AppleTap » Creative

iPhone Wallpapers. How to Install Them on Your Device.

Matt Petch — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:09:14 +0000

Short Version:

You can make any image on your device a wallpaper by selecting it in your photo library, tapping the icon in the bottom left corner and selecting “Use as wallpaper”

To get images into your device you need to set iTunes up to sync with iPhoto or the folder containing your wallpaper images if your not using iPhoto.

Long Version:

What sort of image can you use as a wallpaper? Wallpapers can be obtained in a veriety of ways. Any photograph you have stored in the photos app on your device can be used as a wallpaper. You can also download images from a number of places on internet. These have been specialy created for use as iPhone wallpapers and are the correct size and aspect ratio and the images are usualy composed to fit well within the iPhone format. You can download my specialy designed wallpapers here if you wish.

If you are using iPhoto it’s not a bad idea to create a new album to keep your wallpapers in. You can then sync this folder with your device. If you are not using iPhoto, you can keep your wallpapers in a specified folder on your hard drive and sync with that.

Copy the wallpaper images you have downloaded or created to your iPhoto album, designated folder, Photoshop Album or Photoshop Elements. Connect your iPhone or Touch to your computer and open iTunes. In the library column on the left click your device icon. Now click on the Photos tab. Make sure “Sync photos from” is checked then in the pulldown menu either select the folder where you placed your wallpapers or select iPhoto. If you are just syncing selected albums rather than all photos make sure your wallpapers are in an iPhoto album and that it is selected in the list. Press Apply (or sync) and the images in iPhoto or the selected folder will be copied over to your device.

On your iPhone or Touch, navigate to your photos and select the wallpaper you wish to use. You dont have to use a specialy made wallpaper image, you can use any photo you wish. Tap the icon in the lower left hand corner that looks like an arrow jumping out of a box. Sometimes you need to tap the screen once to make the icons visible.?

The menu that follows will contain the option to “Use as wallpaper”. On the iPhone you could also assign an image to one of your contacts.

Halloween iPhone Apps to Make Your Halloween Truly Despicable.

Matt Petch — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:01:57 +0000

It’s almost halloween and with nothing but my Mac to guide me I have searched the deepest corridors and loftiest towers of the iTunes store in search of some digital dreadfulness for you to sink your teeth into. I emerge, blinking in the morning light, clutching six, pixel sodden apps that I hope will help make your halloween truly despicable. MMMWAA HA HA HA HAAAAA.

1.First on the slab is Halloween Sounds by Pixel Narrative. Halloween Sounds is a collection of fifteen good quality spooky sounds and a spooky soundtrack that can be played by its self or as a background track to the various scary sound effects that can be triggered by tapping the appropriate tombstone icon. The volume and quality of the sounds is quite good and I can imagine it being a good audio accompaniment to your fancy dress occasion or you could plug it into a sound system at a party and invite passing guests to trigger sounds at will. Halloween Pro which is the pay version of Halloween Sounds offers the ability to trigger sounds remotely via a second device or set a timer so your chosen sound can be played after a set amount of time has elapsed.

2.Hallowcarver by WNRS is a surprisingly good pumkin carving app. You can choose which pumpkin you want to carve and display it on a selection of different spooky backgrounds. The actual carving process works very well, you draw the shapes you want to cut out of the pumpkin with your finger and they are automatically removed to reveal the flickering light within the pumpkin. Once your design is complete you can save it to your photo gallery, post it to a web gallery, share it on facebook or shout it on Twitter.

3.Horror Classics by Alexandru Brie is a collection of classic horror stories contained in a reasonably well presented app. The book reader within the app isn’t as pretty as some but is perfectly functional and offers the usual common features such as book marks, automatic scrolling and the ability to alter the font size. Improvements could certainly be made to the appearance and functions of this app but its still a good collection of classic stories at a great price.

4.Halloween Postage by Rogue Sheep is a Halloween themed postcard app than enables you to take a photo from your library and customize it in various ways before delivering it vie mail or Facebook or saving it to your photo library. It is a nice looking app and very easy to use with quite a good set of features but I think its appeal would be quite short lived. I would like to see a larger selection of postcard styles to choose from.

5.Zombie Pizza by Appy Entertainment, inc is fun and rather disgusting horror puzzle game where you find yourself having to create Zombie pizzas by adding eyeballs, guts, brains, hearts, bones and other such delights to a pizza base and flicking it out of the door before the zombies break in and eat you instead. It is a nicely designed game and despite its unappetizing subject matter is fun for all the family. My little boy loves it anyway.

6.On the subject of horror games; I felt compelled to add Resident Evil 4 by Capcom to this list of six. It is seen as one of the best 3D action shooters on the iPhone, the graphics are great, the controls work surprisingly well and above all it is actually quite scary…or am I just being a wimp?.

1.Halloween Sounds by Pixel Narrative

2.Hallowcarver by WNRS

3.Horror Classics by Alexandru Brie

4.Halloween Postage by Rogue Sheep

5.Zombie Pizza by Appy Entertainment, inc

6.Resident Evil 4 by Capcom

Upload Photo’s to Almost Any Sharing Site From Your Iphone or Touch.

Matt Petch — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:09:11 +0000

When I first decided to write this post, the intention was to review a collection of the better photo sharing app’s. After some initial research I realised that the list of available app’s was nearly as long as my To-Do list. To review and discuss them would have been an unenviable task and an even less enviable read.

What I have chosen to do instead, is recap on how you can upload your photo’s to your MobileMe gallery using only your default Photo app. I have then listed some other common photo sharing sites along with their corresponding upload applications. Because there are so many I have been a little selective and only included the more promising options.

To Share Your photo’s From the Default Photo App.

To do this you will need a MobileMe account: which is free for 60 days but then im afraid you have to pay for it. Before you dismiss it, it’s worth considering some of the many features you get with the service. Check it out here.

Assuming you have a MobileMe account, you first need to login to the service and create an album to upload your photo’s into. Do this on your computer beforehand. Make sure your album settings allow adding of photo’s via email or iPhone as shown below.

Once you have done this you can start selecting and uploading photo’s from your iPod Touch or phone…

1. Launch the default Photo application that comes with your device and open an album.

2. Tap the share icon in the bottom left corner of the screen.

3. You can now tap any photo to select it. You can tell that it has been selected as the photo icon dims, and displays a small tick.

4. Tap the share button and you should get the options of emailing your selection or sending it to MobileMe. Click “Send to MobileMe”.

5. Give the image a name and select the gallery you want to upload the photo to. When you have done this, simply tap the Publish button in the top right and off it goes.

The only problem with this is you can only upload one photo at a time. Luckily you can email lots of photo’s in one go but you need to know your galleries email address.

1. Use your browser to go back to your MobileMe gallery on your computer.

2. Select your gallery and then click on the settings button at the top: The one that looks like a light switch.

3. Just below the checkbox that reads “Adding of photo’s via email or iPhone” will be an email address you can use to email photo’s to the gallery.

4. Now when you want to email some photo’s from your device you simply select photo’s as we did before but this time select multiple photo’s.

5. Tap the share button and select “Email”. Your chosen photo’s will immediately be transported to your mail app.

6. Enter that email address (perhaps save it in your address book)and shoot them off to your gallery.

Other Popular Photo Sharing Sites.

Even if you do have a mobile me account, it may not be where you want to send your photo’s. I have listed below all of the most promising photo uploading apps and grouped them by photo sharing and social media sites. Pick your preferred service, download one of the app’s and share away.

Flickr – http://www.flickr.com

Photobucket – http://photobucket.com

Photobucket for iPhone

Shutterfly – http://www.shutterfly.com

Shutterfly for iPhone