People that have a passion for photography have dreamed of having on them a mini photolab to allow them perform the art of editing; GhostBird Software did it brilliantly with the new application PhotoForge for iPhones. It is an image-editing app that enables the user to edit photos, apply effects and filters, and to create illustrations and paintings using the necessary tools.

Starting PhotoForge app you have the options of selecting what is there you want to do: to start with a blank page, to open a photo that you already have or to take a picture with your iPhone’s camera. Automatically seven icons appear on top of the screen that represent the tools that you need to: Zoom (that enables you to see down to the finest detail), Brush, Eraser (which lets you erase everything but the original photograph), Paint Bucket (allows you fill the page with any color), Eye Dropper, Smudge and Clone Stamp (enables you to select a part of the image which can be used wherever you want to paint, duplicating it). At the bottom of the screen there are other several options for selecting the color, transparency, the type and size of brush (8 different brushes from hard to soft), to adjust curves, undo and redo and select effects and filters.

Curves option is the possibility to create your own filters, adjusting the curves for RBG, CMYK, and CIE lab. This option influences everything that has to do with editing a image, including color, saturation, brightness, contrast and more. Filters option has 13 adjustments among which Noise reduction, exposure, Blur, Simulated HDRI, Hue/Saturation. There are present another 15 Filters to include Dreamy, Sepia, Black and White, Watercolor, Neon, Television and other more.

PhotoForge gives you unlimited undo and redo actions so that you don’t have to worry in case you make some mistakes. Even when you receive a phonecall the application is interrupted for when you finish your talking to be able to continue from where you have left it. This editing possibility is comprised in an elegant and intuitive interface enabling you to navigate in a simple way among the multiple options. Tapping the screen PhotoForge’s interface disappears and you are left facing the full screen of the canvas. The way in which everything is at your fingertips reveals a good performance on behalf of GhostBird Software.

Finishing your editing or creating the application allows you to save up to four different output sizes: 640x480, 800x600, 1,024x768, and 1,600x1,200. PhotoForge appears itself to be the Photoshop that you have accessible at home on your PC only in a mobile and smaller size. Not to mention that easy-to-use application provides some editing tools that one hasn’t previously seen on a mobile device. So it would be no overreacting on our behalf to say that PhotoForge application reveals itself as being one the most powerful app of its sort that exists in the App Store and it proves to be a must for the artistic creators or any other person interested in image editing. One last thing PhotoForge is compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch that runs iPhone 2.2 software update.

With so many apps to be used in the iPhones lately, one may wonder if there is something else that Apple could possibly come with for in the end to see that there are indeed new and interesting things to come up with. As it is the case with the new filing that covers an application for identification that helps the user to identify objects that are in his surroundings. For instance, a user can take a photo from some art gallery without having detailed information regarding the picture or he can snap pictures of some items such as famous buildings or statues but not being able to identify them.

The solution that Apple offers in this matter is introducing the ID app that can determine the user to locate the environment through a selection from a list of detection devices such as RFID reader, camera, or IR image capture. In this way the iPhone will be able to adjust parameters that are used for searching a collection of databases. Some embodiments present an electronic device that can recognize the location of the user helping him to identify an object, for example if the user is in a certain city and the unit is set on “Restaurant” mode, then the device is able to limit the search of the ID database to restaurants located in that city.

Based on GPS or other location services, and the direction in which users are pointing their iPhones, the ID app helps automatically identify the objects in the open spaces. While being in the dark, ID app activates an IR image capture device in order to detect objects that are in the darkness.

Another application that has been filed is the one related to access to voicemails that have been previously sent to the recipients and not only those which are registered as incoming voicemails. In this case Apple comes with a solution that enables recording and playing back the outgoing voice mail messages that are linked to contact information related to the recipient. In this way the user can access the audio file by playing it back in order to remind him of the voicemail that might have not even listened to by the recipient.

Other applications include the feature called “pre-populated” iPhone which present the device with wanted pre-select media items and apps at the time when user is purchasing the device. The improvement that is brought to iPhone’s text messaging implies a parental control that filters out contents transmitted to the child, contents that are not approved by the parents. The “partially transparent sheet” is described as a sheet that can be maneuvered as a reply to user input, and can include for instance lyrics or text related to an audio file that is currently performing on the media player.

All these applications show Apple as being the entire time one step ahead of the customers’ needs, delivering techniques that turn the invention into what one dreams overnight to happen over the day.

When Apple introduced the QuickTime Streaming Server that used the RSTP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) it was expected to achieve a traction that would satisfy the viewers, but because the RTSP traffic was blocked by many firewalls, the delivery of the streams proved to be unreliable. The plan to get RTSP to function on iPhone could be made through HTTP Live Streaming, a technology that has emerged since May, when Apple presented it to the Internet Engineering Task Force in order to become an RFC – Request For Comments (a memorandum that Internet Society is using to define the way technologies work to promote cooperation and compatibility between the sellers applying them).

The HTTP Live Streaming has similarities with a method belonging to Microsoft called Smooth Streaming, only that Apple’s HTTP LS is capable of using any encoder and broadcast server, functioning at the same time with anyone who software designated to receive the stream. Apple’s plan is to obtain a standard availble to everyone, without being afraid that it might be at any other vendor’s whim. This story has already happened before with multimedia playback turning the concept of streaming into another episode in the saga of QuickTime.

Internet media streaming has appeared in 1995 through the Progressive Networks, having a streaming format of RealAudio. Later the company being renamed as RealNetwork has established a partnership with Netscape to create what was known to be RTSP standard for streaming. As Microsoft owned 10% of the Real Company they incorporated Real’s streaming format in an attempt to turn the Internet streaming into their ActiveX Streaming Format – ASF.

Microsoft’s ambition was to become the master in control over Real and Apple promoting the concept of streaming ASF via MMS (Microsoft Media Server), while ActiveX Authoring Format – AAF - was seen to be the QuickTime killer. ISO rejected AAF and established QuickTime as a basis for the new MPEG-4 media container format. Later in 2003 MMS as its own hosting system for streaming media, had been played down by Microsoft to promote its new RTSP server known as Windows Media Player 9. Meanwhile Microsoft has been compelled to drop its ASF and adjust its streaming to that of MPEG-4 container’s Smooth Streaming.

All this time, Apple promoted QuickTime 3 that supported a fake streaming called HTTP Progressive Download which allowed the users to download a file and watch it from the portion that was available. Next QuickTme 4 followed that enabled unlimited streaming use and at the same time releasing the software Darwin Streaming Server as open source. With the introduction of iPhone users demanded to take streamed content on their devices; thus among the first apps to be used was AOL Radio, that was followed by TV.com, BBC and others. Then the solution of HTTP Live Streaming emerged as an alternative to maintain versions of the clips in various formats allowing the iPhone users who have WiFi connection to experience a high quality version of videos available on the current bandwidth.

Considering the richness of fonts available on ITC suite of fonts, one may think that there can’t be anything more to add to it. Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., the leading provider of text imaging solutions, has extended the font family to 35 new fonts. Ronald Arnholm, art professor at University of Georgia and type designer, is the one who created the fonts, which can be visualized, licensed and downloaded from the following sites: Fonts.com, ITCFonts.com, Linotype.com and Faces.co.uk.

Through their trademark Monotype Imaging manages to help manufacturers and developers of laser printers, copiers, digital televisions, mobile phones, navigation devices, software apps to find expression solutions for their products. The company owns a technology which allows access to more than 10,000 typefaces belonging to Monotype, Linotype and ITC typeface libraries, which hosts the most popular used designs, such as Helvetica, Times New Roman and ITC Franklin Gothic typefaces. These fonts are under license terms (delivered through font design services, direct  sales or e-commerce portals) offered to those involved in creation and business as well. Each trademark (Monotype, Times New Roman, Linotype, Helvetica) is registered under different patent and has availability in certain jurisdictions, whereas Windows and OpenType present themselves to be either registered trademarks or trademarks belonging to Microsoft Corporation both in US and other countries. Macintosh is an Apple Inc’s trademark that is registered in the Patent Office of USA and other countries as well.

Allan Haley, director of words and letters at Monotype Imaging describes the fonts as having a wide range of applications in the area of projects creativity, reflecting at the same time an inheritance of Ronald Arnholm’s original spirit. He added that the square serif face which presents itself in a softer shape for the small sizes confers the harmony that totally integrates into the Legacy fonts.

The history of ITC collection of fonts dates back in the 1470 when Nicolas Jenson, a French engraver, printer and pioneer typographer brought in slab serif shapes and asymmetrical foot serifs, which constituted the faces of the 1990’s newly introduced ITC font collection.

The availability of square sheriff and serif condensed is rendered by OpenType Pro fonts which format provides capabilities of including advanced typographic features and effects, offering at the same time a character set so enlarged that supports the English and Romance languages, Eastern European and Central European languages as well. These fonts can be accesses in both Windows and Macintosh platforms. Meant to provide extra support in the field of creativity, the new typeface is integrating perfectly in the picture of the old ITC Legacy Suite of fonts.

The market research survey focused on the sale of smart phones products for the June 9-15 period has shown that the number of smart phone owners is increasingly rising, the results proving a 37 percentage of rising in the sales, with iPhone and Palm Pre being the leaders. What is more important is that out of all the respondents, 14,4% have said that they plan to buy a smart phone in the next 3 months, products including the ones offered by the new Apple and Palm. The graphics show that Apple has experienced a constant growth in market share for the past two years.

It seems that now with the new launching of products, Apple and Palm increase their sales and for the future they show the same rise according to Change Wave Research study. Apple’s iPhone 3GS is available at a price of $199.00 for 16GB model, and $299.00 for 32GB model, whereas the old model 8GB iPhone 3G has got a reduced price to $99.00.

Further study on RIM’s most recent products – Bold, Storm, Curve – show a temporarily peak growth in the market share gains and at the moment that Apple and Palm have launched their new models, RIM is showing to have reached a slowdown point regarding their product cycle. But a product launching of Blackberry 3G Pearl and Storm 2 is announced in the second half 2009, this one not being included in the survey that Change Wave Research, as the study was coompleted before the launching was announced.

Current Palm owners say that they will purchase the new Pre model in a percentage of 11 for the “very likely” to buy consumers and 18 for the “somewhat likely” to buy the product, meaning that they surpass the consumers of any other manufacturer, since there are customers of Sanyo and HTC that are likely to have their products exchanged for those belonging to Palm Pre. The future demands for Palm products bring a new wave of satisfaction to Palm brand name if we compare to the first years when Palm emerged on the market.

Also for iPhone 3GS, the study shows a growth in demand compared to the data shown for the June 2008, 14.4% in June 2009 compared to 10.5% for June 2008. This month Change Wave Research plans to conduct a survey that will follow this last one among the future new owners of Palm Pre and Apple iPhone 3GS. What it is shown up to date is the exclusivity they own in the sales market. There is though some consumers (20% out of respondents) that said they are not considering buying Apple iPhone because they are required to use AT&T and a part of Palm Pre (16% of the respondents) that said they do not plan to buy Palm Pre since they are required to use Sprint. But for the moment Apple and Palm Pre take the lead and future surveys are planned to keep you updated.