LG Introduces An iPhone Bluetooth Version Of The Polaroid ZINK Pocket Printer

I outlined the fun I’m having with the Canon wireless printer earlier (Canon SELPHY CP900 Wireless Printer and an iPhone is my modern Polaroid). While the printer is small and has an optional battery pack, it isn’t ‘pocket’ size. Polaroid introduced ink free printing with their ZINK paper. I played with it on my Polaroid Z2300 Camera/Printer… a boxy camera that has the option to print any photos you choose directly on paper cards inside of the camera. Polaroid also has a line of printers using the same technology, the CZA (often called the Pogo at local stores like BestBuy). Bad news for iOS device users is that the printer only supports Android devices.

In a magazine out of the UK, I noticed that LG said they were producing a line of ZINK based Pocket Printers. When I looked around, I found on Amazon two models available, the PD221 and PD233. Both of these printers claim they are for Android only, like the Polaroid manufactured version.

Visiting LG’s site, I found that LG is showing the PD233 now works with iOS devices via their free universal app! It would appear we can now send photos from our iPhones (and iPads) to the LG PD233 for printing via Bluetooth.

The iOS app does allow for some editing, stamps, sharing on Social sites, and adding QR codes. Uh, QR codes? Yup, use the app to upload a photo to Facebook, then print that photo with your LG Pocket Printer to include a QR code for people to jump from the Printed version to the online version.

A few facts from the LG Product page:

Bluetooth – Yes
Micro USB – Yes
USB Host – Yes
NFC Tag – Yes
Resolution – 640 ｘ 1224 pixels
Print speed – 40sec/ Per paper
Battery type – Li-Polymer(7.4V , 500mA)
Charge time – 1 and 30 hour
Print number – 20sheet (After fully charge, connect BT) 15sheet (After fully charge, connect USB)

Printer size (W x H x D) – 72.4 x 120.9 x 24.0 mm

Androids have the ability to send to the printer via a tap using NFC, I wonder if iOS7 might get an upgrade to include the PD233 in their options to ‘send to’.

Photography Week, this week is the iPhone Photographer issue

There is a lot of chatter on the Internet from Pro Photographers explaining how an iPhone camera can never replace a high end DSLR in a Professional’s hands. I don’t try to put them all into one group. Even a smartphone camera in the right hands will result in photos ‘better’ than those produced by someone without the experience.

Rather than choose a side, why not explore the options to get the most out of a iPhone camera. There are going to be a lot of times opportunity presents it’s self and the full digital camera is sitting back on the kitchen table. Photography Week, a Universal app digital photography magazine is offering suggestions on getting more out of that iPhone camera that is always available in your pocket.

This week’s issue is an ‘iPhone Special’. There is a few apps covered, the usual group you have seen elsewhere (no new surprises), I enjoyed the articles they included on doing more with the iPhone than just photo adjustments. Lighting, angles, views, coloring and other interesting perspectives are covered.

EyeEm Social Share Updates With More Tags, Captions and Friends

EyeEm iPhone photo sharing service is up to their old tricks… adding more features and helping it’s users find others to view and share with. Kidding aside, the updates to the latest version of EyeEm isn’t about enhancing the actual photos. Instead, the service is looking for more ways people can relate through their photos. The service is one I enjoy visiting to see photos from around the world. Posts are all across the scale with street photography from a small village somewhere few of us have heard of, through to high school lunch snaps. The latest updates will help me find just what I’m interested in viewing, no matter my mood swings between visits.

After you snap a photo with the EyeEm app or import one from your iPhone’s photo library, enhance with the editing tools. Next, you can add your location with the name of the company location your at or city your in. New in this update is a step to add a caption to the photo and tagging friends to the photo.

The original EyeEm had you set your location then add a tag. I noticed that some folks seem to have more than one tag. The trick to add more than one tag had been to post the photo, then ‘edit’ it, adding more tags. Now, by default, EyeEm lets you add up to four tags along with your caption. Just tap the ‘add’ and start typing, a list of tags others have used will appear to choose. Or, add your own so others can start posting to that tag too.

Postagram Update With More Text, More Photos and Free Postcards

What to do with all of your square format iPhone photos. Print and post mail to friends is one option, except post cards are generally not square. Postagram has been offering to print and mail iPhone photo postcards for some time now. Their way of handling the square photos is to print is on one half of the card, with cuts so the receiving party can pop the image out and use just it without the extra postcard size. I have used the solution a few times, generally more for Business Thank-You, but family members get a nice surprise from time-to-time too.

The recent update to Postagram has feature enhancements throughout the app. If you tie the free iPhone app to your Facebook account, you can be reminded of birthdays in advance to get a card sent. Also, along with being able to use photos you have on your iPhone, from Instagram and Facebook, you can now also access photos stored on your Dropbox account.

Normally, I pay 99 cents for the card to be printed and mailed to a US address (addresses outside of the USA are $1.99), but this summer Postagram is offering everyone 3 free postcards! As you can see, there is the addition of the large text Coppertone just above the area you enter your personalized text so it appears to be a sponsored ‘freebie’. The text area has increased in this update too, which is nice as the rest of the world keeps cutting us back to less text, shorter videos and smaller images. Thanks Postagram!

Postagram is actually part of the Sincerely family of iPhone photo solution apps. On your order confirmation page, there are options to download their other apps to created gifts or greeting cards on your iPhone using your own photos. Card print/sending can be scheduled now too so you don’t have to wait to the last second to remember to send a card. Mom will thank you!

Rando iPhone Photos Make Great Collages Using The Layout App

Rando is completely a hit/miss with folks. They either love posting a quick shot for who-know-who will see it or they don’t like posting images without feedback. While I keep shooting for Oggl, Streamzoo, Eyeem and Instagram, I can’t help but toss a shot or two up on Rando every day. I enjoy finding out where the image managed to go (city/country) and getting a 1-for-1 shot return. Though lately, it seems like I can upload two or three and get one back, I assume it’s teething problems of a new free service. This is not the service for quality thought inspiring images though, it’s all about the snapshot.

After a photo is taken with Rando, a copy is saved to my iPhone photo library. Now, what to do with all of those white frame round centered images.

The framing Rando uses makes for a fun snapshot effect but doesn’t lend it’s self to multi image sharing or printing. The collage app Layout did offer and interesting solution. The app allows a person so set up a layout (square, landscape, portrait) then add and move photo areas. This means you can have an exact layout of images as you want or sometimes as the message needs. Layout also allows for the lines between the images, around the outer edge and the corners to be fine tuned. This image ‘framing’ can also have textures or solid colors via the built in pickers.

Adding and editing the images in Layout is via a nice pop up picker tool when you tap an area to add a picture to. As you add and move images about, the frame sizing can also be rethought since multi image collages usually need some images to be larger than others for the full impact. In my case, I was looking to print a postcard for mom so she could see things I saw on my visit to an antique mall then my morning walk so the last rectangle image did just the job. Simple but an effective way to re-use my Rando images. The square layout keeps the round framing while the landscape looks great with some of the outer area cropped out.

Your iPhone photos printed to Polaroid like paper frames

As I mentioned at the beginning of the Stickygram article, there are a lot of printing service options for your Instagram photos. While this solution prints square photos, they aren’t limiting you to just those uploaded Instagram services images. The service, Printic, offers a free iPhone app to gather and adjust your photos. Then, for 99 cents each minimum of 3, they will print and mail for you. I tried the service with a few for a friend who isn’t on Instagram rather than back to me.

Printic requires an Account Setup, then offers access to choose a photo from the iPhone photo library, Instagram and Facebook.

Selected photos appear in a running bar across the bottom of the page. Selecting the ‘pencil’ icon in the lower right corner pops up Edit tools for each picture. Printic allows Cropping, Quantity, Text and Delete.

One of the popular things to do when sharing a Polaroid (and a feature found in most imitation Polaroid creating apps) is ‘writing’ a short message on the open box area below the photo. Printic offers this as well.

When your done editing the photos, add your payment information, then where you will be sending the photos. It is optional to have the photos sent to multiple addresses so Printic could be a creative way of doing invites or announcements too.

I always wonder about the licensing a company has to do in order to create apps and services which allow printing to a photo frame that mimics a Polaroid. Polaroid took the time to big shoe me when I had artwork on CafePress for sale which had a Polaroid in the corner of the image. They stated that they own all representations of the frame.

iPhone Photography Apps Trending Towards Huge Lists Of Up Charges

Interesting that I originally started taking notice of so many in-app purchase options with the app KitCam, which has now been discontinued.

App creators are looking for ‘better’ ways of making a profit. Initially, everyone was making their millions from charging 99 cents and selling many many copies. Then there was the twist towards iAds everywhere in the app which has had mixed results for app sellers. Most recently is the push to start charging more for apps to move them into the world of ‘real software’. Pricing for iOS apps closer to their desktop counterparts.

Hosted solutions and apps that require online support are limited to apps that can use that feature. They carry a monthly/yearly charge for the developer to maintain access to your data across multiple devices. With many services going under and the app becoming useless without, these may be feeling a crunch of concerned buyers. Currently though, more apps are going the direction of free or minimal charge for the app, then anything but the very basic features will cost more. ‘Enhanced’ filters for photo editors or ‘brushes’ for drawing apps, all just a dollar more and then another dollar more.

I have no doubt that this pricing scheme of encouraging people to buy another add on works, a long time success story is Hipstamatic where new new Packs are introduced throughout the year. Most just show a group of lenses and film packs, with a descriptive name that an individual can buy to get that extra special effect for their photos. The drawing app Paper has additional brush tips and color mixing for those more creative drawing folks, and those that wish more options might make them a better at drawing.

The up charging does work for apps for bridging between basic users and the more advanced. There are those that seem to hook a person in with a low up front charge then charge for what a person would think are ‘basic’ supported features.

A few examples of both:

Yahoo buys GhostBird Software which means no more KitCam and PhotoForge2

A quiet announcement happened today that many iPhone photographers may have missed. On GhostBird Software’s Web site is a page of text explaining that the development team has joined Yahoo to work with the Flickr team. The company is best known for PhotoForge, PhotoForge2 and KitCam. The last two has gotten a lot of press as well I covered it in the past. The apps all had lost of power for editing iPhone photos. More than just filters (arranged as ‘lenses’ and ‘film’), there was also fine tuning adjusters too.

The majority of the filters where an extra charge. The app as it was initially loaded onto your iPhone did a few things, but to get the full potential realized, a person had to spend some bucks for the extra bits.

From the GhostBird Software site, you can continue to use the software but the team will not be working on it anymore so it will interesting to see how the apps fit into the future iOS7 world. While people new to the apps wont be able to purchase, current owners can always reload the last copy they had updated to via iTunes unless deleted from there too.

“If you already have the KitCam or PhotoForge2 apps on your devices, you will be able to continue to use them in their current versions. However, we will not continue to update the apps as future versions of iOS are released. Anyone who previously purchased GhostBird Software’s apps, including KitCam and PhotoForge2, will be able to re-download those apps through iCloud. As of today, KitCam and PhotoForge2 are no longer available for download from the App Store.”

A few screen shots from KitCam as a reminder of the apps capabilities. How much of this will appear in a future Flickr iPhone app?

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