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Dec

Our Five Favorite New Apps To Check Out From November 2012

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications

The Google Play Store, as always, was abuzz with new apps last month. More than just new apps, though, the Play Store gained plenty of well-crafted, quality apps. The kind that have spurred the market's recent growth spurt, and which allow users to discover functionalities they never knew they needed. As always, we've sifted through all last month's new apps and selected our top five picks – a kind of short list for those looking to get the most out of their device with awesome apps.

Pixlr Express

Pixlr Express, despite its name, is an impressively powerful tool for on-the-go photo editing.

Nov

Pixlr Express Review – Autodesk Gets On-The-Go Photo Manipulation Right (Again)

Posted by Liam Spradlin in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews

When I first covered Pixlr Express a few days ago, I noted that the presence of a photo editing app was odd in Autodesk's lineup of powerful tools. Having developed apps like ForceEffect, 360 Mobile, and AutoCAD WS, you'd think Autodesk was marketing to power users who want to design, edit, animate, and engineer from the palm of their hand. Still, Autodesk's first foray into the mobile photo editing world – Pixlr-o-matic – was a hit. So much so, it appears, that Autodesk brought to market Pixlr Express.

Despite its name, the only thing "express" about Autodesk's new tool is the speed with which users can edit, manipulate, and overlay photos using a wide library of tools (when I say "wide," I refer to its selection of 600+ effects).

Nov

[New App] Autodesk's Pixlr Express Successfully Combines Vintage Effects With Practical Photo Editing

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, News

Autodesk, known for polished, highly functional software like AutoCAD, and apps that allow users to build, manipulate, animate, and plan from their Android device, also found a hit with its Pixlr-o-matic app, an image editor that primarily touted its ability to create "cool looking vintage images." I always thought a vintage filter app was a little out of place in Autodesk's otherwise power user-oriented lineup, but it was still a fun app for quick antique-ification of your mobile photos.

Building on Pixlr-o-matic's success, Autodesk brought to market today another photo editing app – Pixlr Express. From the name, you may get the impression that Pixlr Express is more limited in scope than Pixlr-o-matic, but in reality, it's just the opposite.

Nov

Download The Android 4.2 Camera/Gallery App With New UI, Editing, Photo Sphere [Update: Now With Working Sphere Viewer]

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Applications, Jelly Bean 4.2, News

UPDATE: We've updated the links below with an install package that lets you capture and view Photo Spheres right on your handset.

One of the most popular features introduced Monday with Android 4.2 was a revamped camera/gallery app (that we got a peek at early). The camera introduces a new focus/settings UI (popping up with an "options ring" only when you need it), a refreshed gallery interface, and of course – Photo Sphere.

Photo Sphere, for those who missed it, allows users to capture 360° images of their surroundings a la Google Maps, using XML data in concert with an enormous JPG file to help you save an immersive photo experience of where you've been.

Feb

Scalado Remove Gets The Hands-On Treatment Ahead Of MWC, Wipes Out Photobombers With Ease

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, News

You may remember a couple of weeks ago when we covered an app by Scalado called Remove that, well, removes strangers from your mobile photos. The app is officially scheduled to debut to the public at this years Mobile World Congress, but ABC News' This Could Be Big segment gave the software a quick hands-on ahead of time:

Remove, as explained in the video above, works by taking multiple photos of a scene and highlighting unnecessary foot traffic/unwanted objects, wiping them out quickly and easily, and patching them with the background your photo was supposed to have.

It's still not clear when we can expect to see the app distributed to individual users, or when we may see the software preloaded on devices, but we'll be here to cover all the details as they roll out next week.

Oct

[Exclusive] The Ice Cream Sandwich Gallery Is Likely Getting A Built-In Photo Editor; We've Got The Feature List

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Exclusives, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

Last Updated: June 5th, 2012

Google is working on building a photo editor into the Android Gallery. That much we're certain about - we've got the icons for it. It's not 100% confirmed that this will actually ship, or if these features or icons are final, but do you really think they'd do all this work and throw it out?

With the disclaimer out of the way, here's the icons and descriptions, ripped right from Ice Cream Sandwich's creamy center.

Update 10/18/11: Confirmed during the ICS unveiling.

Tools

Redo

Undo

Colors

Exposure

Fix

Artistic

Crop

Rotate

Flip

Straighten

Sharpen

Redeye

Note: All the tool icons were white on transparent, so I gave them a black background.

Jun

New App: ObscuraCam Automatically Detects, Blurs Faces And Strips Metadata From Your Photos

Posted by David Ruddock in Applications, Apps/Games, News, Tips & Tutorials

OK, this is probably one of the cooler apps I've seen in a while. ObscuraCam is an open source photo anonymizer project made in concert with the folks over at Witness.org - a human rights violation watchdog. Why is a human rights organization helping you blur those photos you took that night you accidentally [insert potential human rights violation here] but still thought would be hilarious to upload to Facebook?

Well, Witness wants this app to be used by political dissidents in countries where things like facial identification and metadata scraping are major barriers to posting photos of political protests online.

May

[(P)Review] TouchRetouch Fixes Your Photos, Removes Your Need For Photography Skills

Posted by Brad Ganley in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

How many of you out there have taken a picture only realize later that, as you were snapping the photo, somebody totally photobombed you, there is an ugly light pole in the distance, or a hobo was giving you the finger in the background? All of you, you say? Well, boy howdy, have I got an app for you! No longer will you need to employ this supposed "skill" that people claim to have in photography, nor will you need to "pay attention" when taking photos. I can barely pay my cell phone bill, let alone attention to things I'm doing!

Apr

Now We're Talking - Today's Free Premium Amazon Appstore App Is The Excellent PicSay Pro (Normally $3.99)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Deals, News

After a few days of relatively disappointing free premium apps of the day in the Amazon Appstore, today we have a real treat - the Pro version of a photo editing app PicSay. Before I go on, I must note that this is the only photo editing app I actually bought quite a while ago, after playing around with the free version. It's no wonder - the app has 4.8 stars and over 11,000 ratings in the Market.

PicSay Pro is one of the easiest and most versatile programs for quickly editing, saving, and sharing photos. And did I mention it's fun?

Mar

QuickOffice Pro HD For Honeycomb Now Available, Spreadsheets Imminent

Posted by David Ruddock in Applications, Apps/Games, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

Has your XOOM experience just been incomplete without the ability to view Power Point presentations and Excel spreadsheets? Well, hold on to your triple mocha decaf vanilla sugar free latte, then - QuickOffice Pro HD has arrived to super-size your productivity for maximum tablet utility.

Seriously, though, QuickOffice is a must-have if you need to view formatted documents as part of justifying that Honeycomb-tablet purchase. In addition to reading Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files (both the old 2003 and 2007+ file versions), QuickOffice Pro comes with a powerful file browser utility that hooks into your Google Docs, Dropbox, Box, Huddle, SugarSync, and MobileMe accounts to make accessing your cloud-synced documents a breeze.