Photoshop Mobile for iPhone

A quick perusal of Apple's iTunes store and you will be overwhelmed with choices of photo editing applications for your iPhone and iPod Touch. Adobe has just released Photoshop.com Mobile that lets you quickly and easily edit and share your photos with simple gestures directly on your iPhone.


Simply take pictures with your iPhone and either edit them on the device itself or save your photos at the free Photoshop Account. Signing up is easy, then you can upload, store and share all of you iPhone photos, saving you space on your iPhone.


Some of the editing features:
-crop, rotate and flip
-adjust exposure, saturation, tint and black and white
-sketch, soft focus
-various effects (vibrant, blur, blow, warm vintage)

Adobe has done a great job of filling a void where there wasn't one before. This is one of the better photo editing and storing applications available right now on the iTunes store, and it's all free. It definitely Kicks Butt!

RedLaser for iPhone

One interesting observation I've made with the iPhone is that the device, the plan and all the associated applications have helped me part with money even faster than I ever could before. For starters I pay more than I did for the Blackberry, I use it far more than I ever used a mobile phone before and I purchase a huge number of applications and songs that I didn't before.

Now I can even use my iPhone to purchase airline tickets, books, groceries... whatever! Sometimes I come across an app that can help save money. RedLaser just happens to be one of these great applications. Using the camera device in your iPhone (first-gen, 3G and 3GS) the application scans the barcode of any item and tells you about what item you've scanned. It then searches Google Product Search and Amazon for the lowest online price for that item.



This is a great iPhone application that lets you shop smarter and be confident that you've made a smart purchase. The app will also keep an inventory of what you've scanned and email a list of products.

Data-less maps for travel!

Unless I need it, I usually don't carry my iPhone with me when I travel out of country. The charges associated with data and long distance calls are outrageous. I've used the GPS map feature on my iPhone to find my way around a new city, but at a huge cost.

Thanks to Dubbele's Mobile Street Maps, you can now pre-download an entire map of a place you will be traveling to. It works where Google Maps isn't accessible, or when you have data turned off (Flight mode) on your iPhone. Even without internet access you can still search for locations. The Dutch company has applications for a huge number of cities, over 400 to date. Some are free apps and some cost up to $2. It will pay for itself every trip, and once you've downloaded it once, it's on your iPhone until you delete it!



You won't have the GPS location of where you are but using these maps will help you get around without the worry of paying extra for the data.

Bryan Adams 11

Last night I saw Bryan Adams play in a smaller venue, which was very nicely done. I've been a big fan of his for the last 25 years and I've always enjoyed seeing him play live. He played only with an acoustic guitar and harmonica, his voice and a pianist who played along for about 2/3 of the songs. He started off by playing one of his classic songs off the Reckless album, Run to you. Bryan then played a mix of his new songs (from the Album 11) some older songs and some I've never heard of. He entertained us with stories and also explained the inspirations for some songs.


Now you might be wondering what this has to do with iPhones but there is a connection, I promise! I bought the four tickets in June using my iPhone because I was away at the time. I also had a bid on some premium seats that gave the ticket holders a post concert meeting and photo op with Bryan. I was tracking my bid while in Vegas but got outbid by someone who was willing to part with more money than I was. Last night I was kicking myself thinking that I should have kept bidding, but considering I was losing money in Vegas at the time I was trying to be financially prudent.

The story continues... I used my iPhone last night to find the venue and work our way through the one-way streets to find parking that didn't require a cab ride to the concert. Nearing the end of the excellent performance Bryan Adams put on, a member of the audience yelled out "Bryan can we take pictures?" His answer was "sure" and out came the cameras! I've never seen anything like it. At once point I looked around and saw many iPhones up getting shots of the show. There were a few 3GS iPhones taking video too. Funny thing was, i kept my iPhone in my pocket and resisted the urge to bring it out. I was enjoying the show too much!

2 Billion App Downloads

Apple announced today that more than two Billion (2,000,000,000) applications have been downloaded from its app store. That is one heck of a big number. There are now over 85,000 applications available on the iTunes store. Apple has more than 50 Million (50,000,000) iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide. The iPhone is now available in 77 countries with some recent huge market entries just announced!


Another incredible fact about the number of downloads is the speed at which downloads are increasing. Apple's app store had half a billion, that's 500 Million, downloads in the last quarter alone. It will eventually slow but at this point sales are going ballistic.

What surprised me about the big 2 Billion number is the yawing and lack of incredibleness reported about it! I was thinking last week about Apple's great success recently, and more specifically how great the iPhone has been for them. It got me thinking... "what's next?" I wonder this because there are some other very serious players out there making moves and unless Apple has another big hit in the next year or two, they too could end up a thing of the past. RIM learned a hard lesson about being late with the Blackberry Storm and bringing out a device that doesn't compete well with the iPhone. Will Apple get taken down a peg or two by Google or Microsoft?

It's going to be interesting to watch in the next year or two!

Would you Survive?

Would you survive without your iphone? How about if you were stranded on a deserted island? There is a new game on the iTunes store that quizzes you so see how you could survive is stranded. Using this app you can find out if you would be able to rough it out until help arrives to save you, or if you would perish the first day.

Would You Survive? is a free iPhone application that will probably teach you a few tricks about survival, whether you are truly stuck on Gilligan's Island or just in everyday life.

Here is an example of the types of questions you will be asked!

Play this app with your iPhone or iPod touch. Chances are you would be more likely to survive if you had your iPhone with you on a deserted island. Apart from being able to call for help and know your exact position, you could look up the answers to the question that could save your life!

App Store Resource Center

To help developers with creating apps for their iTunes store, Apple now has an App Store Resource Center. This shows new would-be developers the process and documentation required to launch an application on the iTunes store for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

At first glance this looks like a huge improvement. Even for those who are familiar with Cocoa Touch and the programming, Apple has some long and arduous processes before an application can reach the iTunes store. I guess what I thought it was, and what I hoped it would be, would be an truly easier process. I think the resource center is great but it doesn't really make the process any easier.

For a Kick Butt company with some Kick Butt application on a Kick Butt device... I was somewhat disappointed. I'd give Apple a C+ on this one!


I like this funny flow chart of how Apple decides on apps!