If you switched to Three20’s iPad branch and see a linking error about MFMailComposeViewController in TTEmailComposer.o, make sure you add MessageUI.framework to your build target.
In developing an iPhone app for Pullfolio, we initially went with Titanium as Ray had used it before at Intridea, and we are familiar with web technologies. With that we were able to almost finish the app within a week. However, we quickly found limitations of the framework, more specifically, it was non-trivial to make a Photos.app-like thumbnails view without using webview, and to make a single photo view with slideshow that supports pinch/zoom gestures, lazy-loading different versions of images off the Internet on-demand, proved to be close to impossible without us implementing more native UIKit components for the framework.
So we learned and switched to Objective-C, and will never look at a cross-compile option for iPhone and iPad apps again. I agree with @gruber and Jobs, cross-compile solutions mostly yield low quality apps. Also, it always takes a short while for 3rd party solutions to catch up with the latest SDK features, so you will be a step behind your competitors. I think cross-compiling is okay if you’re a consultant building apps for clients who wanted iPhone apps. But if you’re a app developer who wants to write something original and something that provides rich UX, going native the the only way to go. Learning new languages, tools, and frameworks is part of the business of being developers. (we all did switch from php to rails/django, or vb to c#, cvs to svn and then to git).
Also, if you don’t like the app store limitations, you can always develop for the web. With the exception of Flash, Safari on iPhone and iPad works great, instead of using Facebook.app I just hit it in Safari, it works much better than their app IMO. A ton of sites have already made themselves iPad-friendly.
I spent the most of the past 2 days playing with my iPad. The apps I’ve tried so far are pretty amazing. Other than the obvious apps such as Netflix and ABC Player, here are some apps that I find really useful:
GoodReader for iPad ($0.99 limited time intro price, iPad-only). This app lets you move and read large PDF documents on the iPad, it has an iPad-optimized reader. You can search, there is even a button to dim the brightness of the display. To transfer files into GoodReader all you have to do is to go into the app and switch on WiFi transfer, and then you can connect to it in Finder on a Mac. You can also transfer files in iTunes, or link up your Google Docs, Box.net, Dropbox (I’m a huge user of Dropbox!) accounts and download from them. You can also get to any WebDAV servers inside the app. You can even connect to your Gmail or other email accounts and download your attachments into GoodReader!
You get this under the Apps tab in iTunes:
Kindle (free, universal version for both iPhone/Touch and iPad) and iBooks (free, iPad-only). Books in iBooks look cool, the Delicious Library look-alike bookshelf is a nice touch. But Amazon has a much larger selection of books available for the Kindle. I’d held out not to buy a Kindle for so long, so it’s great to have ebooks options on the iPad. The Kindle iPad app dims the background and the book lids up the kid’s face when you use it at night.
NewsRack ($4.99, universal version). On the iPhone I use Google Reader in Safari and it works okay, but it doesn’t work as well on an iPad, and an RSS reader with offline sync is important especially because this iPad is wifi-only. NewsRack can sync with my Google Reader account, and by that I mean it can grab my subscriptions, maintain read/unread data, and even share articles back at Google Reader. It also has sharing features to email article, add to Instapaper, Readitlater, Twitter, Delicious, etc. It’s a universal app so I get to use it on my iPhone as well, great deal for $4.99 IMO.
Instapaper Pro ($4.99, universal). I am a long time user of Instapaper, Tweetie has Instapaper support so I save a ton of links in tweets that I want to read later. The Instapaper Free app worked fine for me on the iPhone, but the Pro version is universal and is iPad-optimized. If you don’t use Instapaper you really should.
1Password Pro ($14.99, universal), or 1Password for iPad ($6.99, iPad-only). If you use a Mac, you have to use 1Password. I bought a family pack of the desktop version, and the Pro version after iPhone 3.0 to get the ability to copy password into clipboard easily. I think I paid a lot less than $15, and at some point it was even free for a short while. I am glad Agile Web Solutions did the right thing and made the Pro version universal (unlike Cultered Code with Things, which I’ll talk about later).
Photo Pad: Flickr ($3.99, iPad only). If you use Flickr heavily for photo sharing and storage, you will like this app. It basically helps you sync your photosets on Flickr onto the iPad and displays them in amazing resolutions on the iPad’s gorgeous IPS display. There is no slideshow feature, so you can’t use it as a digital photo frame, and you can’t search photos on Flickr by tags (you can search the photos already downloaded by tags though).
Bloomberg for iPad (free, iPad-only, but there is an iPhone version too). This app pretty much turns your iPad into a Bloomberg terminal, well, there is no Bloomberg IM and it’s not really the real thing, but it’s pretty damn close, and it’s free!
SketchBook Pro ($7.99, iPad-only). This is the best sketching/drawing app on the iPad at the time of this writing. Really amazing app, definitely worth the $7, considering a comparable desktop sketching app will no doubt cost a lot more. I wish iPad was pressure sensitive though, it still can’t replace a Wacom tablet for serious illustrating or photo retouching work.
There is one app that pisses me off – Things for iPad. Things is my GTD app and I use it heavily. I bought a family pack ($75) for the desktop version , as well as the iPhone version ($10). Now instead of releasing a universal version upgrade, they wanted $20 for Things for iPad. $20 is just a bit much even though the app looks gorgeous and I’m sure it works really damn well. For now I’m going to run the iPhone version on the iPad until I can’t stand it anymore.
Kindda took a hiatus from my blog, was browsing around NYT and found this pretty interesting…
According to one study, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. According to another, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year.
Most people vastly overestimate the extent to which more money would improve our lives. Most schools and colleges spend too much time preparing students for careers and not enough preparing them to make social decisions. Most governments release a ton of data on economic trends but not enough on trust and other social conditions. In short, modern societies have developed vast institutions oriented around the things that are easy to count, not around the things that matter most. They have an affinity for material concerns and a primordial fear of moral and social ones.
via Op-Ed Columnist – The Sandra Bullock Trade – NYTimes.com.
I’ve had the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM for years, it is one of the sharpest lenses out there, and it shoots 1:1 macro. I shoot commercial product photography professionally, so the 100/2.8 macro was the lens with which I made probably more than 80% of my income from photography. I however only used that lens for work, but almost never for personal work. I shot a couple of macro shots to test out the lens when I first got it, it was a fine lens but the aperture was not round enough, so the out of focus area was too harsh for my liking. It worked fine for product closeups, but for anything else the harsh bokeh really bothered me, so the lens never left my studio since I got it.
Canon introduced an L version of this lens, it does 1:1 macro, but has the new IS system that provides up to 5 stops of stabilization, the aperture is also near-round, so it yeilds similar soft and dreamy bokeh like my other lenses. I looked on eBay and was surprised to find out that I could easily sell my 100/2.8 with the hood for around $500, so that means it will only costs about $500 to upgrade, which I think is well worth it. The improvements will make me want to take the lens out of the studio and have fun with it. Amazon has this lens for about $1k, which is an amazing deal IMO. I brought it to the SF botanical garden for a test drive, it performed as expected: much smoother transition between in and out of focus areas, way smoother bokeh, the MTF graphs comparison shows that it is even sharper, but pretty much the whole graph is under the Nyquist frequency of the 5D Mark II so I don’t think anyone can really tell the difference. It is tack sharp for sure though. I accidentally shut off the IS so I didn’t get to test it much, I was able to take test portraits without camera shake at around 1/15 the night before, at 1:1 it will have to give a few more stops to be safe.
Some shots from the botanical garden:
f/4, 1/1000s
f/3.5, 1/1250s
f/3.2, 1/640s
This lens is pretty inexpensive for what it offers, other than the crazy MPE, which is very specialized and it’s pretty much a microscope, the 100L is the best macro lens for Canon right now. The AF is very fast, f/2.8 at 100mm is pretty bright, and it is tack sharp at wide open. The lens also makes a really good portrait lens, not quite as insane as the 85L, but it is half the price and it does 1:1 macro. I would definitely recommend getting this over the non-L version of the 100/2.8 macro. The non-L version is $599 and the hood is about $40, so the 100L is only about $360 more, but you get round-aperture, amazing IS, weather seal, an amazing lens hood (best Canon lens hood I’ve seen), as well as a lens bag! Definitely worth the extra $360 IMO. If you have a full frame body and are ready to buy your first L lens, I’d say forget the 24-70L, get the 100L, it is a much cooler lens to have.
You can pick one up at Amazon, btw, the price on Amazon has been fluctuating between $1060 to $1005, if the current price is too high, you should be able to wait a couple of days for it to drop back down to about $1005:
85/1.2L II vs 24-70/2.8L
The top reasons I chose Canon was because of insane L primes, out of all the lenses out there, the one I’d always wanted was the 85L, as it is arguably the best lens for portraits. The price of this lens has gone up over the years, especially after Canon introduced the Mark II version. Recently the price went down a little bit, so I picked it up soon as that happened. After shooting with it for a few weeks, all I can say is that I should’ve bought this lens long time ago.
The lens however is not for everyone, it is expensive, heavy, large, AF is relatively slow if you’re used to other fast L primes and zooms. The minimum focusing distance is 0.95 meter, which is probably farther than what you’re used to. It is also a very difficult lens to use if you don’t have strict shooting discipline. Shooting anywhere close to wide open requires expert focusing techniques, especially if you have a camera with AF-points pattern that doesn’t make sense for portraits; focus-and-recompose is not an option when operating with an inch of depth of field. But if you know what you’re dealing with, this is one amazing lens. Some images I shot with the 85L:
f/1.8 1/2000s with B+W ND4 filter
f/1.4 1/100s
f/1.2 1/500s
5D Mark II, 85/1.2L II, f/1.2, 1/50s, ISO 6400
f/1.6
f/1.6
f/1.8 1/3200s, B+W ND4 filter
f/1.4 1/800s, B+W ND4 filter
Before I got in the world of L primes I thought a fullframe body with a 24-70/2.8L is a really good setup for serious photographers. But after shooting with L primes, I can say that the 24-70 is not even close to the sharpness, contrast, and quality (especially bokeh softness) of the 50L and 85L. Now, for the serious photographers, I think the perfect Canon starter “kit” is the 50/1.2L with a full frame body. With foot works, it is pretty much a 24-70, only much faster and better image quality. I am seriously considering selling my 24-70L for a 35L now. I do like the 24mm end though, but the 24L is not nearly as good as the 35L. If I didn’t have the 85L I would get the 50L for sure, but they’re a bit too close and expensive to own both. I also upgraded my 100/2.8 Macro USM to the new L version with IS, will talk about that in my next post.
btw, the 85L is very cheap right now, lowest price in the past few years:
I returned the Canon G11 and got the Panasonic LX3. Quick thoughts on the LX3:
After about 300 frames, and a few 720p videos, I liked it, but not enough to keep it, so back Amazon it went.
Some LX3 snaps:
you can find all my LX3 snaps here: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=lx3&w=68826320%40N00
The images are still very P&S like, it’s very hard to have any background separation on the camera, so I decided to return it and spend the money to upgrade my Canon 100/2.8 macro USM to the new 100L IS version. (samples from that lens in a later post). The Leica X1 samples I’ve seen have also been very disappointing, at this point I’ve given up on getting a small digital for now. I looked at the GF1 and it’s nice, but the lenses are terrible, the bokeh is so harsh that it reminds me of cheap Canon lenses.
If you still wanna pick up the LX3 or the GF1, you can get them here: 😉
I was pretty excited when Canon announced the
Canon PowerShot G11. My SLR rig is too large, and I want a decent walk-around camera. The G11, from the specs, seems to fit the criterias for a DMD (decisive moment digital). You can tell the lens on the G11 is incredible from the samples at the Canon Japan site. The decreased pixel count is great as that means lower (better) pixel density – 23MP/cm² – which should translate to better noise performance in high ISO settings. Noise control is very important to me, especially with a P&S. Built-in flash almost never yield decent shots, it is best to turn flash off when shooting indoor. In fact, I only use it for fill flash, and to get catch lights in the eyes, not as a primary light source. I was really anxious to pick up a G11, I checked Amazon daily for weeks. When I learned that Best Buy had them in stock, I immediately went to check it out. I played with their demo unit in store, it was fairly obvious that the noise performance wasn’t great from playback shots on the LCD. The next day I found a 10% coupon, that made Best Buy’s price comparable to ordering online. Knowing that American Express would refund my restocking fee if I want to return it, I went back and picked one up. I’ve had the G11 for 5 days, shot around 500 frames. I am not 100% happy satisfied with it, and I haven’t decided if I’m keeping it. Some quick thoughts on this camera:
G11, ISO 100, 6.1mm, f/2.8, 1/60s
G11 + 580EX II
side profile of camera with 580EX II attached
G11, 6.1mm, f/8, 1/200s, ISO 80
G11, 12mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 125
G11, 6.1mm, f/2.8, ISO 80
G11, 30.5mm, f/4.5, 1/100s, ISO 800
G11, 6.1mm, f/3.2, 1/60s, ISO 640
By the way,
If you’re a pro/semi-pro photographer and love Flickr, I think you will love Pullfolio. Pullfolio helps you create professional portfolio sites using photos in your Flickr account by tag(s) or photosets. For example, you can setup your photography site with these portfolios:
You get the idea. You can also enter your blog URL, bio, and contact info, and they will be included on your site. You can also choose from a few themes. If you upgrade to the Pro subscription for just $15 a month, you will be able to point your domain to the site, add your analytics code for tracking, and if you want to get your hands dirty, you have the ability to completely customize your site. We plan to partner with designers to provide more themes, and if you need a designer, we can provide referrals to ones who understand how our themes work.
When you upload new photos to Flickr, you will just have to tag them or add them to a photoset and your portfolio website will have the new photos automatically.
You can check out my photography site to get an idea of how it works. I still have to setup my own portfolios properly though.
If this sounds like it’s something you want, I am giving out 100 invites, here’s a direct link to signup for our private beta:
Each account also comes with 5 additional invites upon signup.
A bit of background: as a heavy Flickr user, I’ve always wanted a photography site that pulls photos from my Flickr account. This way I can upload my photos to Flickr with the right tags or photoset, and it will automatically show up at my photography site. After not having a proper photography site for more than 3 years, there still isn’t a service out there that does what I want. It’s also quite shocking that I was able to get gigs by networking and my Flickr photostream (or “collections” rather) without a website. When Ray and I were brainstorming ideas of what to build, I selfishly suggested this idea. We got a prototype working within 2 weeks, however, to turn the idea into a real product that supports many users, themes, subscriptions, custom domains, while using behavior-driven development with 100% test coverage, was a significant effort.
Feel free to post any feedback at our UserVoice feedback forum. You can follow Pullfolio on Twitter to get updates on new features.
I have a 500GB MyPassport drive I use to clone my Mac’s internal drive, it’s plugged into one of the USB ports behind my Apple Cinema Display. After I eject/un-mount the drive I don’t want to unplug and re-plug the USB cable to re-mount the drive, I can re-mount it in Disk Utility, but that’s still kindda annoying, so I looked and here’s how you do it in the command line.
When you have the drive mounted, do a df to see what the device is:
[ProBert:~] ayn% df Filesystem 512-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on /dev/disk0s2 976101344 427449800 548139544 44% / devfs 220 220 0 100% /dev map -hosts 0 0 0 100% /net map auto_home 0 0 0 100% /home afp_0TT7Xo1noyS900m5Am0Pyetl-1.2d000017 1949330784 1365867776 583463008 71% /Volumes/Time Capsule /dev/disk2s2 1949330720 1365933248 583397472 71% /Volumes/Backup of ProBert /dev/disk1s3 976510944 427839352 548671592 44% /Volumes/AYN MBP Clone
The device name is /dev/disk1s3 in my case. After that, you can mount and un-mount in Terminal easily by doing this:
[ProBert:~] ayn% diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s3 Volume AYN MBP Clone on disk1s3 unmounted [ProBert:~] ayn% df Filesystem 512-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on /dev/disk0s2 976101344 427449672 548139672 44% / devfs 221 221 0 100% /dev map -hosts 0 0 0 100% /net map auto_home 0 0 0 100% /home afp_0TT7Xo1noyS900m5Am0Pyetl-1.2d000017 1949330784 1365867776 583463008 71% /Volumes/Time Capsule /dev/disk2s2 1949330720 1365933248 583397472 71% /Volumes/Backup of ProBert [ProBert:~] ayn% diskutil mount /dev/disk1s3 Volume AYN MBP Clone on /dev/disk1s3 mounted [ProBert:~] ayn% df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/disk0s2 465Gi 204Gi 261Gi 44% / devfs 111Ki 111Ki 0Bi 100% /dev map -hosts 0Bi 0Bi 0Bi 100% /net map auto_home 0Bi 0Bi 0Bi 100% /home afp_0TT7Xo1noyS900m5Am0Pyetl-1.2d000017 1949330784 1365867776 583463008 71% /Volumes/Time Capsule /dev/disk2s2 1949330720 1365933248 583397472 71% /Volumes/Backup of ProBert afp_0TT7Xo1noyS900m5Am0Pyetl-1.2d000017 930Gi 651Gi 278Gi 71% /Volumes/Time Capsule /dev/disk2s2 930Gi 651Gi 278Gi 71% /Volumes/Backup of ProBert /dev/disk1s3 466Gi 204Gi 262Gi 44% /Volumes/AYN MBP Clone