Monthly Archives: February 2012
Adobe Photoshop Touch For IPad Now Available On The App Store
Hey there photo buffs.
Adobe Photoshop Touch for IPad is now available on the App Store.
This is a long-awaited release and further enhances the collaboration between Adobe and Apple.
The price is higher than the norm -$9.99 -but it comes packed with features that will keep all of us busy into the early hours of the morning.
Here is what you can expect:
Use Photoshop features designed for the tablet such as layers, selection tools, adjustments, and filters to create mind-blowing images. Use new Scribble Select to easily keep and remove elements of an image.
Choose images from multiple sources, including social sites like Facebook, online image searches such as Google Image Search, or a live feed from your tablet’s camera — all directly within Adobe Photoshop Touch.
Entertain friends and family by easily sharing your new images on Facebook. See their comments right in Adobe Photoshop Touch.
Browse an inspirational gallery for the styles and results you’d like to achieve, and then follow step-by-step tutorial guides to easily learn techniques the pros use for great-looking results.
It is available now, so slap down $9.99 and you are good to go.
Mastered For ITunes: Arts And Technology Just Moved One Step Closer
Pinch me! I am still here, right? Is this the best news since sliced bread?
A couple of days ago, Apple quietly (they’ve been doing that a lot lately) released an exciting advancement for digital music – Mastered For ITunes.
Over time, I have recorded three CDs and, each time, I was relegated to sitting behind the recording engineer while he tried to decipher exactly what I was looking for in my recorded music.
How I wanted to snatch the controls away from him! And, in a moment of weakness and frustration, he relented and let me do my thing at the control panel. But, truth be told, I was itching to leap over the hurdles and just take over the whole project.
Yet overall, after hooking up with an excellent mastering engineer, the final product was quite good even though the music still did not sound fully refined. The original recording equipment was not state of the art, so the mastering engineer had to work within its limitations.
And the digital experience didn’t help matters. The digital music product sounded very compressed (which, in fact it was), tinny and lacked the dynamic strength and sparkle of the original master.
Enter Mastered For ITunes.
Thanks to Apple’s relentless vision for excellence, now everyone’s future recorded products will be a true reflection of their personal vision. In other words, with Apple’s help, one will truly be master of their musical domain. ( had to grab this Seinfeld goodie before someone else thought of it)
Now I just need to find the time to upload some recorded product via Mastered For iTunes. Presently, I am immersed in IBooks Author, working on my first interactive book. But, since I will be in the vicinity of an Apple store very soon, I hope to get OneToOne assistance with both IBooks Author and Mastered For ITunes.
There is a great article from AllThingsDigital.Com that highlights legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young’s frustration at the quality of today’s digital music.
I came across this article via The New York Times, which succinctly summarized the higher level of quality that Apple is bringing to digital music via Mastered For ITunes.
There is also more detailed information about Mastered For ITunes at PCMag.Com and Tuaw.Com.
The Mastered For ITunes guidelines are a long but necessary read, almost fascinating actually if you like this kind of stuff. I wiled away most of my Saturday afternoon just trying to figure out all the terminology. Keep the ‘ole brain going, right?
I won’t pretend to understand every little detail but I do understand the bottom line. Digital music will now reflect the original master, as long as the mastering engineer works within Apple’s framework for excellence. How exciting is that?
I smell another Grammy for Apple. Do you?
Happy 57th Birthday Steve Jobs. You Are Missed!
Heaven has inherited a tech angel in the form of Steven Paul Jobs. I am sure that my deceased father, who loves gadgets and from whom I inherited this love, is having a grand ‘ole time watching Steve weave his magic in his new home – the spiritual ICloud.
But, here on earth, we are celebrating what would have been Steve Jobs’ 57th birthday. And, even though he is no longer with us in body, his spirit is an everlasting presence each and every day of our lives. Well, certainly my life.
For instance, I am typing this article on the IPad, while receiving text messages via my IPhone. My Mac is booted up and ready to use each day, seamlessly supported by Time Machine via Time Capsule back-ups.
And later on this evening, I will fire up my Apple TV to watch a movie and to access AirPlay in order to view the latest videos of my grandchildren.
Earlier in the day, I entertained my 1-year-old grandson with both my IPhone and IPad – stories, music, games in the form of Children’s Apps are the norm around here.
And, like many babies and toddlers out there, he has already mastered the art of pinching and swiping.
This blog and so many like it exist because of Steve Jobs’ passion for technology and the arts. I am a musician and it was through the Apple experience that I was able to fully embrace all that technology could offer in terms of creative possibilities.
GarageBand, IMovie, IBooks Author, IPhoto Calendars and Books, not mention all the media and photo apps available – all spoke to my innate desire to create, create, create!
The passion for creativity is ageless and Steve Jobs understood all this from day one. From young children to young children at heart, the Apple experience was created for people who never wanted to grow up. We have a bit of this Peter Pan complex in all of us, but, for some of us, it really is a way of life.
Unfortunately, I came late to the Apple party – June 2009. I walked into the local Future Shop, fell in love with the IMac 24″, bought the last one – a floor model but brand new – and never looked back.
In closing, I would like to express my heartfelt thoughts and prayers to his wife Laurene, his children, his colleagues – everyone who was influenced by this extraordinary man.
And – one more thing – please take the time to leave a message on the website created for Steve Jobs’ birthday.
Move Over Lion. There’s A New Kittie Cat On The Block And It Is Huge.
Apple is moving fast and furious with their updates and news releases. First it was IBooks Textbooks For The IPad, IBooks Author, then the leaking news about the imminent release of the IPad 3 and now, yet another update for the Mac.
Introducing OS X Mountain Lion – the successor to Lion OS X. And, it looks like this Mac App only update, scheduled to be released in late summer, is going to fill Lion’s shoes – or paws, so to speak, very nicely.
Everyone is giddy with excitement, as this update will be a true reflection of everything that is now possible on the IPad. Except, now you can sit at your Mac, texting and tweeting the hours away as you work on your Mac projects.
Here are some of the highlights of Mountain Lion, from the pages of Mashable.Com:
And Mac OS X has had to throw out some of its stuff. Bouncing icons in the dock? Who needs them when you’ve got Notifications, which appear in classy banners down the side of the screen? The venerable antique Instant Message software, iChat, a 2002 vintage? A stupid wagon-wheel coffee table, says iOS. Throw it out.
Instead, here’s iMessage, which will still let you IM your contacts (if you must). But what it really wants you to do is use Apple’s seamless texting replacement of the same name. Admittedly, the thought of being able to immediately text anyone with an iPhone for free from your desktop is so unbelievably cool, it can bring on an attack of the vapors.
You get the sense the Mac is going to be happy with its new roommate. What’s not to like about Airplay, which can seamlessly mirror your desktop on an HDTV? Or a separate Notes app, where you can attach notes to the desktop like stickies? Or Game Center, which will mean a lot more cross-device play?
Or a “share sheet,” which effectively means developers are going to be able to put Twitter buttons everywhere? Mountain Lion will already let you tweet from all standard OS X apps such as Safari and Photo Booth. That means you can sit and take photos of yourself and instantly tweet them, to your heart’s content. It’s a boon for Twitter users (Twitter readers, not so much).
.
And, of course, everything will be seamlessly synchronized with your mobile devices via ICloud. So, for example, if you are working on a Pages document on the Mac, your work will be stored in the cloud for future access on another device. Or vice versa. The possibilities are endless.
Technology is a very good thing. And Apple technology is even more exciting, healthy even. You know, “An Apple (product) a day keeps the doctor away”. And, when you are a senior citizen, this motto makes even more sense and resonates to a higher degree.
So, if you haven’t upgraded to Lion, does this bit of news entice you to do so? I finally caved in January and, at the time, wondered what took me so long? It went without a hitch.
My only concern: isn’t Apple going to run out of cat names soon? Cheers!
The Type A – pple Approach To Detail. Apple’s Obsession With Perfection
This little Monday morning tidbit breaks me up!
I guess excellence really is in the details. And Apple -thanks to Steve Jobs – has proven time and again that this motto is firmly embedded in the work ethic of their employees.
From their meticulous attention to packaging and design, to their life-changing products and their compelling presentations and events, Apple has relentlessly taken a Type A approach to the manner in which their products are unveiled to and viewed by the consumers.
Now, a new tidbit has surfaced thanks to RedmondPie.Com, addressing the mother of all of Apple’s penchant for detail, perfection and precision.
According to the article, there is a valid reason why the IPhone’s time is always set to 9:42 in Apple’s advertisements. And, if you are a fellow Type A, you’re going to love this!
Here is an excerpt from RedmondPie.Com’s article:
A bit of Google-fu tells us that Apple VP Scott Forstall has also weighed in on the story, and we much prefer his take on things. While the story does fit with Borchers to some extent, Forstall says that the 9:42 reference comes from Apple wanting the iPhone’s image to pop up on the big screen at around the 40-minute mark of Apple events. Apple eventually plumped for 9:42, so that the time on the image would match, as near as possible, the actual time when the latest handset is shown off.
“We design the (product launch) keynotes so that the big reveal of the product happens around 40 minutes into the presentation. When the big image of the product appears on screen, we want the time shown to be close to the actual time on the audience’s watches. But we know we won’t hit 40 minutes exactly.”
The story might also explain why the iPad tends to have a time of 9:41 in press images, with a similar story being true. While the times might not line up exactly during the keynotes at which new iPhones and iPads are announced, it tends to be fairly close at least.
However, on Apple’s IPhone page, the IPhone is set to 9:41. Very perplexing, but close enough.
Is that jaw-dropper or no? Who thinks up this stuff? Pretty incredible!
GrannieTheGeek.Com 