iPhone

April 2, 2012

Some recent ‘Draw Something’ sketches.

I’ve been playing Draw Something for a few weeks now. Sometimes, I take the scenic route and enjoy a few extra minutes sketching for my partners.

 

May 25, 2011

Using the iPhone as a barcode scanner for Delicious Library 2.

A few years back, I picked up the Apple Design Award winning cataloging app Delicious Library for keeping track of my ever-expanding DVD collection. One of the (then) amazing features of the program was the ability to scan barcodes of DVDs, CDs, books, etc., with your Mac’s iSight camera, and download details about the object from Amazon.

The obvious caveat was the fact that you needed to have the stack of objects sitting beside the computer. Okay if you only have a few, but when you have a few hundred DVDs, books, and CDs to deal with, it could be a challenge.

After quite some time of not touching it, I went back last week to play with Delicious Library 2 again only to discover that I neglected to transfer it and it’s data whenever I moved to my current MacBook Pro last year. I thought it’d be fun to scan my DVD’s again, so I went on the hunt for an iPhone app that’d help with the task.

It turns out, surprisingly, that there is no official iOS app for Delicious Library. It has to do with limitations in the license of the Amazon API, so the hopes of seeing one anytime soon is nil.

I did, however, have barcode scanning app RedLaser installed on my phone. I’ve used RedLaser in the past for QR codes, but it also works quite well with standard barcodes, so I thought I’d try to figure out how I might be able to get my scans from it to Delicious Library. Turns out it’s quite simple.

The workflow:

  1. Clear your previous scans in RedLaser.
  2. Scan the items with RedLaser. Make sure that the “Multiple” toggle on the bottom of the screen is on.
  3. When you’re finished scanning, go back to the Scanned Items list.
  4. Hit the share icon in the lower left corner and select Email Product List. Email the list to yourself.
  5. Back on your computer, save the raw-barcodes.txt file attached to the email you just sent yourself.
  6. Rename this file “Scanned UPCs Log.txt”
  7. Drag this file into the left-hand sidebar of Delicious Library 2. Voilà.

There’s a couple of downsides to this method. For starters, it’s not as fast as a dedicated barcode scanner, but if you’re just doing it for kicks like I was, you probably don’t care. Secondly, if one of the UPCs you’ve scanned is not in the Amazon database, you won’t know until you go to import the entire batch. It lets you know it can’t find the items with those barcodes, but unless you’re a Raymond Babbitt-esque savant, you’ll have to match up your Delicious Library with your physical one to see which items are missing.

Then again, if you are Rain Man, you likely don’t need software to help you keep track of your media.

November 22, 2010

iPhone 3GS + iOS 4.2 + Apple TV: AirPlay early impressions.

The main reason I’ve been looking forward to the iOS 4.2 release has been the AirPlay feature. Ever since it was announced, I’ve been trying to figure out how it was going to work with my 3GS, specifically in terms of streaming video from my phone to our much-loved Apple TV.

After I got my iPhone and Apple TV updated, I played around with some of the AirPlay functionality a bit. This is what I found:

  • Streaming video from the iPhone seems to work in the iPod and YouTube apps. It, very surprisingly, does not work in the Photos app, so there’s no way to immediately play the videos you’ve shot with your phone on the Apple TV. Drag.
  • The NFB app will play its audio through the Apple TV, but no video. I assume other third party video apps will work the same way, but didn’t try any others. Double drag.
  • Playing back photos works well, for the most part. That said, I can’t see myself using it a whole lot, as the best photos I’ve taken are generally on Flickr or iPhoto, so I can see them there through those Apple TV apps.
  • Photos taken in portrait orientation were shown sideways on the screen, with the exception of screenshots. I’m sure we’ll see a fix for this soon.
  • Playing back music is exactly as one would expect it to be. Again, however, any music I have on my iPhone is already being streamed to the Apple TV from my computer, so there’s nothing too exciting here.

I think there’s some exciting potential for the AirPlay functionality. It’d be great to be able to stream any video I can play on my phone to the TV. It’d essentially bring hundreds of apps to the Apple TV right there. That said, content providers are generally pretty stingy with what devices they let their content be screened on, so it may be a while before we see this.

Also, the idea that anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch on my network can stream their photos, music, or videos to the Apple TV is pretty cool too.

On another note, AirPlay from iTunes to the Apple TV is kinda fun. I know people have been enjoying it with AirTunes for a while now, but I only got to try it for the first time a few nights ago. It’s definitely nice to be able to play and control music from iTunes through the stereo while I work at the computer.

December 10, 2009

Ustream Broadcaster for iPhone.

While at work yesterday, friend and co-worker Yuxing (Felix) Huang notified me that the Ustream Live Broadcaster iPhone app had been approved and was available for download. Naturally, we jumped on our phones and downloaded it straight away.

Once downloaded, I started it up, entered my Ustream deets, and started broadcasting, live to the world, from my phone.


This video is pretty long and boring. It was shot as a test. You’ve been warned.

It worked. Beautifully.

I know the app has been available for a while know for Jailbroken iPhones, but being a straight and narrow guy, my phone isn’t Jailbroken and thus I’ve never tried it. The app allows you to broadcast to your Ustream channel (at a resolution of 320×240), notify people that you’re broadcasting via Twitter and Facebook, and upload to Ustream, Facebook, and YouTube after you’re done shooting.

Also, Felix was able to shoot video with the app on his iPhone 3G, which we both found pretty interesting, seeing as though there are no other apps with Apple’s blessing that do so for the 3G. It was choppy (maybe 10 fps) but it worked.

The app also allows you to see the chatbox and poll the audience while streaming. I have no idea if all of this functionality was available in the version for Jailbroken phones or not, but it seems to be pretty feature-packed, all things considered.

The Ustream Live Broadcaster app is available (for free) on the iTunes App Store.

October 29, 2009

ReelDirector video editing app for iPhone.

I finally got a chance to try out the ReelDirector video editing app for iPhone.

I shot this quick video while I was making coffee at the office this morning, and cut it together, on my iPhone, while I was eating lunch.

Original video on Vimeo.

ReelDirector was pretty easy and intuitive to use. It lets you add clips to the timeline by going into your camera roll, selecting the clip you want, trimming it (as you would with the iPhone’s default video app), and tapping “Choose” to pop it in. Once your clips are in the timeline, you can rearrange them (similar to the old school iMovie’s clip viewer) and add transitions. You can add opening and closing titles in a variety of styles, and when you’re finished editing, the video saves back to your camera roll.

That said, ReelDirector lacked some of the features I assumed it would have (and I don’t think I had really lofty expectations). For starters, you can’t access the camera from within the app, and therefore, have to do all your shooting before you launch it. Not a big thing, but surprising.

There is no way to edit audio. Even something as simple as being able to select a song from your music library is a feature I’m surprised to find absent. Also, while you can add titles to the beginning and end of the video, the app doesn’t let you place titles anywhere else in the video.

There is one major bug with ReelDirector: it does not intelligently rotate your clips. The app assume that all your clips were shot with the iPhone tilted on its left side. Any clips shot the opposite way will result in the clip being upside down in the timeline, and there is no option to rotate it yourself. Bizarre, yes, but true (“coffee time” actually had a whole section that I had to turn right side up after downloading it from my phone).

In the end, you have to ask if the app is worth the price. ReelDirector costs $7.99, but seeing as though it’s currently the only video editing application for iPhone, I’m surprised it doesn’t cost more. If you’re looking for something to stitch video clips together, it works (save for the clip orientation bug mentioned above).

If you’re looking for an iMovie Lite, however, you won’t find it here.