Camera+ I thought I would start with this one as this is one app that most people have. Camera+ lets you create a picture that can look truly beautiful. You can adjust the focus and exposure, use the flashlight, set a timer, crop the image and set a scene mode like in a real digital camera. If you need help to line up your shot there is also a grid to guide you. There is a huge range of effects and filters to enhance your picture. After you have finished up you can add borders and save or share to Twitter and Facebook. There is even an undo button if you delete a picture before you saved it and want to get it back.

Dynamic Light This photography app is one that you won’t use all the time but when you do it creates some great effects. It takes your picture and gives it a realistic HDR look. The best kind of photos to use with this app are ones with lots of sky and big clouds. The app then adds loads of texture and colour to it and transforms it into an amazing picture. You can also change the colour and tone from a selection available. It is all done by one dial on screen and you simple move it left or right depending how much of an effect you want to use.

Noir Photo This is a fairly new app and one I am still trying out on some of my pictures. The app turns your picture into a black and white image with light shining on a selected part of you photo. You can then add a hint of colour for example sepia, silver, blue-gray and use touch and pinch controls to adjust the brightness and exposure. Easy to use straight from the camera roll and saves with the tap of a button.

Diptic A great app for putting together multiple photos into one place. There are 19 layouts to choose from which are divided into sections of 2, 3 or 4. You choose the one you want to use and then simply tap to add an image. You can change the border colours and width and if you want to adjust the dimensions of these dividers there is an in-app purchase for that. Each photo can be indivdually edited. It can be rotated or you can zoom in or mirror it. Then there is the normal brightness, colour and contrast adjustments.

TiltShift Generator A great app for adding that miniature effect. It is also ideal if you want to blur out parts of the photo and draw attention to one part of it. It offers a radial or linear blur, vignetting control and you adjust the contrast and saturation. Very simple to upload photos or take within the app and you can then save to your camera roll.

Hipstamatic A fun app to give your pictures that plastic toy camera effect. This is an app with a great user interface and fun sounds to go with it. Choose different lenses, flashes and films each offering different effects. The app gives a very unique look to your pictures and can make an ordinary photograph look very professional.

Swankolab Another great app with an amazing UI and sound effects. This will take you back to the days of having a darkroom. Use chemicals and a formula book to alter your photos to a unique look. There is even a developing tray to watch them transform! There is no limit to the effects you can create with this app as you can choose which colour chemicals and effects you add or simply follow the formula book.

Adobe Photoshop Express One of the first photography apps I used for my photos and again is probably one app you will already have. Great for improving and editing your image. Choose from filters, different colours, borders and basics like crop and rotate. A great app to start you off if you are new to editing your photographs.

Iris Photo Suite A full photo suite of effects and filters. You have a choice of 27 filters ranging from cross-process, retro to split tone and blueprint. You are sure to find a filter you will want to use. Then there are 27 different textures to apply to your picture. Great for adding a unique look. Within the app there is also the option to layer to combine multiple captures.

Photoshake A fun app to play around with your images. This works in a similar way to the Diptic app. It is used to combine multiple photographs together. There are 6 themes, Single photo, mulitphoto, Instantphoto, Gridphoto, widephoto and wallpaper. You can take a photo within the app or from your camera roll. Tap all the ones you want to add, give it a little shake and it then adds them to the chosen grid. Then you can change the borders and colours and add text should you wish. You can also add balloon comments and stickers. Supports most social networks giving you the option to upload them and share with friends.

Picture Show Another app that uses the toy camera effects. This one is very flexible and you can mix and match each one. There are 45 styles and lots of frames to choose from. You can add light leaks to your picture and different noise effects. There is the basic cropping and rotating and changing of colour. There is also a lens kit to give your picture a single, quad, Vertical quad or multi-exposure. It is very easy to use and adjust and once you have a completed image simply save or share via your social network.

FX Photo Studio comes with lots of effects and filters to adjust your pictures. Filters like tiltshift, vintage, lomo,paint, blur and textures. There is the usual crop and rotate and you can add more than one effect to a picture. Each filter is sorted into set catergories for easy browsing. You can take within the app or use from your camera roll. It is very easy to use, once you have applied the filter you can adjust the edges and contrast to your desired range. There are lots of unusual filters within this app so it is definitely ideal if you want to have a picture with a different look.

Colour Splash – This app basically turns your picture into black and white. You then decide which chosen area of the photo you would like colour showing through and ‘paint’ the colour back. It draws the attention to a part of a photo and you can make some great photos with it. You use your finger as the brush to paint the colour back on. You can zoom in for delicate small areas so you don’t go over into another colour. It is all touch and zoom controls and easy to use.

Phototreats – Compared to others this app only offers a few filters and effects. I have kept it though because the ones it does have are not similar to the others. The filters give extra light and colour, even a snowy effect which I am sure you may have seen around christmas time. There are additional packs you can buy in-app and you can see what they look like before you make any purhase.

PocketBooth A fun app to use giving you the feel of using an old style photobooth. You can use either front or back facing camera and it offers several effects to add to the picture, black and white, sepia, antique and 1975. You can also use the flash if need be. It is also Airprint enabled and you can easily save to your camera roll. Just press the big button at the bottom and the app starts snapping the pictures one by one then you just wait for them to develop and appear.

Incredibooth This is very similar to Pocketbooth but just with a different user interface. Offers four different filters to adjust your picture. You can also share the pictures seperately or all in one strip. Again you just press the button and wait for the pictures to be taken. All the fun of a real photobooth!

Plastic Bullet Camera This is definitely not an app to be used very often. It gives an aquired random look and not one you would want to use all the time. Take a photo or upload from your camera roll. Then tap the adjust button and your image will appear several times with random effects added. You keep tapping until you find one you like. When you do you simply tap and save it. It can turn a plain and simple photo into an interesting and beautiful picture.

Pocket Labeler Once you have uploaded or taken a picture you can then add captions and design borders or a wallpaper. All the labels you type with text can be moved around your picture and scaled to the right size. There is a good choice of colours to match your designs. Great if you want to add sayings, jokes or just a birthday wish!

Labelbox – Another labelling app but this one again offers something a little different to the other one. Add your picture and then add a label from a range of colours and materials. Touch to move the text and fit it where ever you choose. There are 9 different styles to choose from and more if you wish to buy in-app. You can then save or share your image.

Happysnapper This is yet another app to have a little fun with. It enables you to add stickers to your photos and add text on them if you like. Not an app you would use all the time but worth having in your folder. Simply pick a sticker, write a message and pop it where you want. You can save to camera roll or share on your with your friends.

iDarkroom This is another app that offers great filters but also has some effects that others don’t offer. There are 20 filters to choose from with the option of using one of the eleven paper effects as well. There is a good range of light effects including the popular bokeh. Then it also offers noise, frames and vignette effects.

Photo Mess This is an app to create lots of photos on one screenshot but not in the same way the Diptic app does. You can scatter your photos where ever you want on screen and alter the size of it as well. You can adjust the borders and background colours. You can add as many pictures as you can fit into it. Great for showing all your pictures in one place.

HalfCamera Fun for doing the half frame camera effect. Take up to 12 pictures on a realistic film roll. Choose two that you like near each other and add them together. You can also create text inbetween them if you like. There are also 11 effects you can use to adjust your picture.

Lo Mob This app offers lo-fi adjustments to your picture. Simply take a picture and it will show you a huge range of filters and what your picture will look like with that effect. It offers 39 filters altogether and you can edit the colours, blur and vignetting. It also offers several frames that others don’t. Just some of the filters in the app are photocards, vintage 35mm slides,classic square vintage and old emulsions.

iMovie I think a lot of people will have this already but it is worth a mention. Great for editing your videos and adding music and text. Create amazing slideshows with your photos or do a mix of both. Great for any budding movie maker!

Silent Film Director This is a fun video editing app and one I have really enjoyed using. It helps you in creating silent movie clips. There are a range of styles to use, 20’s, 60’s, 70’s, Black & White, sepia and vintage. Then there are some fun sound tracks you can add or simply upload from your device. You can adjust the speed of the video to make it that little bit funnier and is one app that is sure to bring a few laughs.

iMajicam Another video editing app offering fun filters. There are 36 altogether. There is a mix ranging from magnify, water, kaleido, black and white, old film and sketch. All easy to use, just start your camera and you can see what it will look like. Quite a few of the filters can be adjusted as well.

8mm Vintage Camera An app to make your videos look old and retro. It uses different films and lenses and lets you choose from 25 different looks. Effects like light leaks, frames, scratches and great retro colours. There are 5 lenses and 5 films. You can have the sound on or do a silent movie it is up to you! Great for turning your clips into something a little different.

So there you have it, my huge iPhone photography app collection. Do you use any of these or have a personal favorite not listed? Let us know in the comments below.

The details they have are as follows :

• It is a no-go on the iPhone 3GS, you need the iPhone 4’s A4 processor (iPad version por favor?) and probably its higher res screen as well.   Handling video and creating real-time transitions was the official reason.
• You can’t export projects (yet?) to iMovie on the Mac for further editing.  Obviously you can export via iTunes flat movies and do whatever you want on the desktop after that.
• You can record video and still directly within the application or bring in previously recorded stills/videos.  Because of the way the iOS works, you can also use footage sent to you via email because image/video files are saved in the Camera Roll.  Obviously the files would need to be Apple-approved formats like H.264.  .AVIs need not apply.
• The app will ship on June 24th for $4.99 (known already).  The app is for iPhone only because it probably uses the higher res display and probably won’t upscale to the iPad’s display.  It would be surprising if a iPad version doesn’t at some point ship, whether the iPad gets a camera or not.

Apple restricting this to the iPhone 4 makes a lot more sense than their Multitasking restrictions in iOS4 for earlier iPhones. The mobile iMovie package probably really does benefit from the extra processing power that the Apple A4 CPU in the iPhone 4 has. The graphical capabilities in the new iPhone 4 are pretty much the same as the iPhone 3GS, or perhaps a little les powerful overall because of the increased screen size, the CPU is significantly more powerful in the iPhone 4 when compared to the iPhone 3GS. And iMovie needs a lot of CPU horsepower for transitions, and image processing work flows.

Although, having said that it would probably be possible to edit video without too much sluggishness on an iPhone 3GS, or on the more recent iPod Touch revisions – at a pinch.

It is clear however that Apple sees iMovie as a major selling feature for the iPhone 4, and therefore by restricting its availability  to drive upgrades. What is a little more confusing is why Apple have not made a version available for the iPad yet. Expect that to perhaps be linked to an iPad update early next year, or even at the tail end of this year.

At the moment you also cannot share iMovie for iPhone projects with iMovie for the Macintosh. (But you can export finished videos for sharing with other computers and web services, obviously.)

Both the export limitations, and the limitation of the software not being available on the iPad, is more likely temporary, and more to do with the level of extra work required to make these packages work with the different screen resolution on the iPad, and effectively import and export slightly different iMovie file formats between iDevices and desktop machines.

Would you have liked to see iMovie for iPhone on the iPhone 3GS, and sooner rather than later on the iPad? Let us know your feelings in the comments.

The iPhone 4 is certainly much more than I expected it to be. I was hopeful of an even higher resolution screen than we got. But other than that I was simply anticipating what most other people were expecting. Smaller, faster, neater, video calls, and a stills camera with flash.

That is not to say that video calls, or a 5MP camera – with LED flash – are not good things. But they were kind of a given, and to be expected on any current generation smart phone. So getting excited about those features takes a little more effort. That’s all.

So where did the iPhone 4 really “Wow” me?

Well a fairly full featured version of iMovie available for the iPhone in the App Store at launch, and 720p recording was a pleasant surprise. Plus it’s Apple, so we know that it will “just work” beautifully too. So when these features are simply demoed on stage we can relax safe in the knowledge that the final product we get later this month will do all that it is advertised as doing. But even then, Nokia had video editing on their N series phones a while back I seem to remember.
I am also glad that Apple refrained from calling the iPhone 4, “iPhone HD”. It’s not HD. The screen resolution is not high enough, even if the phone itself records in half-way HD. And HD would have caused a lot of confusion with iPad app names – as I have often suggested to deaf ears. I have to admit to a little bit of smug satisfaction watching most of my fellow industry pundits call it that over the last few months, whereas I refrained, except where chastised by my editor for “SEO reasons”. Whatever that means!?!

But I still haven’t said what really blew me away about the iPhone 4 yet, have I? No! Sorry! Ok.. In order of no particular importance…

The iPhone 4’s screen construction.

It was common knowledge a fair while before launch that the iPhone 4 would feature a more traditional LCD panel, rather than an OLED one. This was a sensible choice from Apple, as OLED has been shown on various Android devices to deliver fairly lacklustre results so far. OLED has certainly not been shown yet, in smartphone form, to be able to deliver the crispness or quality we expect of Apple gear.

What Apple have also done is incorporate a hybrid of IPS and FFS technologies into the 960×640 LCD panel in the iPhone 4. Those technologies are specifically suited to a versatile range of viewing angles, and clarity of view specifically for text heavy applications. Think eBooks, PDFs and web pages. Games, and pictures always look good with a bright, well balanced display – which high quality LCDs produce better than OLED currently also. So Apple worked on what it was important for them to work on. Which is what makes them market leaders after all.

But that’s still not what is really cool about the screen. Their choices so far are what we’d expect from Apple. In other words, the best possible implementation of stable and current technology, rather than new “bleeding-edge” technology just for the sake of it.

What is really cool though is that Apple have reengineered how they make their screens. In doing so they have made it so that there is literally no space between the touch layer and the LCD itself.

Engineering. This is where Apple consistently outshine other OEMs. Their new method of making their composite touch / LCD panels, coupled with the beautiful glass front panel of the iPhone 4 puts our fingers literally on top of the LCD itself. When you look at the new iPhone the screen literally looks like a bright shiny sticker stuck on the outside of the iPhone. It is truly incredible. When you see one in the flesh, that alone will make you want one. I guarantee it. And my name is not Steve Jobs!

The Stainless Steel Case

Stainless Steel has several properties that the Aluminium cases that Apple has favoured to date, do not. It conducts radio waves very well, and it has a heft to it that feels more solid and satisfying. It’s also far stronger.

By combining a practical quality of Stainless Steel, with an aesthetic quality they have produced both a high quality / high performance arial framework for all the various radio signals the iPhone 4 produces, coupled with a healthy feeling heft, and strong construction to the entire device. The iPhone 4 is solid, and receives and transmits strong signals.

Apple have gone one step further still by making the edges of the device square, rather then rounded like previous iPhones, so that it genuinely feels more like a camera when you turn it on its side to use it as one. Again, when you get your hands on one in an Apple Store, or when you steal your friend’s iPhone 4 for a few precious moments you’ll see what I mean.

iOS

This is not an obvious feature of the iPhone 4. But what Apple have done is start to refine their iPhone / iPod Touch and iPad OS into one Operating System : iOS.

Part of the reason for this is to bring the various screen sizes that we will inevitably have more of in future, and have now on current devices, under the control of the OS.

For games it is not such an issue. Games makers can just scale graphics to fit the screen, and choose to have, or not have, various levels of detail for textures and other images. But for applications, which is after all what Apple is more interested in, and has to put more work into supporting visually, different screen resolutions is an important issue. And potentially a problem.

Imagine if the 200,000+ apps in the App Store today all had to be re-written for the new iPhone? Developers would not be happy. Apple has addressed this issue with various technologies in iOS (previously iPhone OS 4.0), and will continue to do so moving forward. Currently it is in an early form, but has already improved on the crude 2X feature of iPhone OS 3.2, which is currently found on the iPad for using existing iPhone apps.

Whilst not completely realising their final goal Apple have, in my opinion, taken an important first step towards Resolution Independence in iOS. The best is yet to come. But this is a solid foundation to build from.
iPhone 4, and iOS is where it starts to come together.

The Gyroscope

Steve actually demonstrated the iPhone 4’s gyroscope with a game of Jenga. I found that quite amusing. Apple have not been great at promoting games as a medium in the past. Even with their new found romance with games on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad they are still not taken seriously on Apple’s desktop lineup.

Ironically though I don’t think the gyro will find its greatest success in games. There are still a lot of iPods and iPhones, and brand new iPads out there that don’t have this feature. And for a while, at least, games writers will have to ensure their games work with the older Accelerometers found in earlier devices.

Some forward thinking developers will have a gyroscope option in their games. But important aspects of game play won’t be able to rely on the increase in accuracy and freedom of movement that the new component undoubtably brings… for the immediate future anyway. Otherwise the game will suffer on older devices, and the core market at the moment.

Where I think the gyroscope will be amazing is in Augmented Reality applications. At the moment looking around and using the camera in an existing iPhone to view our environment and overlay information and advertising on the world around us is a popular gimmick in “AR” apps. But the view is clunky and a bit jittery in most mobile devices (including current iPhones) because of the lack of precision that accelerometers offer. With a gyroscope on the new iPhone 4 Augmented Reality is set to go mainstream. This will be helped by the increased speed of the A4 processor, and the increased accuracy of the gyroscope.

Expect a lot of iAd enabled gyroscope using Augmented Reality apps to hit the App Store very soon.

As a little bit of background for you. The last gyroscope I programmed for was a component that was used in guided missiles originally. Our use for it was entirely different. But that is the kind of precision, and freedom of movement that gyroscope technology is derived from. Think about that for a minute. Your iPhone 4 will be distantly related to a guided missile! Cool eh!

Finally, a quick note about the 5MP camera in the iPhone 4

Apple could have played the numbers game here. They could have gone for 8 or 16 MP unit. And some Android owners may well quote the 8MP pixel camera in the new HTC EVO 4G to backup that line of thinking. But in reality until you make your lenses and your CCD (the device that receives the image inside your phone) bigger and of better quality there is no point. With the current form factor of all smart phones, their lenses and CCDs, more Megapixels just equate to bigger pictures, with more noise, which take up more space on your Flash Memory. Pictures which overall are of the same quality by and large – just noisier.

5 – 6 Megapixels is the optimum size for consumer cameras of the kind of lens dimension we are seeing on these phones. Any more is simply there for bragging rights for the OEM, and offers no functional advantage. Period.

What Apple have done, again, is focus on making the entire package better. Apple’s CCD in the iPhone 4 is designed to get more photons, more accurately, with less noise into your iPhone’s storage. In the iPhone 4’s case they do it by using Backside illumination :

Wikipedia explains Backside illumination this way :

In a device with backside illumination, the silicon light sensor for each pixel is on the “back” side of the silicon wafer, opposite the transistors and metal wiring layers. This increases the efficiency of the sensor as compared to the traditional (“frontside illumination”) technology, in which some of the light is scattered by the circuit layers on the front side of the wafer before it can reach the image sensor.

Here is a good example which illuminates the point I am making about megapixel count perfectly :

Joe Holmes’ limited-edition 13 x 19″ prints of his American Museum of Natural History series sell at Manhattan’s Jen Bekman Gallery for $650 each. They’re made on a 6MP D70.

No the iPhone 4’s lens is certainly not up to the standard of one found in a Nikon D70. Not is the one found in the HTC EVO 4G, or any other smart phone for that matter. But they have CCDs of roughly the same quality. The iPhone 4 has one which is better suited than all of them to low light conditions, and getting the best performance possible out of its surrounding hardware.

So there you have it. Those are the things about the iPhone 4 that excite me! What is your favourite feature of the new iPhone 4? Let us know in the comments.