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We are revitalising our Top Five Apps section to our Photo App Lounge column. This a section within TheAppWhisperer where we ask highly accomplished mobile photographers and artists to list their top five apps and to explain why they have selected them. Kicking us off today is mobile photographer and artist, Em Kachouro, take a look!
All images ©Em Kachouro
As part of our new section, ‘App of the Day’, we want to ensure that you’re up to speed with the very best photography, art and videography apps, across all platforms. The Google Play store is now bursting with photography apps, that more often than not, are also available on iOS too. Days of fragmentation with the Android system are fading and the hardware is good too. The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) is a brilliant app and one that’s available across iOS and Android platforms. The Photographer’s Ephemeris is a powerful application to help you plan outdoor photography in natural light, especially landscape and urban scenes. It is a map-centric sun and moon calculator: see how the light will fall on the land, day or night, for any location on earth.
It must be pointed out that the Android version of this app is not as rich as the iOS version and this is reflected in the price. However, this app is hugely popular across both platforms and that’s simply because it is an essential tool for anyone who needing access to this information.
Just updated, TPE 4.0 offers a number of new features, making use of the Augmented Reality using ARKit – not to be missed!
As part of our new section, ‘App of the Day’, we want to ensure that you’re up to speed with the very best photography, art and videography apps, across all platforms. The Google Play store is now bursting with photography apps, that more often than not, are also available on iOS too. Days of fragmentation with the Android system are fading and the hardware is good too. Snapseed is an obvious app that’s available across platforms, now owned by Google of course. Snapseed is a powerful application with profesional qualitly editing tools. There’s a huge array of editing options, and anyone familiar with the iOS version, will feel reassured to see it here.
Head to the Google Play store here to download Snapseed to your Android device, requires 4.4 and up.
DxO, a key player in digital image technologies, announced a major update to the DxO ONE, its miniaturized and connected professional-quality camera for smartphones and tablets. Available immediately and free of charge, version 3.0 of the DxO ONE iOS app offers the first pro-quality multi-camera solution for Facebook Live and a new time-lapse option featuring exclusive Auto Ramping technology. The DxO ONE ecosystem of accessories now includes an external Battery Pack that doubles the camera’s battery life as well as a Cable Back Door for the device’s waterproof case, allowing you to use the DxO ONE outside or even underwater for extended periods.
“While smartphones have made significant progress in terms of image quality, they don’t come close to the photos and videos a real camera like the DxO ONE can offer. Most importantly, you have to hold them in your hand, and you constantly need them for other things, like making calls, sending messages, or checking your social networks,” explains Jérôme Ménière, DxO’s CEO and founder. “The DxO ONE is the first photo and video camera designed to operate as both a handheld and remote device. It’s even able to function remotely over a long period of time — for example, you can use it outside to record a time-lapse or Facebook Live video. Because it works in perfect harmony with your smartphone, it is the ideal photo and video assistant for this device.”
DxOMark, is the trusted industry standard for camera and lens image quality measurements and ratings. TheAppWhisperer has as intense association with this company and they have just published their latest test results on the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. Paul Carroll the writer for this review explains that the “Note 8 becomes the new joint leader for smartphone image quality alongside Apple’s iPhone 8 Plus. A phenomenal photo sub-score that breaks new ground as the first smartphone to hit 100 points makes the Note 8 the current class-leader for stills, thanks to excellent zoom quality, good noise reduction and detail preservation, as well as fast and accurate autofocus. The Note 8 doesn’t quite match the same heights for video, where its sub-score of 84 is a little behind the best performers, such as the Google Pixel with 91 points, or the iPhone 8 Plus and the HTC U11, both with 89. It’s still a very capable device for video, however, with its key strengths being good exposure with fast convergence, fast and stable autofocus, as well as good noise reduction, white balance, and color rendering”. This result puts the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 on a par with the iPhone 8 Plus – very interesting, to read more, go here.
Wow, this is an immensely impressive and well written article by Ron Amadeo, Reviews Editor at Ars Technica. “Take a closer look at Oreo and you really can see the focus on fundamentals. Google is revamping the notification system with a new layout, new controls, and a new color scheme. It’s taking responsibility for Android security with a Google-branded security solution. App background processing has been reined in, hopefully providing better battery life and more consistent performance. There’s even been some work done on Android’s perpetual update problem, with Project Treble allowing for easier update development and streaming updates allowing for easier installation by users. And, as with every release, more parts of Android get more modularized, with emojis and GPU driver updates now available without an OS update.” If you’re yearning to learn more and for developers this is a no-brainer, head over to this link and settle down to enjoy this 20,000 word feature on Android’s latest firmware update – 8.0 Oreo.
You may have heard that RED, the ultra high end camera manufacturer has stepped into Smartphone territory and announced a premium smartphone called Hydrogen One, with ‘holographic display’. Designed to work on the Android platform with a 5.7 inch display apparently will ‘seamlessly switch between traditional 2D content and holographic multi-view 3D content, as well as interactive games’.
Preorders are already filling up for the $1,195 aluminium version and the $1,595 titanium model on RED’s website, with shipping expected to be early 2018.
It’s interesting… I am a huge fan of RED gear and having visited Google’s HQ in London a few times, I know they’re packed into their YouTube studios.
We were interested in this review by Marques Brownlee, take a look below…
Our ‘Brought to Light‘ interview section explores the mobile photographers and mobile artists behind their art. Each question has been carefully crafted and is designed to allow us to get to know them a little more intimately. To view others … Read more
Today Fairphone has released Fairphone Open, an open version of Android 6 Marshmallow, to its users. This version of Android has publically available source code and does not have pre-installed Google Mobile Services (GMS), while the standard Fairphone OS comes with these popular services. Fairphone Open gets the same support, regular updates and security fixes as the regular Fairphone OS.
Fairphone also announced a partnership with Qwant, the European search engine that protects its users privacy. Fairphone aims to include the search engine on the Fairphone 2. Based in France, Qwant provides an ethical and comprehensive search engine that does not collect any personal information.
Giving choice to our community
The release of Fairphone Open continues to give users the opportunity to choose between two different operating systems that Fairphone actively supports. Those give everyone the choice to choose actively what apps and services they want to run on their devices. By publishing the source code Fairphone also invites everyone to contribute to the ecosystem of the Fairphone 2. This has already enabled the Fairphone community to independently port different operating systems to the Fairphone. These include Lineage OS (with Android 7) Sailfish OS, Firefox OS and Ubuntu Touch by UBports.
More alternative operating systems
Fairphone launched code.fairphone.com in the beginning of 2016, which is an open source and development website that contains the code for the Open Android Version of Fairphone OS and now also shows the code for its newly released operating system Android 6 Open. The release of the source code lays bare how the device functions, and with programming experience every user can find out through this code how their device works. This form of transparency gives everyone the opportunity to fully understand and control their device. Apart from booting alternative operating systems on the Fairphone 2, users could even write their own software updates based on the source code, which supports Fairphone’s vision for long lasting devices.
Great new app from IK Multimedia for Android (this app is also available in iOS). iRig Recorder 3 for Android™ devices is a professional quality field recording app which supports video recording and includes a wide collection of pro audio effects, expanded sharing capabilities via online services and social media as well as professional exporting features. iRig Recorder 3 offers users the ability to produce superb sounding audio/video recordings directly on their device, share them with the world or export them for further editing.
iRig Recorder 3 is the perfect companion to IK Multimedia’s iRig digital microphones and audio interfaces for Android. iRig Recorder 3 in combination with an IK microphone or interface offers everything needed to get professional quality sound while recording mobile audio for video, interviews, concerts, podcasts and more.
Offering an expandable collection of up to 17 effects, iRig Recorder 3 can be enhanced with professional processing options such as Normalize, Stereo Imager, Compressor and 3-band EQ as well as creative audio effects including Morph, Reverb, Chorus and Delay. They can be applied to audio recordings for sound optimization or creative use, doubling the number of effects available in the previous version of the app. Another new feature allows users to add text and photo markers to recordings in real-time to make editing easier than ever.
Record “selfie” videos, live performances, lectures, speeches, interviews and much more at the touch of a finger. iRig Recorder 3 is the go-to app for both professionals and enthusiasts who need a tool capable of greater versatility when it comes to creating high-quality video with great audio that can be shared via social media immediately.
One of the features that truly makes iRig Recorder 3 stand out from the crowd is its ability to export the recorded content in separate files for convenient editing in a DAW or third-party video editing software. Content can also be easily shared via a large selection of online services and social media like Facebook®, WhatsApp™, DropBox™, Google Drive™, Twitter™, E-mail, Wi-Fi™, or FTP file sharing, in a variety of sizes and formats.
