Saturday, December 1, 2012

Android Photography Applications


We’ve researched applications available for Android that can help you enhance and improve your photographs. Here are a few apps for simple and quick image editing to get you started!

Photo Editing

For basic image editing, Adobe Photoshop Express is a great application! It gives you the ability to alter exposure, saturation, tint, contrast & brightness quickly for simple image edits.
  
Combining Multiple Photos

Everyone loves combining multiple photos into one! A simple and easy to use application, Diptic, allows you to combine up to four images into one single frame. Be sure to check out this Photo Tips blog on combining images for some great tips!

 Content-Aware Retouching

Have you ever captured the perfect shot right when someone starts to walks through the frame? Or maybe you want to remove those unsightly wall plugs & switches in order to redirect focus to the decor. While happy accidents can create beautiful “right place, right time” photographs, the TouchRetouch application can help remove unwanted content from photos!


Importance of Mobile Apps Marketing


The mobile app industry is booming & the competition to get your app noticed in the marketplace is tough. However, there is space for your app, and, if marketed correctly, your app can and will succeed.
Marketing planning should start at the very beginning of app development. There are a number of factors that you must consider in the early stages of your app development, including branding, keywords, and competition.

When you are developing your app and designing your brand, you must take the following into consideration: the name of your business, the style of the app and, of course, the icon that will represent you in the app market. The initial impression your potential users will get of your app and brand is on your app’s download page, your screenshots, brand identity and app description; this is what will convert possible users into downloads.

A  keyword is a word or phrase that your user will look up to understand what your app does. Having a keyword in your name helps your app get found. It’s also important to have it in the description. Using your knowledge from your keyword exercise, you are now equipped to find out who your main competitors are, find out what their other keywords are and see how they rank in the market.

It is easier to determine which category you should be placing your app under. However, choosing the right category is difficult, and you will need to take a calculated risk. If your competition is fierce in one category, it may make more sense to choose another relevant category that was not your first choice but will get your app ranked higher and, therefore, more likely to be downloaded.

Once you have launched your app, the second stage of mobile app marketing takes over. Submitting your app to app review sites will increase your brand awareness, allowing potential clients to discover your app while they are reviewing similar apps or while they are searching for an app they are considering downloading.

Encourage your users to review your app after download. Positive app store reviews will build trust in prospects who are wondering whether to download your app, especially if the app is not free.

Creating apps has become increasingly easy, especially with companies offering free app creator programs. Coupled with the right marketing strategy, the app market offers successful business opportunities.
  

Free Mobile Apps for an Entrepreneur


Mobile apps allow you to do a job out of the office. Here is a list of some Mobile apps which can save a few hours for you. However, the following list is not exhaustive.

Skype – You can download Skype on your phone because it is good for communicating when you do not want long-distance charges.

Photosynth – Need to take pictures of a prospective office or event space? This app will let you stitch together photos to give you not just a panoramic view but a 3D panoramic view so you get the real feel of any room or space.

Perch – Perch allows you to discover competitor businesses and check out their online presence and activity across Facebook, Twitter and Yelp.

MobileDay – MobileDay is a conference call app you’ve always wanted but didn’t necessarily know you did.

Skitch – Mark up photos, maps, screenshots and webpages with arrows, shapes and text and then share them with your network. This app is especially great for use with web designers and tech teams when trying to visually convey your suggestions and corrections. Integrates with Evernote.

Bizzonia – For the diehard networkers, this app allows you to geo-locate other business professionals in your area.

Dropbox – Dropbox allows you to access all your files in the cloud right from your phone. Cloud storage across your phone and computer is a good way to back up all your files.  You can also share your files in your Dropbox account with any recipient, without having to email them.

Genius Scan – This Mobile apps will let you take a picture of any document, or string of documents, and then send it to your recipient as a single PDF file, the same way an office scanner would.

Splashtop – This Mobile app will get you remote access to your computer, right from your phone.

Smartr – If you want a good way to remember when you last kept in touch with someone, then this app is like the analytics for your address book. It is also a location to get calendar events and read email, Facebook messages and Tweets from your contacts as well.

Pivotal Tracker – If you’re looking for a project management tool, see Pivotal Tracker. Then download it on your phone. This app will help you manage your entire team by allowing you to check the status of all.

Evernote – If you need new ideas or improvements to your business, then this apps is for you. You can write those ideas down, and this app is great for doing just that.

PayPal – If you pay independent contractors through PayPal, then download this app. The PayPal mobile app is secure and almost easier to use than your desktop for sending payments.



Mobile phone photography


Mobile phone photography or iphoneography has advanced rapidly in a few short years.  Your phone camera is your best camera, because it's always with you. Most mobile phone cameras take very dull photos. However, it doesn't matter, because there are hundreds of apps to help you turn them into something amazing.

Mobile photography apps give you the creative power of Photoshop and more. This makes mobile photography incredibly liberating. The ability to show your images to the world has made mobile photography an incredibly vibrant genre. Sharing via mobile phone is hassle-free. The importance of apps for mobile photography means the genre is characterised by highly processed images that can bear little connection to reality.  

Instagram had 100 million users and hosted 4 billion photos. Facebook hosts far more photos but not all are taken with mobile cameras. Had Flickr launched a mobile app a couple of years ago to integrate with its online archive, Instagram might never have existed.

A large number of mobile photos are snapshots of daily life, but people are doing a lot more with mobile photography nowadays than simply taking photos of their birthday parties or their cats. Having discovered they now always have a camera with them, that there is very little cost involved and that they can interact socially through their photos, millions of people have taken up photography through their smartphones.

Photojournalists have most to fear from mobile photographers. If something dramatic happens on the street, someone's already there taking a photo of it. Mobile photography can be very good at street and editorial photography. Mobile photographers can get close to their subjects and not be recognised as a photographer, allowing them to get more authentic images of people.

Mobile photography provides a new channel for effective visual advertising, and are making use of social media platform.  Photography agencies are also tapping into the trend. With clients increasingly on the lookout for photos with the authenticity of imperfection, agencies are turning to non-professionals and the 250 million-plus photos uploaded every day to the internet. Some, perhaps ahead of the curve, are also seeking out the heavily processed look typical of mobile apps.

As a young genre, mobile photography is still finding its own identity. Its roots may be in online and digital, but it has aspirations to be taken seriously by the rest of the photography world and various physical exhibitions have taken place.

Some exhibitions are the result of competitions. One of the biggest, the Mobile Photo awards, takes its winning photos on a tour of various US cities. There are dozens of daily blogs and community websites about mobile photography. iphoneography.com, provides up-to-the-minute reviews of apps and hosts a gallery of mobile work. Instagramers.com also posts regular news of mobile photography events and developments.


Friday, November 23, 2012

Are Mobile Apps Here To Stay?



A mobile app is similar to a website in its overall design; however a mobile website is a conversion of a typical website forcing it to fit on a mobile platform. A mobile website cannot take advantage of all the functionality of a mobile device and is generally cumbersome in its access and use. It is good that so many people today see phones as devices for more than just calling or texting, and the iPhone and its suite of native apps is largely to thank for this.

A mobile app is software designed to take advantage of the functionality a mobile device has, while providing content significant to a potential customer. If you want to keep pace with the mobile wave that is being driven from the use of Smart phones by your employees, keeping with these demands is becoming increasingly difficult. This certainly seems to be the case with companies who are struggling to mobilise their workforce.

A mobile device can interact with customers and provide two-way communication. This gives a business owner the power to control their market offerings in real time, for example: A business can decide to run a special for one hour during the day and be able to communicate this offering to their customers immediately.

Apps are used to get the news, communicate with friends, check flight times, share photos, get recipes, listen to music, and of course play games. It is easy to see how someone may get into trouble with spending too much time and money on apps. A business app can build customer loyalty.

Mobile apps and push notifications are a great way to communicate offers, specials, events and more, to your customers. The emergence of mobile marketing is in its early stages and is a new interactive approach to marketing. This is a way to create interaction with your customers and also see immediate results.

Is the mobile app destined to be a transitory phenomenon, something that will fade away as mobile browsers become capable of delivering the same functionality? A mobile app can provide value for a business. In addition the trends are showing that the mobile app market is just beginning and will explode within the next eighteen months. The truth is – mobile is here to stay and there is no escaping that fact. The mobile landscape is evolving fast so ensure that your mobile applications that you build can be upgraded to advanced versions later when newer technologies come up within the mobile field.


Getting Started with Android Development



Since I’ve been following this blog, I’ve never read a post related to Android application / game development. So I thought writing something in that area would be helpful to any beginner. Android is an amazing and fun platform to work on. Anyone can come up with their own unique idea, create a good product and make it available to thousands and thousands of customers.

In this tutorial, we will create a “Hello World” Android app, get it working on the emulator or a device if you have one, and create a simple master/detail app that shows a list of quotes by our favorite hero, Steve Jobs. I’ll even show you how to build the app for distribution on the Google Market!  And yes, it is a little ironic to make a Steve Jobs quote app on an Android device, but hey this is mainly an iOS blog after all. So keep reading to dive into the wild world of Android!

Anyone who wants to buy an android device has a large variety to choose from. There are more than 300 android devices in the market each with their own hardware features. If your primary concern is development, get the best phone that matches the lowest API level that you wish your software to support, so you can test with it. Use the emulator to test other API levels. If your primary concern is having a good phone, get the best phone and use the emulator to test other API levels.

For app development, it doesn’t really matter which phone you get aside from API levels, for game development you might want the slowest phone that you intend to support so you are forced to write efficient code. Considering all this if you want to buy a phone for software development I recommend buying the Samsung Galaxy Ace, Htc Wildfire S, or Motorola Droid X2. Any should meet your development needs, and you can pick up a fairly inexpensive used one from the links above.

However if you’re looking for the latest and greatest, I recommend Google’s new Galaxy Nexus. This just came out in December and is one of the most powerful devices out there, and is running the latest version of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich).

content from http://www.raywenderlich.com/5527/getting-started-with-android-development

Android platform - The most Preferred



Android is open source platform and provides all information and services to all sans any license fees. It has capacity of getting compatible with almost all browsers hence you can make it compatible with any browser. Competition between mobile developers is increasing due to new versions of mobile platforms developed in the market. No doubt that everyone wants to and tries to corner Androids sizable portion of market share. This open source platform attracts android application developers to build fabulous mobile applications. This is the main reason for Android, since its launch Android has become vastly popular and admired by many mobile application development communities.

Android mobile platform consists of Android operating system and Android SDK as well as android middleware. SDK is the basic platform which provides android app developer required tools and technical support for developing apps and APIs. The best thing about Android is, it is based on Linux platform hence it facilitates absolutely easy accessibility to environment and the core functionality for building fabulous applications for the smart mobile phones. It has capacity of scaling up from its current level and provides the best solutions.

Android platform is powerful in providing accurate information required by users with quick information gathering techniques. It has capacity of greatly reducing development time and efforts required and this helps in completing the project quickly and easily. This will help you to stay ahead of your competitors all the time. Android Development tools are easy to use and implementation so any android app programmer can use this platform quire easily. It does not require learning any language for Android application development and one can easily perform better with the existing knowledge and ability or qualification. The following are the reasons why it is preferred by many of the Android developers / users:

* Biggest advantage is Android is an open platform and free. So many manufacturers can design a variety of software loaded on the Android system.

* Android display system can be changed to horizontal or vertical, making it easier for the user in finding an adequate picture.

* If one has a phone with Android consistently then s/he can download and install several free programs for Android and can open many windows at once.

* Many Android applications have been, until April 2011 has reached 250,000 applications for Android. With the support of many applications, the user can change the screen display.

* Android phones can also function as a router to share Internet.

* The ability for anyone to customize the Google Android platform will open up the applications playing field to small and new players who lack the financial muscle to negotiate with wireless carriers like AT&T and Orange.

* The consumer will benefit from having a wide range of mobile applications to choose.

* Although this will depend on the carrier, one will be able to customize a mobile phones using Android platform like never before, right down to the screen.

* Features like weather details, opening screen, live RSS feeds and even the icons on the opening screen will be able to be customized.

* As a result of many mobile phones carrying Android, companies has come up with such innovative products like the location aware services that will provide users with any information they might be in need of.

* This information could help developing further apps like knowing the location of a nearby convenience store or filling station.


content from http://mobileappsinfo.blogspot.in/2012/06/android-platform-most-preferred.html