App Bites #41: Fotor

Welcome back to another App Bite. Before the break we were talking about some of the best apps found on Windows 8 and we will continue this trend today with Fotor.






Fotor:

Fotor is a photo-editing app that lets you play around and do all the very basic type of editing things that you might like to do. I like to think of Fotor as a the photo editor tool for the people of casual intentions. So what can you edit? Well basic things like the tint, temperature, contrast, brightness, etc. You also can add borders, captions, effects, and you can crop the picture. So like I said these are very basic photo editing tools, but this isn't what makes the app great. What makes it great is how nice the setup is, how smooth everything works, and how great the overall experience is. For someone who just wants to quickly make some minor adjustments to their photo this app is perfect. So to those people I recommend checking out Fotor in the Windows 8 app store, or just follow the link here. (Note that Fotor is also on Android here and iOS here) (Second Note: Fotor is free on Windows 8 and Android but three dollars on iOS)

Halloween Special: Halloween Apps

If you're looking to play some Halloween themed apps then you've come to the right place. Below are some apps that have some sort of Halloween theme to it that I recommend checking out.




Cut the Rope: Spooky Box

The latest update to Cut the Rope brings the all new "Spooky Box" full of ghosts and more. Check it out in the App Store here.

Doodle Jump:

Doodle Jump is back with 10 Halloween costumes available to buy for your Doodle character. Pick it up here.

Halloween Pumpkins:

This is more of a little kids game. It's just a matching game but with pumpkins and a Halloween type themed look to the game. Grab it over here.

Halloween Speical: Angry Birds Halloween

Yes as suspected Rovio is back again for the third Halloween themed update so far for Angry Birds Seasons. So what is new? Ghost blocks that's what! Ghost blocks are these brand new block which, in the name of Halloween, are pure evil. Basically they can hold up other blocks, but if you launch a bird right at it, the bird will just continue right on through. The only way to destroy the ghost blocks are to have them tumble down causing them to split into four which, if they tumble enough, will then finally cause them to disappear.

Other then ghost blocks, though, there isn't really that much that is new. A new pig called Frankenswine is introduced and the other pigs have various Halloween costumes on, but other then minor aesthetics like that nothing has changed. The levels are still fun to play nonetheless and they get you in the Halloween spirit.

If you somehow don't already have Angry Birds Seasons you can click either of these links to pick it up.                                                            App Store | Google Play

Introducing the New iPad and the iPad Mini

Introducing the iPad Mini

Apple made the official announcement of its latest set of iPads yesterday. Wait did you just say set? As in more than one? That's right, Apple announced two different iPads today. Though it was leaked to just about everyone quite a while ago, some of you may not of the news. So what are the new iPads? Well we've got the iPad 4th generation, and the iPad Mini. But before we talk about what's new with these tablets, let's just consider a few things first.

First off if you feel like it was just yesterday that the 3rd generation iPad- dubbed the "New iPad"- was released, well that's okay because it was. The 3rd generation model came out to most of the world in the latter half of March. And yes I'm talking about March 2012. That means that when the November 2nd release date of the 4th generation model comes around, it will have only just passed the half a year mark since the release date of the 3rd generation model. In the past Apple has usually waited exactly one year between releasing new generations of iPads, but this year they decided "naw we'll just pump another one out".

The problem here too is that millions of people are going to buy this new generation of iPad even though they own the previous generation which came out back in the spring. It never fails to amaze me just how deep people get sucked into massive "brand orientated" companies such as Apple.

Now you might be wondering, "hmm maybe this iPad is loaded with awesome new features that would totally make it worth dropping 500 bucks on ($329 for the iPad Mini)", well I'm sorry to say that you're wrong. Though the new 4th generation model iPad is "better" (and I use the term better lightly) it is definitely not worth the upgrade, cost and other things considered. The iPad Mini is a slightly different story though. Since the Mini is significantly cheaper (though definitely not as advanced) it could appeal to a different market of people looking for an iPad who couldn't afford, or simply didn't want to part with, the expensive price tag that comes with every iPad. This new market consists of people who probably don't have tablets, so for them I say that this isn't as horrible a buy as the 4th generation iPad- but if you are in the market for cheap tablets keep in mind others like the Nexus 7 (Google's tablet running Android) are only $200 and, in my opinion, considerably better.

I think I'll just let the stats talk for themselves. Below are all the important stats for the two new iPads and how the stack up against the previous iPad.

6 Billion Phones Eh?

Because it's always a good time to show off a Galaxy

The International Telecommunication Union has revealed to the world a very interesting statistic. They found that at the end of 2011 there was 6 billion phone subscriptions, or active SIM cards (as is a better way to think about it), world wide. Considering that the world just passed the 7 billion mark in population, we can get a pretty good sense of just how important and common place phones have become.

Of course you have to keep in mind that we're talking about SIM cards here. There are quite a number of people who own two or more SIM cards, and since each card is counted as one phone, the whole "almost everyone must have a phone" argument doesn't hold any water.

If we break it down a little more, we find that developed countries rank in at 70% online and that developing countries come in at 24% online.

It is said now that mobile phones are now twice as numerous as the traditional fixed or "house" phones.

I just find it really amazing how fast the world is adopting mobile phones. It's no longer a matter of comparing how many phones were used last decade, but how many were used last year. We live in a time when mega-powerhouse companies like Google are pumping in around a million added subscriptions each day, and that is just one company. Sure others like RIM and Nokia have taken a hit over the last two years. But there loses do not even come close to the gains made in the mobile phone market. We literally live in the time now when you can take a look down the street and confidently say that almost every single one of those people has a mobile phone.

These are fast moving days people. Sometimes it's just nice to stop and look at how far we've come.

Android Apps Galore

Remember when that good old saying "there's an app for that" came out and the only company that could actually say that and not be lying was Apple? Then Android popped out of no-where and slowly started amassing thousands of apps. And those apps grew exponentially in number. Apple's have too, but not quite at the same speed as with Google Play. Now, as of September 2012, Google Play has over 650 000 apps with over 25 billion downloads! Those figures are still lower then the App Store's 700 000 apps and 30 billion downloads. But the point here is that Android is getting close to Apple's iOS. Android already dominates the market as far as market share goes, and it will be only a couple more months now till Android dominates in apps too. The glory days are soon upon us.

iOS 6: Part 7

Welcome back to the next segment in my ongoing talks about Apple's upcoming iOS 6 update. Today we're going to talk about how the Mail and Safari apps have changed and been improved.




Mail:

So the mail app has been redesigned (though if you ask me it doesn't look much different) to be more streamlined and easier to use. There are also improvements to add attachments like photos and the like to your emails as well there is a new feature that lets you create a "V.I.P." list so that you'll lever miss an email from the sources that matter most.

Unfortunately that is it. If you were hoping for some substantial changes to the way you used your email app on Apple's iOS devices then this will come as somewhat of a let down. Sure it's great to make things easier to use, but don't tell me you've "redesigned" the whole app when picture by picture comparisons to older versions of the app look almost identical. But minor improvements are still improvements, so it will be interesting to see just how useful and good these improvements turn out to be.

Safari:

Unlike the new Mail app, the new Safari app actually brings in a number of substantial and great sounding changes and enhancements. First off Safari works through the cloud with iCloud tabs meaning that you can open a tab and start looking at a website on your iPod and then resume looking at that same page over on your iPhone. Secondly Safari now saves web pages to your Reading List which allows you to still be able to see and read everything that is on a particular web page even when you don't have Internet connection. And thirdly if you're posting a picture to a website you no longer have to go through the arduous process of leaving Safari, opening up the camera app, taking a picture, going back to Safari, then posting the picture. Now you can do all that right in Safari, something that sounds great to me.

All of these improvements to Safari actually sound like the sort of features that I would use and all sound like, if done right, they could be great. With so many problems with Safari in the past, I've slowly grown to hate (I'm among friends when I say this) Safari. But changes like these could slowly start to change my opinion. It's still going to take a lot more then that to make me start loving Safari, but it's a step in the right direction.

iOS 6: Part 6

Welcome to the next segment in my series about iOS 6. Today we're going to talk about additions and improvements to FaceTime and that thing that you might remember called phoning.





FaceTime:

So the only major change to FaceTime is that you can now use it over cellular and Wi-Fi services. This also extends to iPads where you use your phone number to FaceTime. So FaceTime hasn't really received any drastic changes, but this is quite a handy one, although I feel like it should have been there since the beginning. If you've read my other parts in this series you'd know how critical of everything Apple does these days is and I'm not going to change that now. FaceTime is a great feature, don't get me wrong, but this change isn't the type of big thing that will get me excited.

Phone:

Apple has done something really smart here. For the last few years everyone has spent so much time improving every other aspect of the phone that they sometimes forget about improving the sole thing that phones were originally made to do- that being phone people of course. But Apple remembered this time around and they made some pretty nice enhancements. If you get a phone call but you can't answer it at the moment (say you're driving, at the movies, or in the middle of some important conversation, etc.) then you can swipe up on the screen to reveal options like a set of preset messages that you can quickly select to send to the person notifying them as to why you can't answer like "Can't talk right now, call you later". This is actually such a useful feature that I could see myself using quite often, of course there are those people that never phone at all anymore who might feel that this improvements and the ones that I'm about to talk about are pointless, but for the rest of us this is great.

One of the other options you can select once you've swiped up is the reminder options which remind you based on preset times when to phone that person back. Again this is a feature that I could see myself using. I'm a very forgetful person and I'm constantly setting reminders on my phone for just about everything. So to have one more thing taken care of for me would be a warmly welcomed help.

Up last is the "Do not disturb" options in which you can select to not to be notified about any incoming calls or any other notifications for that matter. You can also pick to only receive calls from a select group of people or contacts. This is probably my least favorite new feature, not because there is anything wrong with it, but because I could see the above two enhancements being more useful.

All in all the new FaceTime features fall short, but the phoning options are greatly enhanced.

iPhone 5

So with the announcement of the iPhone 5 earlier this week, people have had some time to calm down and think about what is going on. So I figured today was a good time to for me sum up and voice my opinions about the latest iPhone.

First off since everyone was expecting the iPhone 5 last year, and then got the iPhone 4S instead, you'd imagine that people would come into this a little more critical then before. The iPhone 5 needs to be revolutionary beyond a doubt. If you've been reading my ongoing segment about iOS 6 (the operating system that the iPhone 5 runs on) or if you've done a little research yourself, you would know that iOS 6 alone is not very revolutionary and would not be enough itself to hold the iPhone up to its hype. So now the burden of revolutionizing the iPhone falls on aesthetics and core features in the hardware of the phone.

So what does the new iPhone have or do that is so different from the previous ones? Well since one of Apple's biggest obsessions is with its look and feel, let's begin by talking about the iPhone 5's design. The new screen is slightly bigger then its predecessors coming in at 4inches. This follows the trend of smartphone screens getting bigger and bigger each year. This is also one of the most dramatic changes to an iPhone since, well, ever. Notice how I said "one of the most" dramatic changes. There is actually an even more significant change to the look and that is that the bottom, where you plug that typical white cord connector has been re-done. Now you can no longer use the same connector that you've been using for the past 9 years, instead we have the "Lightning Connector" as it is called. The iPhone 5 is also thinner then before, and Apple even went so far as to call it the "thinnest phone ever" even though there actually are thinner phones. The rest of the look is pretty much the same.

On the inside the iPhone 5 runs on Apple's A6 chip which is said to use less power and is significantly smaller then previous chips. And the two cameras have been beefed up to include things like a 720p front facing camera which will make using FaceTime a lot better looking.

These are the most substantial changes, but if you want more details and specifics then hit up Google.

But let's talk a bit now about this whole thing. The way I see it is that Apple has 'done it again' so as to say they've captured the attention of millions, and somehow managed to impress a large group of people while also making a lot of people question if the new iPhone is really worth it, which going by stats, it really isn't. Of course try telling this to the die hard Apple fan, or the guy who just wants to look cool which he thinks an iPhone will do.

So as far as revolutionary goes, the iPhone is anything but. Yes it has a few nice new features but those are only nice in comparison to previous iPhones. If you look at a multitude of other phones out there you come quick to realize that the iPhone 5 shouldn't be able to compete. But analysts have been quick to say that it will compete, and it will compete well. Personally I'm still holding out for the day that more people realize that the iPhone isn't as great as the stigma around it makes it seem. This is slowly happening of course what with Android controlling a majority of the market share for smartphones and showing no sign of slowing down.

It will be interesting to see how everything plays out. Yes a ton of people will buy the iPhone 5, but the real question is how many people are going to love it, and how many people will be coming back for the iPhone 6.

iOS 6: Part 5

Welcome back to another part in my series about everything iOS 6. Today we're going to talk about something completely new.






Passbook:

So Passbook is the new app coming with iOS 6 that basically turns your iPhone into a ticket. So say you want to go to the movies you can use your iPhone as the movie ticket. The same works for things like flights and concert tickets, etc. Passbook tells you all the information that your ticket normally would, like the balance left on your Starbucks card, or where your seat is at the concert. Passbook even claims to alert you in you're in the wrong airport terminal. And the handy thing is that the passes automatically pop up on your lock screen when they become needed. So if your movie is starting soon then the ticket will pop up and let you know that it's time and there it is conveniently placed for you.

So I've been pretty critical of some of iOS 6's new features but I have to admit that Passbook sounds pretty cool and actually really useful. So I approve this feature and I just wish that Apple would do more things like this. This is how you stay ahead of the competition. Of course the problem is that things like Google Wallet are already a thing. So Apple's got to do a lot more to win me over still.

iOS 6: Part 4

Welcome to part 4 of my ongoing series dedicated to everything iOS 6. Today we'll take a look at everything new involving photos.






Photo Stream:

What Photo Stream is is this new way of sharing your photos. Let's say you took some pictures at some family reunion and there was a funny picture of your cousin in one of those photos and you want to share it just with your cousin. With Photo Stream you can share this photo via iCloud to your cousins iOS 6 or Mountain Lion device via your photo app. If your cousin doesn't have one of those devices then they can just view them on the Internet. One thing that's cool about this is that it works over cellular and Wi-Fi networks meaning if you're using iPod Touch 4th Generations and higher, or if you have a phone without a data plan, then you can still use this feature. The other cool thing about Photo Stream is that you can leave comments on your shared photos.

I think it's time to get analytical. Sure on paper those features sound cool and useful, but then again are they really? I've been able to send emails with photos in them and leave comments that way for years. So why would I need Photo Stream. The only benefit that I could think of would be the fact that you supposedly can send unlimited photos, and we all know how frustrating it can be to send boat loads of photos via email. Of course that's why they created things like the cloud and Drop Box, both of which nullify this problem. So at the end of the day Photo Stream is basically a cleaner way to send your pictures off to people and doesn't really any significant benefit to it other then making things more seamless for you.