Pros:
-Numerous options to choose from
-Fun application to personalize your photos

Cons:
-Lag time on more than about 10 objects placed on the photo
-Bad placement of developer’s website link
-limited to 14 objects
-lacking objects from running sports (marathons, track, ice skating)

Sports Brush is a simple photo editing application that allows you to add multicolored, multi-transparent, sport-themed shapes on top of your photos.

There are a total of 14 shapes (a baseball, a basketball, a bat, a bocce ball, a bowling ball, a football, soccer ball, a helmet, a hockey stick, a ping pond paddle, a rugby ball, a tennis ball, a volleyball, and a solid circle) and several colors for each one.

Layout:
When you first open the application, you simply select a photo from you photos or take a picture with the iPhone camera. After selecting a photo, you will view the photo and in the bottom left-hand corner you can tap in the brush-icon as this will take you to the object-select screen.
Here you can select the object of the left side and the color on the right side. Below that are a set of sliders. The top one controls the diameter of the object and the second slider controls the transparency of the object(s) being placed on the photo. Below the sliders are to on/off buttons. The left one allows you to randomize the shape and the transparency of the object (overrides the sliders) and the right one, allows you to randomize the colors. I personally found that having the these two on as the results were quite neat. Once you have finished selecting you options, tap the “sketch” button at the top to return to your photo. You can then use your finger as the brush on the photo. You can always return to the objects and color by tapping the brush in the lower left corner. To save the picture you tap the save icon in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.

Issues:
The first initial objects came out very quickly, but after subsequent objects were placed on the photo there was a considerable amount of lag time. This isn’t really a problem if you are placing the objects one by one, but if you are trying drag your finger across the image- the lag time is very frustrating.
The undo button is okay – it undoes the objects one-by-one. If you are wanting to remove several or completely, it is going to take you some time to complete.
The screen where you select from the pictures or the camera, in the bottom right-corner is an info screen (nothing wrong with this). In the bottom left-hand corner, is an icon that take you out of the app and into Safari.app to take you to the developer’s website. While I am not opposed to having a website link, I think it should be in the info tab, not on the main interface because it can catch people by surprise and ruin the user experience.

Overall:
I think this is a nifty little application, but I really would like to see more objects added to the list. At $0.99 , this not a bad application to get started with.

More screenshots here.

Mobile Version

ePhoto is an ingenious application, it allows you to send more than one photo via email to whom ever you wish.

Layout:
You begin in the program by selecting the photos that you want out of you photo album or camera roll. After each selection of a photo you can either add another photo, clear your selection, clear all your selection (start over) or continue to email. Also if you go to select another image and realize you didn’t mean to do that , then you can tap cancel and it will take you to the e-mail screen

After tapping the email button you will be asked to whom you want to send the pictures to and the subject line. You also have the ability to add a message to the recipient underneath the subject line!

After that, if it is your first time you’ll have to set up some email settings. The application works as an email app so you’ll have to know your email settings. If you have a gmail account, the only thing you need to do is set up an user name and password. Also in this screen you can change the compression settings. Most of the time I keep them at their full resolution, You can compress the picture by 50% (.5) and still have a relatively good picture to send and it really cuts down on the file size.

Once you have completed the setting , they will be saved for when you return to the application and you can change the setting at any time. After the setting screen, tap Send and you will receive a pop up notifying you the progress of the pictures that are being sent and also a confirmation that the email sent.

Overall:
This is an incredibly handy application and I really recommend it for anybody that likes to send photos via e-mail to friends and family and especially for those that like sending multiple photos to themselves without having to go through the whole routine of syncing with a computer or sending it to themselves via the email.app and have small compressed images.

Pros:
-Send original uncompressed photos
-Optional compression settings
-Acts as an e-mail client (outgoing only)
-Send multiple pics at once

Cons:
-Only one receiver at a time
-Must clear images if selecting a new group after sending photos
-Setting up email settings can be intimidating for some.

Peeps is a new and interesting way to view your contacts- by their pictures!

Pros:
-Cover-flow viewing of contacts
-Easy and quick setup
-Create your own groups.

Cons:
-Viewing in Cover-flow is fickle

When you first open the application, all you contact are loaded into the app. For me it only took about 5 second to import all 150 or so contacts.

After that you’ll see a screen that has about 9 of your contacts pictures and their names are listed below them. You can scroll up and down to see your contact via their pictures. If you tap on a picture you will be able to see your contact’s info. Also within the multi-contact screen, you can create a new contact via the app by tapping on the “+” in the upper-right corner.

By tapping the “Peeps” button in the upper-left-hand corner you will be able to view your groups and to create them as well.

In the screen shot below I created “Mi Peeps.” Since I don’t have a whole lot of contacts with pictures, I began to create a list of contacts that do have pictures. I also accidentally added someone that didn’t have a picture, If you need to remove a contact from a group, tap and hold on the contact’s picture and you will have the option to delete the contact, remove contact from group or cancel.

In creating the group of your choice, you can either select contacts from your existing Address book or create a new one.

While viewing you contacts, if you turn you iPhone on it’s side, then you can view you contacts in an “cover-flow” format as your would on you iPhone’s iPod.app. Just like in the iPod.app when you tap on the album cover, you receive a playlist of that album, well in Peeps, when you tap the photo, you get all there contact information. This is a neat adaptation from the iPod.app.

I however, found that the screen turned back from the cover-flow with the slightest tilt out of “landscape” view.

Overall:
I think this an interesting app especially if you have a lot of contacts with pictures, if you are like me and only 5% or so of your contacts have pictures, then this application is probably not for you. For people that do have a lot of contact pictures, I think this will be a “cool” way to casually flip trough your contact and show your friends, but, I don’t think it will be of great use in the event you need to call one of your contacts, especially if you are in a hurry.
I’d really like to see adjustments made to the accelerometers in viewing contacts in “cover-flow.” After writing this review once and then speaking with the Peeps support, I found out a little more about the app than before. So and information screen explaining how to display and edit contact would be a nice feature to have. At $1.99 I recommend this app for people with lots of photos in their address book. It also seems to be a nice way to update the photos of a contact a bit quicker than going through the contacts one-by-one in the Address book.

Camera bag is a simple and creative application.

It allows you to apply several different filters to a picture you have already taken our one that you can take within the  application itself.

Besides the filters themselves, you have the option to choose which  resolution you wish to use. The higher the resolution the longer the app will take in saving your new photo, but the better the quality the picture will be. Personally I want the highest quality possible and it didn’t seem to take an unnecessary amount of time to save (the save time is shown in there video below.)

The app has 8 filters total that you can apply to a photo:

Helga: this desaturates and adds a vignett border as well as crops the  photo.

Lolo: crops the photo to a square, adds a white border and increases  situation and contrast.

Cinema: desaturates photo and adds a blue tone to the photo.

Ansel: Adds white border and converts picture to Black & White (grayscale).

1962: converts to black & white (grayscale) and increases contrast.

1974s: adds sepia tone to photo, adds white border and crops photo.

Fisheye: Creates a bubble type of effect with your photo. (not really fisheye).

Infrared: Converts the photo to black & white (grayscale) then Inverts the colors.

To get started, you just have to tap the camera icon to take a photo oftap the “group” icon – right-most icon of the 3-group of icons, to select a previously taken photo. The photo will load with the first filter applied (Helga). You can then select from the list at the top by tapping the name of the filter to drop down the list and selecting another filter. You can also “flip” through the filters, as you would do in your photo album. Once you find the filter you like, you just click the save button (middle of the 3 keys) and it automatically saves to you camera roll.

This application only applies coloration filter, in other words there is not mosaic or of-the-like-type filter, which for me, I enjoy. I tend not to like the mosaic and “fun” filters, but more of the black & white, color variation filters. The app developer says they will include more filters in the following updates. I’d like to see a variable filter of some type (contrast for example), in which you can control the variables (sliders) of the filter. I’d also like to see the ability to apply multiple filters before saving.

At first I was a bit hesitant on purchasing this application as I didn’t want to pay $2.99 for applying filters on my iphone (I thought “that’s something I can do on my computer”) but it is a nice application to have and it creates nice photos overall.

The application is currently on sale for $3. Its orginal price is $5. Personally I am not sure I don’t recommend paying $5 for this app until they add more filters, maybe $4, and I defiantly recommend buying it for $3.

Recommendations & Tips: although you have the ability to take the photo in the application, I’d recommend taking the photo with the standard camera application then apply the filter in the app. You can also add multiple filters by applying a filter, then saving it, then reopening  your newly created photo and apply another filter. You may encounter small artifacts in the photo due to multiple conversions/savings in doing this though.

Videos & more Photos:

Normal | Mobile

Click here for more screenshots & filter copmparison examples.

4.4/5

The Truth:
When someone sends me a “picture” I ignore it, I don’t have pen and paper with me all the time…I mean that’s why I have my iPhone… Well Quip can help with this – it basically simplifies the process:

You pick a picture or take one with the camera.

Then you select a contact to send it to.

You also have the option of adding text to the picture.

The receiver will receive an SMS message with a link….yes a link, and that’s it…well almost…

(*In the screen shot, you may notice that it says “Quip” at the top. I added the number that it comes from to my contact list…’cause I hate random numbers on the screen…don’t ask*)

They tap on the link and are taken to a website where the photo is being hosted (via Quip).

Since the picture is uploaded to the Quip servers and the receiver is sent a link to it. In order to reply to you, they have to tap on the phone number in the SMS message or do it manually. Also you can see that in the text message, the receiver is also given your name (your “from” name can be set in the iPhone settings tab, along with your “reply-to” phone number.)

I’ve really enjoyed this app. The only thing I’d like to see fixed- I’ve noticed that after taking a photo or selecting one from the library, to when you type in text, the photo preview seems to vies zoomed in & cropped. However when you send it, it is unchanged from it’s original state. So I am unsure whether this is intentional or not, but this is really just a nit-picky thing. For $0.99 this is a really great app.

Video

Cons:
-Inconvenient to create a new panorama right after the last one was saved.

$2.99

4.5/5

Holding the iPhone in a horizontal position you can take up to 4 pictures, then stitch them together as one photo.

When taking the 2nd through the 4th, the right side of the screen shows a transparency of the previous photo to help you line up the photo.

I was very surprised at the blending and exposure control in the program.

The panoramas are then automatically saved in the photo roll.

The main problem I ran into was that after saving the first panorama, I had to exit then re-enter the application in order to take another panorama. Other than that, I really enjoyed running around taking panoramas.

Just as a reference I have been stitching panoramas together for some time now, including some that are Giga pixels in size (yeah, that’s a lot of Mega pixels.)To see one of the panoramas that I have created, click here. The image is fairly large…you’ve been warned

You can also see more panoramas that I have taken with the application along with more screenshots here.

FREE

4.6/5

Fuzzyshot is a simple photo blog poster. It has only a few screens. A screen to take the photo and then a screen to add a title & a description of the photo. You also have the option of including geotag to be included with your photo. If the title is left blank, the current date will be inserted. I found the auto-current date quite nice as my photos I usually take are usually random, so the easiest way to group them, is by day. However if you are at a concert and you title the photo “concert” and then later take another photo with the same title, the photos will be placed in the same album under that title as long as the photos are taken within 24 hours of each other.

Once you hit submit, your photo is uploaded to a your photo blog hosted by Fuzzyshot. For example my Fuzzyshot photo blog is: Fuzzyshot | msbaylor’s Mobile Photos

I really enjoy having a place to display my photos “live” so that family and friends can see what I am up to. It is also a nice way to back up your photos if necessary (although one-by-one). Besides taking a picture within the app, you can upload a previously taken photo.

Since I own a domain, I just created a sub domain and forward it to my Fuzzyshot photo blog so it’s easy for people to remember it.

Overall I find the app very easy to use and it does exactly what it is supposed to do. Highly recommended.

Posted: 9-23-2008, 06:54am