Rounding out a day packed with Apple announcements and general excitement at the WWDC 2012, here’s one final Apple tidbit coming from rumor site Apple Insider. According to them, recent job postings at Apple hint at the possibility of an Aperture mobile app coming in the near future. After receiving a tip from an anonymous user, Apple Insider found that the Aperture team is looking to fill quite a few manager and developer positions, many of which require experience developing on the iOS platform in one form or another. Read more…
It looks like previous rumors about an updated photo stream in iOS6 were right. Apple has officially announced what they’re calling “shared photo streams,” which are exactly what they sound like: mark certain photos or albums as “shared,” choose who you would like to share them with, and you’re done. The folks you chose to share the album with will get a notification (if they have an iOS6 device or a Mac with Mountain Lion) and be able to browse, like and comment on your pictures in iPhoto, Aperture, or even on AppleTV. Non-Apple users will have to settle with browsing your shared photos on the web. Read more…
Big updates coming at you from Apple’s WWDC for the MacBook Pro line today, the most impressive of which was their super thin, “next generation” 15-inch MacBook Pro that now boasts a retina display. With 220 pixels per inch, and over 5 million pixels overall, the screen will offer 4-times the resolution of previous models — needless to say we’re impressed with the photo edition possibilities here. Read more…
Kodak has been selling off its assets left and right as it tries to dig itself out of its financial hole. Most recently, it “successfully” sold its Gallery business to Shutterfly. But Kodak’s most prized possession, and the sale it was hoping to make up the most ground with, is its massive collection of patents split into two portfolios. Read more…
A new patent application by Apple is showing off some of the technology we may be finding in the next generation camera. The application, which you can read in its entirety here, mentions a few new features, among them the ability to select multiple focus points, allowing the the phone to take over and adjust the aperture, exposure and even post-process to get the best possible picture for those points.
A few other notable features mentioned in the patent include motion tracking for focus, automatic sharpening of key areas, and the possibility of a dedicated image processor (instead of the image processing hardware built into the A5 chip?). Of course we can’t be sure that these advances will make their way into the next iPhone or that they’ll see the light of day at all, but just the fact that Apple is taking this much of an interest in improving an already good smartphone camera seems to bode well for the phoneotographers among us.
(via Photography Bay)
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is planning on becoming more invested in photos and video with the next iterations of iCloud and, subsequently, iOS. The updates, which are expected to be announced officially at the WWDC starting June 11th, will include the addition of video synching similar to the current photo stream alongside some exciting photo-sharing capabilities.
Up until now iCloud has been entirely a synching service (take a picture on your iPhone and you have it on all of your devices right away) but the new iCloud will allow users to create and share albums with other iCloud users. As is usually the case with Apple details are hard to come by, but sources “familiar with the matter” are fairly certain we should expect social-network-like sharing and commenting abilities. Watch your back Flickr, Apple’s coming for you!
Apple Plans iCloud Upgrade (via The Next Web)
After dipping its toes in Apple’s Mac App Store last July by offering Photoshop Elements, Adobe has now jumped in headfirst by listing its professional-caliber program, Lightroom 4. The download costs $150 and tips the scales at 388MB. Adobe might be a giant company, but it gets charged the same commission as any other developer: for every copy sold through the App Store, Apple pockets a cool $45.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 (via The Verge)
Back in August we featured a service called JPEGmini, which gives anybody the ability to shrink their photos up to 5-times in size without any visible quality difference — a substantial claim, but one that the service seemed to live up to quite well (we use it regularly). Read more…
Now here’s a divisive photo series that will draw both anger and cheers: graphic designer (and former Apple employee) Michael Tompert teamed up with photographer Paul Fairchild for a project titled 12LVE that consists of photographs showing annihilated Apple products. Here’s the description:
12LVE [...] provides society a mirror, forcing us to question our infatuation with mere objects. By annihilating the adored, pulverizing the precious, and obliterating the beloved, 12LVE reminds us that although these objects have become quasi-religious icons, we will soon discard and replace them with the new crop—sleeker, faster, shinier.
Read more…
We’ve all seen photographers make mad dashes into group portraits, hoping to get into position before the camera’s self timer automatically snaps a photograph. Apple wants to make those a thing of the past. A new patent filed by the company (#20120057039) describes a new and smarter self-timer system that uses facial recognition in addition to the standard timer. Using a picture of the photographer’s face, the camera will wait until the shooter is in the scene before starting the countdown, ensuring that everyone in the photo has the same amount of time to put on a picture perfect smile.
(via Patently Apple via Ubergizmo)
