like Terry Richardson and Ansel Adams rolled into one. Awesome Camera might be the device’s best photo app. And it’s free! And downloadable in minutes! You know how people refresh their user experience with us? They wait two years and spend hundreds on a new camera.

OK, there’s a bright side. The DSLR will always be king for serious photographers. All of us take better photos in low-light situations. Android phones may be getting Instagram soon, but they aren’t a huge threat—yet. And, uh, we come in more than two colors. Look at Ultra Zoom. He’s chartreuse!

If we lose to one of our own, that’s one thing. This crazy Lytro camera that lets you choose a focal point after you’ve taken a picture? Innovative stuff. Maybe we’ll invite her to the next meeting. But a phone? Not cool. That’s not progress. It’s game-changing. And we’re in the wrong stadium.

I forget who, but a wise man once said, “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Let’s show it to them. First camera to figure out how to beat the iPhone wins an 8-gig SD card. And I’ll throw in this lime-green neoprene case. Except for Micro Four Thirds. You’re too bulky for it. Meeting adjourned—see you next year in the parking lot of the old Crazy Eddie headquarters.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR CAMERA PHONE EXTRA-SNAPPY

1. Download These Essential Camera Apps

Wait, doesn’t my iPhone already have a Camera app? Yes. And it’s good—the latest one can automatically focus on faces, take crisp HDR shots and be launched quickly from the unlock screen. (Just swipe up.) Why limit yourself to one arrow in your quiver, though? You may have heard of these three Camera replacements before, but they’re popular for a reason—out of dozens in the App Store, they’re the best.

Camera+

The Effects Master

The Camera+ app has long been a popular iPhone camera replacement because it can do complex things in a very streamlined way. You can set exposure independent of focus, use image stabilization—it’ll automatically take a shot when your hand is steady—and has a burst mode for capturing fast-moving objects or the fleeting smiles of toddlers. But the real reason Camera+ has a permanent place on many a home screen is its editing tools. The Clarity filter is iPhone photography’s secret sauce—it adds pro-camera crispness to almost any shot. And the app’s 36 FX Effects (Polarize and Magic Hour are two favorites) have adjustable intensities. Snappily adjusting just how much processing you want is what sets this app apart from the countless other camera-and-editing solutions. $1.99, campl.us

Hipstamatic

The Analog Spirit

Lisa Corson/The Wall Street JournalLight leaks, vignetting and distorted colors are Hipstamatic trademarks.

Tara Howard/The Wall Street JournalEven your accidental shots will look like high art.

This app helped launch the iPhone photo revolution when it debuted in 2009, not with bleeding-edge tech, but with a geeky love for the analog. Swap out lenses, films and flashes to create different retro-inspired photographs or simply shake the camera to randomize the configuration. As with real film photography, you have to wait for your image to “develop”—pictures take a few seconds to show up. No matter. The results are so cool you’ll start thinking instant gratification is overrated. A tip: In the spirit of serendipity, the default framing is random. To take control, double-click the viewfinder.$1.99, hipstamatic.com

Awesome Camera

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

The camera of Awesome Camera, is, well, awesome: It has a lens stabilizer similar to that of Camera+; a Big Button feature that lets you snap a photo by touching any spot on the screen; and in camcorder mode, the app magically captures video seconds before you press record. Its editing tools are even more awe-inspiring: There are almost 300 sophisticated effects, filters, textures and frames at your disposal including the adjustable Awesomize feature, which automatically fixes things you might not have even known were wrong with your photo. Many effects are free. You can buy sets of effects a la carte, or all of them in one fell swoop for $9.99. It’s worth it. The app was developed by photo site SmugMug—pictures taken with the program can be automatically uploaded to the site in full resolution if you’re a member. Free, awesomize.com

2. Take the Fun Factor of Your Photos to the Next Level

The Social Network

Instagram

You could just use this as a Hipstamatic alternative, but it’s really all about the photo-centric social network that is Instagram. If you’ve ever doubted the quality of iPhone photography, browsing the “Popular” shots will change your mind and inspire you to always have your camera at the ready to take more artful pictures of the world, or, you know, your cat. Free, instagram.com

Cinemagram

The New Art Form

Cinemagram

Here’s how it works: Shoot a few seconds of video with movement, like a dog’s tail wagging. Then trace your finger over the area of the video that you want to keep in motion—the surrounding area remains a still image. The result is a Cinemagram, a cool mashup of video and photography. At their best, they look like the quirky special effects of a Georges Méliès film.$1.99, cinemagr.am

Incredibooth

The Party Pleaser

Incredibooth

An addictive pocket-size photo booth from the makers of Hipstamatic. You can use the rear camera to take shots of party people and the front-facing one for self portraits, which—because the photos appear in an old-school, vertical strip of four pictures—are disarmingly charming rather than vain. $0.99, incredibooth.com

DMD Panorama

The Landscape Sweeper

DMD Panorama

The easiest-to-use panoramic picture app on the iPhone. Just launch, take a picture, steadily move the camera to the left or right to slide an on-screen Ying symbol into a Yang symbol—How clever! How Zen!—and the program will automatically stitch together a slick panoramic photo. $1.99, dermandar.com

The Framer

PicFrame

Instead of asking graphic-designer friends to create triptychs of your vacation photos in Photoshop, easily crank images out on your own with PicFrame and share them on Facebook and Twitter. An additional $0.99 lets you overlay text on photos in tons of refined fonts. It’s the most fun way to create holiday cards, make party invites and add ironic captions to snapshots. $0.99,i4software.com

3. Kit Up for Serious Shooting

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne CardenasBelkin LiveAction Camera Remote

Forget about snapping a group shot with an outstretched arm and friends cramming their heads next to yours. Use the Belkin LiveAction Camera Remote with its accompanying app and shoot from afar. A detachable stand is included for easy iPhone propping. $35, belkin.com

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne CardenasTry a lens attachment for your iPhone.

Lens attachments on iPhones look a bit gimmicky, but they really work and are a great way to change up your shots. The Ollo Clip comes with fisheye, macro and wide-angle lenses and can be stashed easily in a pocket when not in use. $70,olloclip.com

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne CardenasHipstacase

The iPhone is slick, which means it can get a little slippery. Keep the device strapped and secured to your wrist with the Hipstacase. It’s amazing how much a little lanyard add can add to your confidence. $40, hipstamart.com

Can You Handle It?

Three esoteric grips for the aspiring camera phone Avedon

Jason Lee for The Wall Street JournalThe Covert Ops grip

The Covert Ops

Hold phone vertically as if checking texts or stocks. Advanced variant: Use headphones and singing to obfuscate your rule-bending shutterbugging.

The Statue of Liberty

Most commonly used at concerts by short people. High angle is also effective in making pets appear antlike in photos.

Jason Lee for The Wall Street JournalThe Steady Poke grip

The Steady Poke

Apply death-grip to iPhone with one hand. Tap screen with other to reduce “lens shake” commonly caused by one-handed operation. Advisable to use free hand to pull ‘chute at 2,600 feet.

No iPhone? No Problem. The best photo apps for other phones

While the iPhone has become the center of the camera-phone universe, Android and Windows Phone 7 devices have been diligently catching up. Instagram will be available to Android users soon, but meanwhile you can get your retro fix using the editing tools of PicSay Pro ($3.99). Also worth a download is Paper Camera ($1.99), which gives your photos a scratchy, cartoony look like that A-ha video.

If you like the idea of sending postcards, but always thought their photos were cheese-tastic, get Postagram (Free). Snap that perfect sunset shot and the app will send a postcard print of the photo with a personal message anywhere in the U.S. ($0.99) or internationally ($1.99). (It’s available for the iPhone, too.)

If you own a device that’s running the latest version of Windows Phone 7 then you know it has an excellent out-of-the box camera—they come with dedicated physical shutter buttons, scene modes and the ability to tweak everything from white balance to saturation—but you will still need a good photo editor. The filter-rich Thumba Cam($0.99) is the simplest to use.

via Is the iPhone the Only Camera You Need? – WSJ.com.

Google to Sell Tablets on Its Own This Year

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 06:55:32 +0000

Google to Sell Tablets on Its Own This Year

Google Inc., GOOG -1.12% undaunted by a short-lived attempt to market and sell smartphones on its own, is now trying the approach with tablet computers in a quest to capture market share from Apple Inc.’s AAPL -1.26% iPad.

The Internet search company will sell co-branded tablets directly to consumers through an online store like rivals Apple and Amazon.com Inc., AMZN +1.72% according to people familiar with the matter. The move is an effort to turn around sluggish sales of tablet computers powered by Google’s Android software.

Google went this route with Android-powered smartphones in 2010 when it offered a device called the Nexus One made by HTC Corp. 2498.TW -0.50% But the effort was scrapped after several months amid better sales of other Android-powered smartphones.

Like the Nexus One, some future Android tablets are expected to be co-branded with Google’s name, said people familiar with the matter. The company is expected to sell devices from a variety of manufacturers. Google won’t make the devices and its existing partners such as Samsung Electronics Co. and AsusTeK Computer Inc. 2357.TW +0.18% will be responsible for the hardware, these people said.

One co-branded tablet that may be sold in the online store is due to be released later this year by Taiwan-based Asus, said one of these people.

Details of the project remain unclear, including when Google plans to unveil the online store. Google is expected to release the next version of its Android software, called Jelly Bean, in the middle of this year, people familiar with the matter have said.

Google will soon manufacture its own tablets, due to its pending $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility HoldingsInc., MMI -0.13% which has been approved in the U.S. and in Europe and is awaiting approval by Chinese authorities. People familiar with the Google’s plans said Motorola tablets are expected to be offered in the online store.

A Google spokesman declined to comment, as did an Asus spokeswoman.

By selling tablets directly to consumers, Google is upping the ante against Apple, which debuted its market-leading iPad two years ago. Android-based tablets made by Samsung and others have been slow sellers by comparison. Last fall research firm Gartner estimated Apple would capture 73% of the tablet market versus 17% for Android.

Google also faces competition from Amazon.com, which last year jumped into tablets with its $199 Kindle Fire, in a move to scoop up the less-expensive side of the market.

Google is seeking to increase adoption of its Android software so that its search, maps and other services—which generate the vast majority of its mobile revenue through the sale of ads—become mainstays in the mobile-device world.

While that revenue is small compared to PC-based ad sales, it’s a fast-growing category for Google, and tablets can command better ad prices than smartphones. Google Chief Executive Larry Page said last fall the company was on pace to generate more than $2.5 billion in revenue from mobile devices, largely through selling online ads on smartphones.

Google believes the current model for selling tablets is broken, said people familiar with its strategy. Google has watched as wireless carriers, who helped Android become the No. 1 mobile operating system for smartphones, have struggled to replicate that success with tablets.

While some wireless industry executives said Google’s Nexus One smartphone effort was a failure, Google Android chief Andy Rubin said previously that the company sold more than 100,000 of these phones in three months and “broke even” on its investment.

Mr. Rubin said Google stopped the effort because other new Android-powered phones were on par with or better than the Nexus One. Google also couldn’t figure out how to sell the Nexus One online on a global scale, he said, and its resources would be wasted in trying to line up wireless carriers in foreign countries to sell plans for the phone.

This time, however, Google won’t have to worry about pairing with wireless carriers because tablets are primarily used with WiFi connections in people’s homes.

To boost the prospects of its new online tablet store, Google was considering subsidizing the cost of future tablets in order to compete on pricing with Amazon’s Kindle Fire, said one person with knowledge of the effort.

In addition, Google will lend huge marketing support to the online tablet store, said people familiar with the effort. Since the Nexus One experiment, Google has honed its mass-marketing skills, spending heavily on TV ads and other marketing to promote services other than its Web-search engine.

The first tablet running Android software optimized for tablets, Motorola’s Xoom, went on sale in February 2011, nearly 11 months after the first iPad arrived. Motorola has said it sold about one million Xoom tablets in 2011, below its expectations. Several other Android-powered tablets, including two versions of Dell Inc.’s DELL +0.51% Streak tablets, have been discontinued.

Other manufacturers have noted the disappointing results. “Honestly, we’re not doing very well in the tablet market,” Hankil Yoon, a product strategy executive for Samsung, said at the Mobile World Congress conference earlier this year.

Physical stores will still remain an important sales channel for Google.

Some U.S. retailers are anxious for an Apple rival to emerge in the market, said people familiar with the matter. Some retailers that sell iPads have chafed under Apple’s rules that require stores to promote its products more prominently, these people said, and the retailers generate less revenue per sale of Apple products versus other electronic devices.

Google has taken other steps to be a consumer electronics brand. The company is directly overseeing the manufacturing of a Google-branded music and video streaming device, to be used in people’s homes, which it is expected to sell to consumers later this year, people familiar with the matter have said. It is unclear whether Google will offer the device as part of its new online store.

via Google to Sell Tablets on Its Own This Year – WSJ.com.