The World According To Kate » iPhone

iPhone Photography

Kate Czlapinski — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:36:34 +0000

It’s been almost two weeks since I first got my iPhone 3Gs and I have to say that I am still very impressed with it. I was originally a bit underwhelmed with the camera on it, but as with everything with the iPhone, there’s an app for that.

I tend to use the camera on my cell phones a lot – I take a lot of pictures (usually because I think I’ll be blogging about something later) and I carry a small purse. I have two digital cameras – one big one that Kevin got me a couple of years ago for my birthday and is quite awesome and one that is quite a bit smaller and I really just have for the sake of portability. I find that in most cases, though, the small one is even kind of a pain to carry around. I do, however, always have my phone on me – “and the best camera is the one that’s with you”.

Taking photos on my old Blackberry was never an enjoyable experience – they didn’t come out great and I found it was kind of a hassle to try to upload them to my PC or even use the Flickr app to upload them to my Flickr account. The iPhone and the various apps available to it make the whole experience far less painful.

In my recent search to find the best iPhone photo apps for my everyday use, I came across Chase Jarvis’s website dedicated to iPhone photography – The Best Camera (though I’ll admit I haven’t yet gotten around to downloading the app) and I’ve been very inspired by it and all you can potentially do with just an iPhone.

I’ve recently stopped using the basic iPhone camera and have downloaded the Snapture app to take all my photos. For just $1.99, it’s totally worth it – just for the ability to zoom in up to 5x. It also adds a number of other cool features including color filters, stability control, touch to focus, and integration with your Facebook and Twitter accounts – just to name a few.

I’ve also downloaded a few free editing apps, but for the most part, I’ve really found the Photoshop.com Mobile App to be the most useful. It just does everything I need it to do – right in one spot.

So now that I’ve taken a great photo and edited it if needed, what am I going to do with it? Just let it sit on my phone? Maybe if I was still using my Blackberry… but now I have better options. I’ve been playing around with another free app called Flickit to upload my photos directly to my Flickr account. I’ve even set it up so that by default they’re all being sent right to a set called “From My iPhone”. If I want them to go to another set, that can also be done quite simply. From there (as I’m sure you already know) they can instantly be viewed right here on my “Recent Photos” Page (which can be accessed from the top of this page if you hadn’t already noticed).

So with a few simple apps, two of which are free, I can quickly take a photo, edit it and have it uploaded to my Flickr account in a matter of a couple of minutes. It’s pretty neat. I definitely hope to do a lot more experimenting with these apps and I’m sure I’ll even try out a few more. In the meantime, you should check out my Recent Photos page to see some of the pictures I’ve taken in the last couple of weeks with my iPhone.

My new iPhone 3GS

Kate Czlapinski — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:38 +0000

OK, so I’ve had the new iPhone for over 24 hours, and because I’ve had the time off from work, I’ve had plenty of time to get acquainted with it, download a bunch of free apps, and just mess around. Having had all this time to play, I can safely admit that I love it. I love it way more than I ever intended to love it.

Let’s be honest , there was a part of me that didn’t want to love it (as much as one can NOT want to love an expensive new toy). I didn’t want to join the herd and morph into an iPerson. I felt like I was just too cool and at the same time not cool enough to just jump on board with the rest of the sheep. I’ve always considered myself to be a little bit of a sort of rebel geek (really more of an Android person, I guess, than anything) and getting an iPhone would just totally not fit with who I thought I was. I do love it, though, nonetheless.

AT&T just doesn’t have any Droids at the moment (though I do hear that should be changing soon) and my Blackberry was becoming a constant disappointment to me – slow and sluggish, clumsy when getting in and out of apps – sort of uncoordinated all around (the kind of disappointment I expect my future children to be at the playground). I was also frequently getting the White Screen of Death that could only be remedied with a battery pull – I don’t think that’s normal. It did what it did well – e-mail and messaging. It was awesome with those two tasks all the time. And that was great, but so much more is expected from a smartphone these days, and it just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

It was time for an upgrade and when it’s time for a new toy, I just do not have the kind of patience to wait for AT& T to get their act together and send in the Droids. I did a lot of thinking about it over the last couple of months and a TON of research and in the end, I just had to do it. I joined the herd.

Having spent some time now with the iPhone (I really hadn’t had the opportunity to play with one before), I can see why they are so wildly popular. They just work. An idiot could use it. Set up was ridiculously simple, it’s really really user friendly, and everything just… well… it just sort of works -seamlessly. Everything is synced up with my Google stuff – that’s something I was worried about. Would it work as well as it did on my Blackberry? Yes. It works just as well – although, I do miss the little flashing notification light at the top.

Even web browsing is perfect- and speedy – way better than I ever imagined it could be on a smartphone. Let’s not even begin to compare it with my old Blackberry, because that’s just not even fair.

And the apps… oh, the apps. I downloaded about 15 free ones… and they’e keeping me pretty busy for now. A few games, a weather app, a couple of news apps, Pandora (of course), Facebook, TweetDeck, Hello Vino (a wine app), Epicurious, Urbanspoon, WordPress (so I can now blog mobilely) and a few others… enough to entertain me for now.

So yes, I love it… It’s very quick, simple to use, and really quite beautiful. I joined the herd. Am I proud? No. Do I feel like a little bit of a sellout? Yes. Is it worth it, though? No question.

Now I’ve done it…

Kate Czlapinski — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:24:15 +0000

So now I’ve done it… I hit the button.

I just ordered myself a new iPhone… it probably should arrive early next week, which I have off, so I’ll have plenty of time to play with it. Soon I will be an iPerson – one of those people I normally make fun of. I feel more like a tool already – a very trendy tool. Happy early birthday to me

I’m sure in the next week or so you’ll be inundated with posts about everything I love and hate about the new toy. Stay tuned.