512 Pixels

It is always weird to see a flagship product crumble away.

Justin Lee:

Six months ago, I was reading Kinfolk, a culture and lifestyle magazine with lots of beautiful photos. Flipping through it was a really delightful experience. Then it came to me, what if I could flip through my own photos as if they were a beautiful photo magazine, say on my iPad? And even better, what if I didn’t have to organize and layout the photos?

And that was the beginning of Photo Book Flip. After five months of design and development, the app has finally come to life.

Photo Book Flip instantly turns the photos on your iPad into a beautiful digital photo book with a single tap. Inspired by photo-centric magazines like Kinfolk and beautiful cookbooks like Mast Brothers Chocolate and Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee, the page layout features a minimalist design to spotlight your moments. And just like the iBooks app, as you flip each page, you’ll also see what’s behind the page as if it was a real book.

Photo Book Flip lets you experience your photos in a delightful and different way. Like what physical photo albums do, they’ve created this app to celebrate the wonderful memories and moments in everyone’s life.

Find it on the App Store at a limited-time introductory price of $0.99 and learn more on the Apperie website. You’re going to like it. Please check it out, and let them know how we they make it better.

Sponsored via Syndicate Ads

This week marks the sixth anniversary of the App Store, as Jim Dalrymple reminds us:

On July 10, 2008, Apple launched the App Store, forever changing the way we use smartphones, tablets and many other devices. Think about how you used devices before apps, and how you use them today—there is no comparison. The iPhone and apps have changed the world.

(This means the iPhone 3G and MobileMe are also six years old. This batch of releases is one reason I left the Apple Store.)

Here’s Scott Forstall introducing the original iPhone OS SDK:

While it’s hard to believe now, early iPhone apps couldn’t do much. Things like multitasking, notifications and copy and paste weren’t present in 2008. When an app was closed, it was dead, and data was even more locked away into silos than it is now.

All that aside, those early days of the App Store were magical. In fact, by the end of the first month, my iPhone was already set up with several screens of apps:

One of the early apps that really stands out to me to this day is Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D. By today’s standards, the racing game isn’t much to look at or experience, but it turned my iPhone from something useful to something fun.

Sometime over the last six years, however, my iPhone has turned from something fun into something indispensable. Most days, it’s not only my iPod, camera and phone, but my primary computer. I couldn’t do my job or run this site without it.

In his review of the iPhone 3G, John Gruber wrote:

If I could travel back 20 years and show my then 15-year-old self just one thing from the future of today, it would be the iPhone. It is our flying cars. Star Trek-style wireless long-distance voice communicator. The content of every major newspaper and magazine in the world. An encyclopedia. Video games. TV. Etc.

Over the last six years, this has held up pretty well, but Apple doesn’t deserve all the credit. A device is only as good as what it can do, and thanks to the App Store and third-party developers, they can do just about anything.

Speaking of The Prompt, yesterday’s episode was a lot of fun:

Myke, Federico and Stephen follow-up on Sherlocking and discuss photo management in the light of the upcoming Photos app from Apple. Then Myke shares his experience with Android Wear and the Weekly Picks sound effect gets played for the first time in ages.

Oh, and I yell about my actual age and Federico sings some Justin Bieber.

Myke Hurley:

Today I am announcing that I will be departing 5by5 on July 16th 2014.

The last 18 months have been a tremendous experience, but it is time for me to move on to new things. I have new goals that I want to tackle, and to be able to do this I need to be independent again.

Next week will mark the last episodes of Myke’s shows on 5by5, including The Prompt. To settle any doubts: Federico and I are 100% behind Myke, and we aren’t done doing things together.

Stay tuned.

Ben Brooks:

This week I am joined by Stephen Hackett of 512pixels.net, and The Prompt. We discuss wearables and how fashion is going to make this a tough market to crack, and diving into the unknown waters of what Apple may offer.

I enjoyed my chat with Ben. We broke down what’s on the market now and pretended we were smart enough to guess what’s going on behind locked doors in Cupertino.

I wonder if this is good news or bad news for the Mac mini.

Or if anyone at Apple remembers the Mac mini is still for sale.

Sigh.

My favorite podcast ended today. Here’s my friend Matt Alexander:

Historians often reflect upon Bionic’s turning point — episode 51 — wherein Myke accidentally loosened his grip on the narrative and we ended up on an odd trajectory discussing nothing in particular for 44 episodes. So, for those looking to see what all of this was about or wondering why “Car, Plane, or Boat?” is a serious question, I’d recommend starting there.

I mention those episodes because, simply put, Bionic’s later moments — fondly known as the Bonanza episodes — were a constant source of happiness for Myke and I.

Personally, whilst going through periods of intense self-doubt and worry regarding Need and the future, Bionic represented a moment — albeit brief — of respite, ridiculousness, and disconnection from reality. I know it was emblematic of something similar for Myke, too.

Today’s episode is great, but if you haven’t listened to Bionic, take Matt’s advice. Go download episode 51 and get to work.

What a guy. He’s been to the moon and to Reddit. I wonder which one was scarier.

For a while now, I’ve been using Dropbox as my photo management solution.

It’s not the cheapest thing on the planet, but it works for me. However, with Photos for OS X coming soon, I’m re-thinking my long-term strategy.

Apple has to prove to users that it can sync and stream photos, but if the system will work the way the company says it will, it looks compelling. So compelling, in fact, that I’m already thinking about my migration strategy.

On last week’s ATP, John Siracusa spoke about his photo management solution, iPhoto. He’s spent hours and hours over the last decade fine-tuning his metadata, making it easy to dial in to a small set of photos using time, location, ratings and even facial recognition.

That discovery isn’t possible using just the file system. While I have Hazel name my files by creation date and I sort them into folders, finding the right photo usually means thumbing through Finder with Quick Look.

With Photos on the horizon, I’m seriously considering importing my 66 GB photo library and hammer out some metadata work in iPhoto, then transition to Photos.app when it’s released.

Update: Jordan Patterson brings up an excellent question:

@ismh do you plan on waiting for photos on the Mac or will you use iOS to import unit iCloud photo library?

— Jordan Patterson (@JordanPatterson) July 8, 2014

The split launch thing Apple’s doing here is going to be annoying. Hopefully the Mac OS X application will be released as a beta when iOS 8 is launched.

Dr. Drang, in response to last week’s episode of The Prompt:

As I said a few years ago, the likelihood that an app will be Sherlocked depends less on the quality of the app than on the effort Apple puts into its purported replacement.

The example Papa Drang uses is Apple’s own Podcasts app. As he writes, Apple took the nascent podcast market and Sherlocked guys like iPodderX and Odeo with iTunes in 2005.

Of course, Apple re-Sherlocked the podcast client scene with its own first-party client, as The Good Doctor wrote:

Unlike the podcast integration in iTunes, the Podcasts app was clumsy, ugly, and harder to use than the existing third-party solutions. A later version of Podcasts was said to be an improvement, but it still stunk. When a further update hit the App Store, I refused to test it myself and waited for others to report on the new odor. This was a good decision.

Apple’s tendency to is to move into a complex market with an app or solution that covers the basics in an easy-to-use way. Very often, this leaves room in the market for third-party apps to cater to power users. Pocketcasts, Instacast, Castro and Downcast are all doing fine. Hell, new players are joining the fray.

While the pocket created at the high-end of the market is great for users and developers, it speaks volumes about how Apple approaches software, and highlights the tension that some of us have felt for years while dealing with Cupertino’s applications. Final Cut Pro X, GarageBand and iWork have all taken big hits after recent updates. More on topic, the feature set for Apple’s Podcast apps looks good on paper, it is more or less a dud. It currently is rocking a 1.5 star rating on the App Store.

All of this builds the case that being Sherlocked doesn’t have to be a death sentence for an application. Apple launching an app with a similar feature set as a popular app doesn’t mean Apple’s solution will be popular … or good.

Ashley Feinberg:

That lingering coolness factor only makes it all the more depressing when you realize that, today, the Razr is a barely functional, actively-out-to-sabotage you bit of technological refuse. What was once displayed with pride on a shiny store pedestal, I found on eBay for $36 and sandwiched between a bulk set of broken chargers and discontinued memory cards.

As someone with a moderate to severe smartphone dependency, I knew my Razr month would be an adjustment. But I would have never guessed which things actually ended up needing the adjusting. Here’s everything I learned during 30 days soundtracked by polyphonic ringtones and my own, gentle cries of defeat. Kids, please, don’t try this at home.

In November 2012, I switched back to a dumbphone, and while my experiment failed miserably, I did learn a lot about myself and how I use technology.