While heavily collecting applications for my new toy (aka: IPad2), I couldn’t fail to note that there are zillions of photography apps to be had.
And, to be honest, I still don’t get it. I mean, who would use an IPad2 as a camera (seriously!)? And who would upload photos from his or her camera and actually do photo-editing on an IPad?? What I perfectly understand is that people use the machine for sharing and watching photos, the size is absolutely sufficient (well, most of the time anyway) and the screen is really up to the task. But why the heck would one want additional apps for that?
When talking about sharing and distributing photos, there are two apps that really shine. One is “ESO TOP 100″, which is a collection of photos from the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The quality is amazing, it makes you really think about life, the universe and everything. For example, the panorama of the southern sky (Photo 14). Breathtaking – and an example, where the 10-inch screen is actually just way too tiny. The app is free, and the photos are also available as a normal web-collection at http://www.eso.org/public/images/ so all that is left for me to say is: thanks for all the fish! Visual science communication at its best.
On par with the ESO collection is the collection of photos from Jaime Ocampo-Rangel “Memory of Colors“. Aiming to be a “message of peace and respect for mankind’s last treasures before it’s too late” (a catchphrase that I find somewhat over the top, to be frank), it certainly depicts a fascinating range of cultures. And, obviously, the photographic quality is beyond any doubt. The App was free for the last days, not sure how long that will last.
Thomas
Very nice apps. I noticed ESO has one for Hubble too.
In a similar vein there’s a universal app for photo.net too. Lots and lots of awesome photography too see in there. Not entirely free, but almost
I share your doubts regarding the usefulness of the ipad when it comes to image editing, and a lot more. For capture, it is ridiculous. Frankly, I can only see it useful for browsing, while sitting in the sofa watching TV. I’m very narrow minded in this respect.
@John: I need to check the one for Hubble! Concerning the app for photo.net: I’m not so sure that I like the idea of making money with an app that shows photos from other photographers from a website (although photo.net collections of contain marvelous photos, no doubt). But I would be interested on how the revenue of the app is used…
@Ove: No problem with being narrow-minded (in this narrow aspect!). The IPad2 is interesting in its own respect, but it’s far from being an essential photographic tool.
Judging from what developers usually earn on mobiles I guess the money would go to paying the developers licence and updates for maintenance and features I guess. Building and maintaining software in general is time consuming stuff. I bought plenty of similar apps. Sometimes they use Flickr and sometimes they contain the portfolio of a single photographer. I even got an animated one which shows 24 hour footage of scenery (it’s called Magic Window, I think). I like my apps to be entertaining and turn my iPad into a photo frame without having to rely on my own photo’s
As for The ESO apps: these aren’t really free since they’re paid from tax payer’s money. These are most probably outsourced to a development firm for €50K a piece. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. ESO have to show what they’re doing to the public of course. (NASA does such things extremely well)
[...] I still hold to my opinion that any decent work with images is better left to a decent machine. I recently mentioned the App from the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the collection of photos from Jaime [...]