Keep your eyes open for InstaAlbum©, an all new virtual photo album viewing app for your iPad photos and videos that automatically includes the photos from your existing photo albums. The app is in final test now and should go into the App Store for processing very soon! If you’ve been waiting for a beautiful and intuitive way to show your photos and videos on your iPad, this is what you’ve been waiting for.
Check-out the new iAlbum HD on youtube at http://youtu.be/SOaOPZRYojI
Check out the new updates at http://www.applgasm-apps.com/flex_notes.html and http://www.applgasm-apps.com/total_recall.html
Total Recall has been approved and release on the App Store. Total Recall is very much like Cornell Notes, only with greater flexibility to enter your recall notes or main notes in any order suitable for your purposes.
Find out more at: http://www.applgasm-apps.com/total_recall.html
Flex Notes 1.0 has been approved and release on the App Store. Flex Notes is very much like Cornell Notes, only with greater flexibility to enter your recall notes or main notes in any order suitable for your purposes.
Find out more at: http://www.applgasm-apps.com/flex_notes.html
Photo Shack HD Version 3.4 has been approved for immediate release on the App Store. New in this version are:
Another great update from the leading iPad photo management app on the App Store!
Apple announced that it will begin building iMacs in the USA beginning in 2013. That should help the economy of both the US and the rest of the world as world economy today is so closely tied together.
We are proud to be a affiliated with one of the world’s most successful and progressive companies.
Apple announce the iPad mini today at a major press event. We’d like to let you know that all of our iPad apps are completely compatible with the new smaller iPad. This includes:
Continue to enjoy your favorite Applgasm-Apps apps on your new iPad mini!
Photo Shack HD 3.1 has been reviewed, approved, and released on the App Store. Included in this release are some really great new features!
If you just upgraded to iOS6 and your Photo Shack app isn’t working any more, don’t worry. There’s and easy resolution. Just follow these instructions below:
Thank you for making Photo Shack HD our #1 Photo Management App on the App Store! Your input and suggestions have helped make this the perfect iPad companion app for photographic enthusiasts and professional photographers around the world.
Thank you!
Ever tried out what a different language setting looked like on your iPad, and then couldn’t read the new language to find where to change it back? I have. Here’s how to revert back to your native language even if you can’t read the language your iPad is in anymore.
That’s it! You’re back to your own language.
This works for iOS 5.0 – iOS 6.0.
Check-out our totally revamped website at http://www.applgasm-apps.com. View sample screenshots, pause by tapping the image, resume by tapping again, move forward by tapping the screen-right arrow on the bottom right, move backward by tapping the screen-left arrow on the bottom left (hover your mouse on the iPad image bottom left or bottom right to reveal the screen move buttons).
App information has also been reformatted to be easier to read, find information, and compare with other apps.
Let us know what you think about it.
It’s here!
Cornell Notes for the iPad has just arrived at the App Store! Designed after the Cornell Note-taking System originally developed at Cornell University in New York, this world-famous technique is now available in a streamlined iPad app.
The Cornell Note-taking System has helped thousands of students excel in schoolwork, as well as professionals in their jobs. Now you can put this powerful note taking methodology to work for you on your highly portable iPad. It’s a perfect match of feature, form, and function.
Get yours today: http://www.applgasm-apps.com/cornell_notes.html
Cornell Notes has absolutely no affiliation with Cornell University, Cornell College, the City of Cornell, MI, or any other Cornell-named entity.
Visual Journal for your iPad gives you everything you need to take copious notes, sketches, and geometry drawings to refine and use for later study. Trade notes with your classmates. Learn from others. Do better in school than you’ve ever done before.
http://www.applgasm-apps.com/visual%20journal.html
The all new iAlbum apps are doing extremely well. Customers all over the world are taking advantage of the only virtual photo album apps that look, feel, and work just like a real photo album.
Check them out here: http://www.applgasm-apps.com/ialbum%20hd.html or on the App Store at: http://itunes.com/apps/ialbumhd
From ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/crucial-california-trial-begins-in-apple-vs-samsung-case-7000001784/
Seems like Samsung’s whole case is that Apple is too successful and enjoys too great of profit margins to be entitled to enforce their patents. Sounds pretty ridiculous to us.
Samsung should concentrate on developing their own unique technology that adds to enhancing the use and enjoyment of mobile devices. Riding on what Apple already developed and patented doesn’t add anything to the industry. It just adds to Samsung’s bottom line.
Visual Journal is turning out to be an excellent tool for special needs children and young adults. According to one of our recent customers, “This has great implications for those with special needs who might not have the hand writing skills to keep a journal but for whom it would be a good visual support of things that might be happening and a reminder of what has happened especially when you can take and import photos.”
Designed for the education market, Visual Journal has the ability to type notes, take photos, draw shapes, lines, and arrows, annotate drawings or photos, and create dozens of journals from a single app. It’s general purpose design makes it ideal for a number of applications and interests, including taking class notes, detailing projects or experiments, documenting real estate, chronicling events, recording field studies, and general hobbies.
Available today on the App Store at: http://itunes.com/apps/visualjournal
Applgasm-Apps has successfully blocked the Russian In-App Purchase hack in our recent app updates released on the App Store. Customer purchase data indicates the In-App purchase transactions are now being conducted normally, without incident.
Customers no longer have any incentive to risk their iTunes user id and password by entrusting them to an admitted hacker, since the hack no longer works on any Applgasm-Apps apps. It’s somewhat incredible that anyone would risk the security of their credentials anyway for the price of a $0.99 In-App purchase. But now there is absolutely no incentive to do so.
We believe that our customers would never explore ways to circumvent purchasing any of our In-Apps anyway. But prudence dictated that we take the appropriate steps to protect our customers and ourselves from any hacking threat. We are pleased to report that we have successfully done so.
iAlbum HD version 1.2 has been approved and released on the App Store. This release incorporates a new icon brought by popular demand.
Still the same quality, professional package. Just a new icon.
Visual Journal is a great app for recording your own life experiences or that of a close friend, loved one, or child. Photographs, graphics, colorful captions, and text allow you to make beautiful visual journals in an easy-to-use booklet format to share with others.
Take a look at the new Visual Journal app on the App Store at:http://itunes.com/apps/visualjournal
Apple has announced its new iOS 6 mobile operating system will block the hacking of its In-App Purchase program, and has also offered a temporary fix for app developers. But not all app developers are waiting around for iOS 6, or depending on a “temporary fix”. Applgasm-Apps is fighting back with its own solution immediately.
Applgasm-Apps has developed its own protection against In-App purchase theft that effectively defeats the Russian developer Alexey Borodin’s hack attempts. We cannot go into any details how this is done, but it effectively protects against the hack. This new protection scheme has been implemented in all of Applgasm-Apps iOS applications that utilize In-App purchasing. Updates for Photo Shack, iAlbum, iAlbum Portrait, and iAlbum Pro have already been processed and are available on the App Store now.
Borodin is exploiting his knowledge as a developer to ripoff thousands of good honest people working hard to produce apps and in-app purchase items customers want. iOS apps and their related In-App purchases are incredibly inexpensive compared to most computer based programs. Developers depend on sheer volume of the Apple mobile market to earn the revenues necessary to sustain their businesses. What Borodin is doing is jeopardizing their very survival.
For him (Borodin) to say he is doing this for some altruistic reasons seems a bit self-serving. He’s accepting donations over the Internet and is using the notoriety of this hack to make money off of other people’s work, at their expense. If that isn’t enough reason to deter good people from using this exploitation to “electronically shoplift” In-App purchases from developers, one should consider that they are giving their iTunes user id, password, account information, device information, and perhaps even their location to someone who has demonstrated that he has no aversion whatsoever to engaging in dishonest activities.
Visual Journal has been approved and released on the App Store! A perfect virtual alternative to the traditional paper journal notebooks you use for taking notes, recording experiments, and detailing development projects for school, work, research, and hobbies. It lets your iPad replace dozens of paper journals in one app that’s as simple and easy-to-use as the real thing.
Just in time for Back-To-School!
Check it out on the App Store at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/visual-journal/id531190979?mt=8
If you’ve encountered crashing issues after updating one of our apps, please read this new report from iOS Central regarding a discovered bug in Apple’s download servers that appears to have been causing this: Apple server bug leads to corrupted App Store downloads
We’ve suspected this issue for some time, which is why we have been recommending our customers perform the following procedure before installing or updating any of our apps:
We, along with 100s of other app developers have suffered a significant number of bad feedbacks from new customers that believed the issue identified in this article was a quality issue with our apps. This is entirely an Apple issue and one that I am sure they will address immediately now that they know about it.
If you’ve left any bad feedbacks for developers based on crash issues after upgrading or installing a new app, please consider going back and revising your review of that app. Reviews offer great insight into apps for new customers, and help developers promote and sustain useful, well developed apps. But they are only constructive if they are fair, honest and accurate.
Did you know that Photos Pro and Photo Shack interoperate with Adobe Photoshop at a photo metadata level? Photos Pro and Photo Shack can read the Title, Byline (Author), Comments (Description), Star Rating, Copyright Notice, and Keywords that Photoshop can set via its “File Info” button (see below).
Just set these values as you wish for your photos using Photoshop on your computer, then transfer (sync) those photos to your iPad using iTunes. Now when you import those photos into Photos Pro or Photo Shack, it will read in these fields and display them for you when requested.
Adobe and Photoshop are registered trademarks of Adobe Corporation.
Photos Pro and Photo Shack are registered trademarks of Applgasm-Apps.
We hear a lot of people complain about the iPad not having many of the features they are used to on their notebook or desktop computers. But what many people do not always see is that the iPad really isn’t a general purpose computer like a notebook or desktop. It’s in a class by itself, designed primarily as a media consumption device that can be fully operated without a keyboard or mouse, and run all day long without a recharge.
Okay, so the iPad doesn’t have a separate keyboard, mouse, USB port, CD/DVD ROM or option to externally attach peripherals of any kind. These things cause greater power consumption, increase weight, and detract from overall portability. For what the iPad is intended for, these traditional computer accessories are not really appropriate.
Consider that about 95% of all computer use on a daily basis falls into these 3 categories:
Wouldn’t it be great if there were a special device that was virtually as portable as our cell phones, could run all day long without a recharge, had a nice big screen to view and display an almost full-size keyboard when we need it, and could do all 3 of the things listed above that most of us spend most of our time doing? Well, that’s what the iPad was designed for.
So don’t think of the iPad as another particularly lightweight portable computer, because it’s not. In some regards it is so much less in terms of peripherals, attachments, etc. But in other regards (lightweight, portability, easy-of-use, battery life, simplicity) it is so much more. Think of the iPad as your Un-Computer. You’ll be happier and more correct.
Photos Pro 2.02 has been approved and released on the App Store. This release provides some great new features recommended by our professional photographer customer community.
New in Release 2.02:
Photo Shack Pro and Photos Pro all possess the same photo image format support as the native iPad iOS. These include the ability to read and write photos along with their modified metadata in the following “Universal Type Identifier” (UTI) formats:
READ & DISPLAY:
“public.png”,
“public.jpeg”,
“com.compuserve.gif”,
“com.canon.tif-raw-image”,
“com.adobe.raw-image”,
“com.canon.cr2-raw-image”,
“com.leafamerica.raw-image”,
“com.hasselblad.fff-raw-image”,
“com.hasselblad.3fr-raw-image”,
“com.nikon.raw-image”,
“com.nikon.nrw-raw-image”,
“com.pentax.raw-image”,
“com.samsung.raw-image”,
“com.sony.raw-image”,
“com.sony.sr2-raw-image”,
“com.sony.arw-raw-image”,
“com.epson.raw-image”,
“com.kodak.raw-image”,
“public.tiff”,
“com.microsoft.ico”,
“com.microsoft.bmp”,
“public.xbitmap-image”,
“com.microsoft.cur”,
“com.truevision.tga-image”,
“public.jpeg-2000″,
“public.jpeg”,
“com.canon.crw-raw-image”,
“com.fuji.raw-image”,
“com.panasonic.raw-image”,
“com.panasonic.rw2-raw-image”,
“com.leica.raw-image”,
“com.leica.rwl-raw-image”,
“com.konicaminolta.raw-image”,
“com.olympus.sr-raw-image”,
“com.olympus.or-raw-image”,
“com.olympus.raw-image”
EXPORT & WRITE:
“public.png”,
“public.jpeg”,
“com.compuserve.gif”,
“public.tiff”,
“com.microsoft.ico”,
“com.microsoft.bmp”,
“com.adobe.pdf”,
“com.truevision.tga-image”,
“public.jpeg-2000″
In addition, Photo Shack Pro and Photos Pro can also export and write any other photo image formats not listed above (such as RAW, RW2, and CR2) in their originally imported form without modifications, including their originally embedded metadata.
iAlbum HD has been priced reduced for Summer 2012 from $27.99 USD to $24.99 USD, effective immediately! That’s over 10% off this extraordinary virtual photo album designed specifically for professional photographers and photo studios.
There is now a professional quality virtual photo album for the iPad that allows professional photographers and photo studios to deliver high-quality, realistic photo albums on the iPad. iAlbum HD provides a unique virtual photo album experience complete with album covers, photo pages, photo corners, and photo borders. Custom covers and pages can be create to customize your unique branding. iAlbum HD has also been optimized for the new iPad Retina high-resolution graphics capabilities.
Don’t just settle for standard physical photo album delivery of your photography work. Offer your clients the ease, portability, and flexibility of digital photo albums the only way iAlbum HD and the iPad can deliver.
iAlbum 2.6 has been approved and released on the App Store! New in this version is Video Photo Support. You can now select and place videos on your album pages just like photos, including applying photo corners and photo borders to them, and view them right on the page or zoom to full-screen!
You asked, we listened.
iAlbum 3.46 has been approved and released on the App Store! New in this version is Video Photo Support. You can now select and place videos on your album pages just like photos, including applying photo corners and photo borders to them, and view them right on the page or zoom to full-screen!
You asked, we listened.
The newly released versions of Photo Shack Pro and Photos Pro NOW all support Video Export in iTunes File Sharing, so you can export your videos right along with your photos in your organized albums.
New versions of all of our Photo Shack and Photos Pro photo management apps have been approved and released on the App Store. New in these releases are Video Export support, improved Rotation Recognition and faster Light Box view updates. Look at their individual webpages for details about the new enhancements available in each.
iAlbum HD has been approved and released on the App Store. This is the professional photographer and photo studio edition. It has been specifically designed to allow professional photographers and photo studios to deliver high-quality virtual photo albums on the iPad, while providing unique signature graphics to brand their work.
iAlbum HD comes with integrated cover, page, photo corner and photo border high resolution iPad Retina quality graphics, and allows you to create and incorporate your own custom covers, graphics, and pages for that unique professional signature to your photo album productions.
iAlbum HD works with all versions of iPads, but has been optimized to take full advantage of the new iPad’s “Retina” graphics capabilities.
In addition to photos, you can now place videos as photos on your album pages, complete with photo borders and photo corners. Just double-tap a video photo to play in right in the album within the borders of it photo container, or pinch-zoom it to full screen.
We’ve received a couple of inquiries about why we came out with Photos Pro, rather than simply updating Photo Shack or Photos Shack Pro. So we thought we’d provide some insight into what we’ve done and why.
Photo Shack was first introduced in May 2011. Since then we’ve published over a dozen updates adding new features and functionality.
Photo Shack Pro was introduced shortly after to address those requesting greater functionality without having to impact the price for those that didn’t need it. We’ve since published over two dozen updates adding new features and functionality to it.
Photos Pro was introduced in February 2012 to address those requesting even greater functionality. We also used this opportunity to incorporate things we’ve learned from Photo Shack and Photo Shack Pro to provide a complete redesign of the internal logic, storage, and user interface to enhance the overall user experience. This evolution was only possible in a new app, as the changes would affect compatibility with existing users otherwise.
We’ll continue to support and update Photo Shack, Photo Shack Pro, and Photos Pro. In fact we just added Photo Shack for iPhone to address the iPhone/iPod users. We feel our current photo management app offering provides users with a perfect price/functionality selection from which to choose the app that most closely matches what they’re after for the price.
Any time we update the latest Photos Pro app, we go back and look at Photo Shack, Photo Shack Pro, and Photo Shack for iPhone to see what updated features and functionality might be appropriate and possible there. We just submitted an update for Photos Pro that we took several of the new features (such as video exporting capabilities) and incorporated them into updates for Photo Shack, Photo Shack Pro, and Photo Shack for iPhone which we have submitted as well.
Photos Pro doesn’t replace Photo Shack Pro, no more than Photo Shack Pro replaced Photo Shack. They are all just part of our line-up of photo management apps to give you the best possible selection to choose from. Click here for an app comparison chart.
Photo Shack Pro 5.74 has been approved and released on the App Store!
Photo Shack 3.3 has been approved and released on the App Store!
Photo Shack for iPhone 1.01 has been approved and released on the App Store. This release includes various cosmetic and performance improvements. Please keep your feedback and comments coming, and thank you for the tremendous support on the App Store!
Photos Pro 1.02 has been approved and released on the App Store. This is an important update the corrects some significant bugs that were inadvertently introduced in the last release that came out just a few days ago.
If you have already upgraded to Photos Pro 1.01, then you will want to install this update immediately. If you haven’t, then verify the upgrade is for Photos Pro 1.02 before proceeding. This new release is also important if you have the latest iPad high-resolution Retina display, as it also provides optimization for the iPad3.
We want to publicly acknowledge and offer our genuine thanks to Apple for expediting the review and approval of ourthis important update so quickly.
Here’s a quick step-by-step on building your first Album in Photo Shack for iPhone:
Congratulations, you’ve create your first album!
Now, to organize your album, first tap the “Action” button, then tap “Enter Edit Mode”. You can move thumbnails around by first selecting them, then dragging them. You can select and drag as many as you want at once. You can also automatically sort your album by name, title, date, etc. by tapping the “Sort Thumbnails” button in the Action menu.
Make sure to check-out our “Getting Started Guide” available on our webpage: http://www.applgasm-apps.com/Photo%20Shack%20for%20iPhone.html
Now the top photo management app on the App Store is available for your iPhone and iPod touch. Photo Shack for iPhone has been approved and released on the App Store. Check it out at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photo-shack-for-iphone/id511552888?ls=1&mt=8
Make sure to take advantage of the great Introductory Pricing!
Professional-grade Photo Management app for your iPad that runs directly off of your existing iPad Photos Library.
Based on our highly successful Photo Shack apps, Photos Pro is a major redesign incorporating greater Library Management, IPTC Metadata, and GPS Location data control. If you’re serious about efficiently managing and manipulating your photos on your iPad, this is the app you want.
Like Photo Shack, Photos Pro runs entirely off of your iPad’s existing Photos Library without needing to duplicate a single photo or store photos in private inaccessible libraries. Some of the advanced features Photos Pro offers include:
The best photo management for the iPad just got even better!
Photo Shack Pro isn’t just for photos and videos. Customers are telling us it is the perfect tool for organizing and displaying business presentations, product brochures, technical drawings, plans and specifications, and product inventory. Just convert your presentation materials to JPGs or PNGs, and sync them to your iPad. Then load them into Photo Shack Pro just as you would any other photo image.
According to our customers “Photo Shack is perfect as a business presentation tool because it allows you to organize your materials any way you want in as many albums and libraries as you want, and maximizes the viewing experience with high resolution zoom capabilities and interesting transition animations.”
Our non-photography business customers include sales professionals, merchandise buyers, real estate professionals, and several museums and galleries around the world. So open your mind and let us know the interesting new ways you found to use Photo Shack Pro.
“Open In” – the ability to open your photos with another iPad photo app has been added to Photo Shack 3.1 and Photo Shack Pro 5.71, both released on the App Store today! The price for each has not increased, and Photo Shack continues to support a full feature upgrade to Photo Shack Pro through an In-App purchase option.
It’s probably the “best kept secret”, but Photo Shack IS the #1 Rated Photo Management App on the App Store! Why? Because it is the ONLY photo management app that doesn’t have to duplicate your existing iPad Photos Library photos just to organize them. Photo Shack works with your existing iPad Photos Library to organize, arrange, rotate, title, comment, star rate, and even file name your photos without duplicating any of them, storing them in a private “sandbox”, or modifying your original photos in any way. Best of all, you can export your finished organization back to your computer, or even your iPad’s Photos Library where all of your iPad’s apps can access them.
If you’re into photography or just into photos, you’ll want Photo Shack to help you organize and arrange your photos your way.
Photo Shack 3.0 has been approved and released for sale on the App Store! This is a major new release that incorporates the same look & feel of Photo Shack Pro, plus many of its core features not found in earlier versions of Photo Shack. Best of all, this new release can now be In-App upgraded to the complete feature set of Photo Shack Pro! Here are the highlights of the new features that have been added:
It’s always a good idea to back-up your current app before upgrading, just in case you need to revert back to it. Read our blogpost on this at: http://www.applgasm-apps.com/Blog/?p=550
It is very wise to back-up any app you plan on upgrading before actually performing the upgrade. This is because sometimes app developers miss something, exclude something, or do something different that you don’t like. Without a back-up of the app to return to, you are stuck with the new update – like it or not.
So to back-up the current version of an app, just go to your “Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications” directory on your host computer where you download all of your apps. On a Mac, these directories are located in your “home” directory (typically your username) located on your main disk under the “Users” directory. The full path name would be: /Users/username/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications/
You will see an .ipa file for every application you have downloaded from iTunes. Simply copy those you’d like a back-up copy of to another back-up directory you created. If you ever want to restore to that version, simply copy it back to this directory and re-sync your device.
It is also a good idea to follow the update/installation procedures outlined in this blogpost as well to insure you get a clean install: http://www.applgasm-apps.com/Blog/?p=395
Importing File Names along with Photos isn’t one of iTunes strong suits currently, but Photo Shack Pro has this covered. All you need to do is copy your photo’s file name into your photo’s IPTC ObjectName metadata field. Then, when you import your photos into Photo Shack Pro, Photo Shack Pro will read this field into it’s Title field. You can then use this Title field as the photos file name when you Share your photos back to your computer.
Here’s how you do it.
You may need to modify the EXIFTool command line a little to omit the file name extension if you wish, since Photo Shack Pro will add it automatically upon sharing the photo to your computer.
In the next release of Photo Shack Pro 5.60, you’ll be able to read this IPTC ObjectName field directly into Photo Shack Pro’s File Name field.
iOS 5 changed the way photos were auto-orientation corrected from previous iOS releases. Luckily, Photo Shack is ready to adapt to this. Just go to your iPad’s “Settings” app and select “Photo Shack” in the left column. Then, in the right window pane tap on “Ignore Orientation Information for:”, and when the selection window comes up, tap “All Images”.
All of your photos should now appear oriented correctly.
No need to do anything if you have Photo Shack Pro.
The latest Apple iOS 5.0.1 update has been installed and tested with Photo Shack and Photo Shack Pro and verified that the update does not cause any issues whatsoever when upgrading from iOS 5 to the new update.
For those of you that got caught-up in our latest Photo Shack Pro 5.2 rapid release iterations, our sincerest apologies.
iOS 5 introduced some peculiar timing issues we did not find in our initial testing, that could cause a problem on some iPads some of the time. It actually occurred on one of our test machines the day after we released Photo Shack Pro 5.2!
We then scrambled to get a correction out that same day to avoid breaking Photo Shack Pro for thousands of users, but in our haste introduced another “bug” in Photo Shack Pro 5.21!
So we scrambled once again that same day to get another update out to correct the latest issue, but this time spent the entire day, evening, and overnight testing, testing, and more testing to make sure we had it resolved correctly and without introducing any additional issues. That release, Photo Shack Pro 5.22 was just approved and released on the App Store.
I’d like to say “it’s over”, but with a brand new operating system like iOS 5 that brings along its own set of idiosyncrasies, we won’t know for sure what might come up next until if and when it does. We’ll continue our testing as we always do even after a release goes out, so if there is an issue we’ll hopefully find it before our customers do.
Once again, we apologize for the rapid iteration through consecutive releases we put you through. But at least you know we’re on the ball when it comes to addressing “bugs”. After all, three releases in as many days is pretty impressive.
We also want to thank the folks at Apple for helping us get these releases out so quickly.
iOS 5 is released and soon everyone will have this very valuable update. With it are many improvements to the iPad’s “Photos” app, some of which were only previously provided by Photo Shack or Photo Shack Pro. So were does the iPad’s “Photos” app now leave off, and when does it make sense to look at getting Photo Shack or Photo Shack Pro?
The short answer is if you are a photo enthusiast, avid photographer, or professional photographer, then you’ll want to look at Photo Shack or Photo Shack Pro for your iPad photo management. Check-out this convenient app comparison of “Photos iOS 5″, “Photo Shack”, and “Photo Shack Pro”: http://www.applgasm-apps.com/Photo_Shack_Comparison.html
We continue to enhance Photo Shack to meet the needs of our target customers – those who enjoy photography and need a great iPad photo management app.
Please be advised that installing Apple’s latest release iOS 5 on your iPad will impact your Photo Shack libraries and albums by inadvertently reassigning all of your photos in your “Photos” Library as part of the upgrade process.
Photo Shack depends upon your iPad’s Photos Library as its source for photos. If the assignments of those photos change, Photo Shack will be unable to find the photos you previously assigned to its libraries and albums. The solution will be to re-create your albums and libraries after iOS 5 has been installed, by reassigning your photos to your albums.
While this destructive iOS upgrade was unfortunate, it was necessary so Apple could prepare for their iCloud launch. With iCloud, all of Apple’s mobile devices can automatically backup their data and stream their photos to each other over the iCloud network. This meant that a more robust photo identification method needed to be implemented that could accommodate the millions of potential subscribers wishing to share photos via iCloud. The good news is now that it’s done, and millions of subscribers begin sharing photos under this new scheme, it is not likely to change again.
We apologize for the inconvenience, but this event was totally out of our control. In retrospect, the change albeit painful will be beneficial to everyone.
Here’s the procedure you should follow to insure a proper upgrade/installation of a new app. You should follow this procedure to upgrade or install Photo Shack or Photo Shack Pro.
Photo Shack version 2.2 has been approved and released on the App Store. This version corrects some minor issues.
A new Feature in Photo Shack Pro 4.0 is display of the camera lens information captured in the metadata of the camera. However, not every camera captures this information or captures it in the same way. So if you find that your camera lens isn’t showing up, please send a sample photo or two to info@applgasm-apps.com so we can take a look at how to find it for your specific camera. Be sure to send the photo in its original form directly from your camera or computer, not from your iPad. Your iPad will automatically strip everything but the basic image off of any photo it emails.
Another reason why your lens may not be showing up is that you synced your photos to your iPad using iTunes, rather than the Camera Connection Kit. iTunes automatically strips away the portion of the photo’s metadata that typically holds the lens information for most cameras, as part of its “optimizing photos for the iPad” processing. This process will also automatically reduce the resolution of your photos to 2304 x 1536 pixels (3.5 Mp) or less. For best resolution and greatest photo metadata detail, it is best to use the Camera Connection Kit for the iPad to transfer photos directly from your camera or camera SD memory card to your iPad. You’ll get both full resolution and full metadata detail that way.
Photo Shack runs entirely off of your iPad’s Photos Library, so you want to maintain any photos you may have included in your Photo Shack Libraries and Albums in your iPad’s Photos Library when you perform subsequent syncs to add new photos. Here’s a good method to use to insure you don’t accidentally wipe-out photos you need in other applications whenever you sync your iPad using iTunes.
First, create a directory folder somewhere on your iTunes computer. Desktop is always a good place to find it easily. You might want to call it “Photos for iPad” or something similar so you can recognize it easily.
Inside this folder, create several sub-folders for all the photo categories you might want on your iPad after you sync. An example might be:
Photos for iPad
–> sub-folder 1
–> sub-folder 2
–> sub-folder 3
Now place all of your photos into your appropriate sub-folders that you want to sync to your iPad. Then start iTunes and click on your iPad listed on the left. Then click on the Photos tab. Click “Sync Photos from”, and select your “Photos for iPad” directory. Then click “All Folders” below it to sync all of your sub-folders. Then click “Sync” to start the process.
When you have new photos to add to your iPad, create a new sub-folder under “Photos for iPad” and call it something like “New Photos 07-27-2011″. Place your new photos into that sub-folder and sync with iTunes. The new photos and their associated directory will automatically be added to your iPad Photos Library without disturbing your currently synced photos.
If you are having a problem with your Nikon .NEF photo images being incorrectly rotate in full-screen display, here’s why. NEF image formats, like virtually all RAW image formats, utilizes proprietary data structures. It turns out that Nikon NEF image files report camera orientation information correctly, but deliver a base photo image that is already orientation corrected. This can cause Photo Shack to orientation correct an already orientation corrected photo, resulting in an incorrectly orientated photo.
A work-around for this issue has already been put into a new update for Photo Shack release 1.3 and Photo Shack Pro release 3.1 and submitted to the App Store. Both should be available on iTunes before the end of July 2011.
Photo Shack does not waste iPad storage space by unnecessarily duplicating photos present in your iPad’s Photos Library. Photo Shack simply references these photos directly from this shared library, so that Photo Shack, the iPad’s “Photos” app, and any 3rd-Party apps can all have access to them. It is much more efficient to allow multiple apps to access one instance of your photos, than to have separate photo storage databases for each app.
This means that Photo Shack, your iPads “Photos” app, and any 3rd-Party apps that do not create their own photo library are dependent upon the photos they reference remaining in your iPad’s Photos Library even after subsequent iTunes syncs to add new photos. To insure you maintain the photos you included in Photo Shack, do not delete those photos from your iPad’s Photos Library, and always make sure that those photos are included in any new iTunes sync to add new photos.
You should think of your iPad’s Photos Libary as the main depository for all of your media (photos, audio, video) for all of your iPad’s apps. Only remove photos from your iPad’s Photos Library that you do not need any of your apps to have access to.
Photo Shack Pro now has VGA Mirroring support for both iPad1 and iPad2! VGA Mirroring support allows you to simultaneously display Photo Shack Pro’s full-screen view on an attached VGA display device. While this functionality is standard with iPad2, it didn’t exist on iPad1. Photo Shack Pro now provides this functionality so you can enjoy VGA Mirroring on your iPad1 as well while in full screen photo viewing.
If you’re new to Photo Shack Pro, here’s a quick 12 Step primer that might help you get started: Launch Photo Shack Pro by tapping its icon on the main screen. When Photo Shack Launches, you’ll be in its Library … Continue reading
Thanks to those of you requesting this feature enhancement, the entire iAlbum series of apps (including the “Lite” versions) now allow you to set the time duration allocated to page turn animations. Just go to your iPad’s “Settings” app and select your “iAlbum” app. You’ll find a “Page Turn Animation Timing” slider control to adjust the timing from 0.1 sec. to 1.0 sec. The new default is 0.5 seconds.
So why do I have to enable Location Services for Photo Shack, when I don’t want my Location recorded or revealed? What does Location Services have to do with photos anyway?
The iPad iOS requires Location Services to be enabled for any app wanting access to your photo library. It sounds convoluted, but some photos could hold the location where the photo was taken in the photo’s metadata. Apple requires that Location Services be enabled for all 3rd-Party apps to access any Location information, even Location information stored in your photos, so that’s why you must enable Location Services for Photo Shack. Don’t worry, Photo Shack does not record or disseminate your actual location information in any way. However, it can show you a map of the location where the photo was taken if you want it to.
To enable Location Services for Photo Shack after you have initially responded “NO” to the iOS prompt to enable Location Services when Photo Shack was first launched, follow these steps:
You can now exit “Settings”. Location Services for Photo Shack have been enabled, so it can now access your Photos library.
If you’ve noticed that some of your popover windows in iAlbum or Photo Shack do not seem to return to normal size after dismissing the keyboard, this is a known issue with Apple’s iOS 4.3 released for the iPad. A bug report has been logged with Apple and the issue should be resolved in the next iOS update. To work around this issue, just dismiss the popover and redisplay it again. If you are still on iOS 4.2, this isn’t a problem.
Playing background music in iAlbum or Photo Shack is easy, thanks to the multitasking capabilities of iOS 4.x. Rather than fumble with an app-specific implementation of a music player, just go to your familiar iPod music player app on your iPad while you’re in iAlbum or Photo Shack. To do this, tap the “Home” button on the bottom center of your iPad’s screen to temporarily suspend the app you’re in (iAlbum or Photo Shack). Then tap on your “iPod” app icon. Select the music you want to listen to, then tap the “Home” button again and tap on the iAlbum or Photo Shack icon you want to return to. Your selected music will continue to play in the background.
You can easily switch between apps by just double-clicking the “Home” button and selecting from the apps already running in background on your iPad.
A new feature in Photo Shack 1.2 is “Advanced Settings”. Advanced Settings has a number of tweaks you can apply to Photo Shack to change its operating characteristics. Here is a brief description:
Toolbar Fade Timer – normally set to 5 seconds. Controls how long to wait before hiding the toolbars when in full-screen photo view.
Maximum Photo Resolution – normally set to 4800 pixels. Controls how large a zoomed-in photo view can be. If you are having trouble zooming or otherwise loading full resolution images, try setting this to a lower value.
Use Pre-Built Photo Images – normally set to ON. Controls whether Photo Shack will attempt to use pre-built standard resolution photo images, or create its own. Set this to OFF if you’re having trouble with certain images.
To access Photo Shack’s Advanced Settings, tap on the iPad’s “Settings” app and scroll down until you see Photo Shack listed on the left column. Then tap on Photo Shack. The normal settings are optimum for best performance and photo quality. Adjust only if you need to tweak Photo Shack for your particular operating environment.
Some apps use a lot more memory than others, and not all of them clean-up well after themselves. The result is low memory availability for all of your other apps. If you don’t know which app might be causing this, here are some steps you can follow to relieve the issue.
After this procedure, all of your memory should be restored to its unused state and made available to your applications.
Apparently, there is a minor little known “bug” with the iPad that will sometimes record photo orientation data improperly if the iPad is synced with iTunes while its “Photos” or “Camera” apps are running in the background. These apps continue to run in the background after they are originally launched, unless you specifically “stop” them.
To “stop” an app which is running in the background, simply double-tap the iPad’s “Home” button located at the bottom-center of the screen. The screen view will scroll up slightly revealing all of the apps running in the background on your iPad. Tap & Hold one of them until they all begin wiggling. Then tap the red “-” on the top-left corner of the icon of any app you want to stop. When you’re done, tap the “Home” button once to stop all of the app icons from wiggling. Then tap the “Home” button once more to return the screen view back to normal.
There’s been a few inquiries about exactly how to do this. It’s really pretty easy, but albeit a little obscure.
First, open the album you want to pdf and tap on the “Folder” icon next to the album name to bring up album action menu. Then tap on “PDF this Album”. The pdf file will be placed in a special directory on your iPad which is accessible via iTunes. To access it, just follow these steps.
Once you have pdf’ed your album, attach your iPad to your computer and launch iTunes. When it appears, click on your iPad under “DEVICES” along the left-hand margin, then click the “Apps” tap along the top of the main window, then scroll down to “File Sharing” at the bottom of that window. Click “iAlbum” under “Apps” and you will see your file listed. Click it and the click the “Save to…” button at the bottom of the window (see below).
That’s it!
p.s. You can also use iTunes to delete the pdf from your iPad if you want to. Just click on the file, and press “Delete”.
Special thanks to Herb for recommending this post!
Feb 14, 2011 7:10 PM (in response to bamber223)
It appears that an issue cropped up in iOS 4.X that causes the jpeg rendition delivered to third party apps for some RAW formats to be at a very low (thumbnail) resolution. Prior to iOS 4, these images would work fine. In our testing it has been limited to RAW images in the Nikon format. Apple has acknowledged the issue and we hope a fix is coming in a future rev of the iOS.
In case you didn’t know, when you sync your RAW photos to your computer and then back to the iPad they will be converted to jpegs. These should open and display at the expected resolution when used in apps on your iPad.
iAlbum Pro was released this week to the App Store. Initial sales have been great – Thank you! This professional version of the popular iAlbum app includes all the optional features (iAlbum PDF, iAlbum Captions, etc.) as standard features, plus some new ones like instant Photo Mail, custom cover windows, paragraph Captions, and Photo Masks, plus all new professional graphic artwork without the iAlbum logos.
iAlbum now has two new performance settings accessible from the iPad’s “Settings” app.
To access the performance settings, go to the iPad’s own “Settings” App (gray clockwork gears icon) and navigate to the bottom of the left hand pane under “Apps” and tap your iAlbum version listed. Then in the right hand pane under “Advanced Settings”, tap the “ON/OFF” switch for “Optimize Page Photo Size” to “OFF” to prevent iAlbum from optimizing the placed photos on the page. This optimization reduces the saved image size to match the size of the image on the page. Tap the “ON/OFF” switch for “Optimize Original Photo Size” to prevent iAlbum from optimizing the original photos when selected from the photo library. This optimization reduces the original image size of all images to the maximum display size of the iPad’s screen.
Under “Debug Logging”, tap the “Activte Debug Logging File” “ON/OFF” switch to turn-on photo statistic logging when you need to trouble-shoot problems loading a particular photo. DO NOT LEAVE THIS SETTING ON OR IT WILL IMPACT PERFORMANCE! You can access the resulting log file using iTunes App File Transfer procedures.
Several customers have asked about whether iAlbum has a maximum photo size limitation. Generally speaking, the answer is YES. iAlbum works best with photo sizes 2048 x 2048 or less. The iPad’s Photo Library automatically adjusts photo sizes down to this optimized size when synchronizing photos with iTunes, so iAlbum typically never has to worry about a size issue.
Since the iPad’s display is limited to 1024 x 768 anyway, importing larger photos would do nothing to improve photo display quality on the iPad, and would just serve to unnecessarily consume iPad storage space. It also serves to slow the performance of photo-centric iPad applications such as iAlbum, since larger photos take longer to load and save.
Some users have reported issues with photos loaded directly into the iPad with an SD Card Reader that affects 3rd-Party apps, such as iAlbum, Photoshop, etc. The problem appears to be particularly acute with Nikon .nef RAW format photos. This is an identified problem with iPad iOS version 4. Current information is that Apple is aware of the problem and is working on it. Using iTunes to transfer your photos to the iPad effectively works around the issue.
iAlbum is a wonderful way to distribute your photography in a unique digital format that’s as naturally intuitive as it is beautiful. Just create your albums using iAlbum then use “iAlbum Sharing” to transfer your finished albums to your desktop. You can now share your albums with other iPad iAlbum owners.
Before you load your next iAlbum upgrade from the App Store, first take these steps to make sure your iAlbum app and albums are protected.
Now, if something goes wrong you can use iTunes to restore your previous version of your iAlbum app, and to restore your albums if you need to.
iAlbum Portrait Lite has been released to the App Store, rounding out the iAlbum App portfolio to include iAlbum, iAlbum Lite, iAlbum Portrait, and iAlbum Portrait Lite. As with iAlbum Lite, iAlbum Portrait Lite is a free version of the the full version App. Get it here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ialbum-portrait-lite/id417566176?mt=8
A few customers have reported problems trying to load particular photos into iAlbum. It appears that resynchronizing the affected photos in the iPad’s photo library with iTunes resolves the issues.
Photo Shack Pro Mac or PC Companion App for Setting IPTC Data
Dan F. from Ohio sent in this link to a free IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) photo metadata tag modifier program: http://prostockmaster.com/?refcode=1353
You can use this program on your Mac or PC to pre-fill your photo “Titles” and “Comments” before syncing them to your iPad, so that this data can be automatically read and used by Photo Shack Pro. To set the IPTC data appropriately for Photo Shack Pro to use, set the IPTC “ObjectName” tag with your photo’s desired title, and set the IPTC “Byline”, “Caption/Abstract”, “SubLocation”, “Country/PrimaryLocationName”, “CopyrightNotice”, and “Keywords” tags for display in the photo’s comments.
Thank you Dan for submitting this link!