Facebook experimenting with letting friends easily send “Happy Birthday!” videos on mobile

by | Oct 8, 2015 |

Facebook birthday videos

One of the many things Facebook does well is make it nearly impossible to miss when one of your friends turns another year older. On the web, birthday reminders are placed prominently near the top right with links to easily wish your pal a happy birthday, and on mobile Facebook has experimented with alerts and other ways to help you not forget someone’s big day.

Now Facebook appears to be testing an even more personal way to make your birthday wish stand out: video messages. The Next Web reports that some mobile users have seen a new ‘birthday video’ option appear under Facebook’s Birthdays section (although don’t worry if you don’t see it yet, I don’t have it either).

The previous (or current depending on the roll out) birthday wish composer lets you send text, photos, and links to your friends’ timelines, but not videos (at least on mobile) so this new option should add some variety on your birthday timeline.

Speaking as someone who just celebrated a birthday this week, the idea of a few video messages from friends and family is charming, but being inundated with a triple digit number of short clips could quickly become overwhelming. Still, Facebook seems to be testing the waters and likely measuring usage before a wider rollout so don’t be surprised if you receive the gift of someone bellowing out “Happy Birthday!” the next time your special day rolls around.

Just remember, a birthday card and and some cash also goes a long way. 😉

Filed under: Apps Tagged: birthday, Facebook, mobile, social, videos

Visit 9to5Mac to find more special coverage of Apps, Facebook, and social.

What do you think? Discuss “Facebook experimenting with letting friends easily send “Happy Birthday!” videos on mobile” with our community.

9to5Toys Lunch Break: Mac app bundle $18, Belkin Lighting iPhone/iPad Dock $22, PS4 price drop, more

by | Oct 8, 2015 |

Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.

Today’s can’t miss deals:

Mac app bundle-sale-01

Mac Bundle: 14 Mac Apps incl. RapidWeaver, Voila Screencapture, Kinemac 3D, more: $18

Belkin-iOS-dock-sale-01

Amazon Students: Belkin Lighting iPhone/iPad Dock $22, 200GB microSD $150, Bamboo stylus/pen $16, much more

UNCHARTED- The Nathan Drake Collection PS4 Bundle-sale-01

Sony announces official PlayStation 4 price drop, bundles now start at just $349

apple-mf840ll-MacBook Pro-sale-01

13″ Retina MacBook Pro (newest) 2.7GHz/8GB/128GB: $1,080 shipped (Reg. $1,299)

trinity-headphones-giveaway

Giveaway: Trinity Delta aluminum earbuds feature a unique design and top-notch sound ($135 value), 20% discount

More new gear from today:

handmade-at-amazon

Handmade at Amazon launches with an eye on knocking off Etsy

  • Daily Deals: Belkin NetCam HD Camera (Refurb) $60, Epson Pro Wireless Projector $450, more
  • Prime Members: Free 4-month subscription for 3 print magazines – GQ, Wired, Health, Reader’s Digest, more
  • Games/Apps: Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD Remaster $30, Power A Moga Android controller $32, iOS freebies, more
  • The absolute best (All-Clad Master Chef) 7-Piece Stainless Cookware Set: $300 shipped
  • Retro Toys 40% off: Pictionary $13, Lincoln Logs set $18, Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots $12, more
  • Canon Refurbished DSLR Sale: T5 w/ 18-55mm/50mm Lens Kit $241 shipped (Orig. $540), much more

More deals still alive:

bose-soundtrue-on-ear-headphones-sale-02

Headphones: Bose SoundTrue Over-Ear $100 (Reg. $120), Bluetooth Earbuds from $20, more

JayBird BlueBuds X Sport Bluetooth Sweat Proof Headphones $90 shipped (Reg. $130), more

New products & more:

dyson-pure-cool-hot

Dyson includes air purification in its newest hot + cool bladeless fan

vizio-reference-series

Ever wonder what a $130K VIZIO Ultra HDTV looks like? Now we know.

Filed under: Tips and Tricks Tagged: 9to5Toys, Amazon, app deals, Bamboo stylus, Belkin Lighting, Best Buy, Daily Deals, free apps, Gold Box, iPhone/iPad Dock, Mac Bundle, video games

Continue reading more about Tips and Tricks, 9to5Toys, and Daily Deals at 9to5Mac.

What do you think? Discuss “9to5Toys Lunch Break: Mac app bundle $18, Belkin Lighting iPhone/iPad Dock $22, PS4 price drop, more” with our community.

Price increase coming for few remaining Verizon customers on unlimited data plans

by | Oct 8, 2015 |

verizon building

Verizon iPhone users still clinging on to their grandfathered unlimited data plans will shortly face a $20 price hike. The wireless carrier confirmed to CNET that it plans to raise the price of its old unlimited plan, meaning grandfathered customers will face a monthly data plan charge of $49. The price increase will take place once each individual contract expires…

VZW shifted away from unlimited data back in 2011, and since then, virtually all customers have moved on to the limited, tiered data plans as perks were taken away from the older plans. Only a very small number (less than 1%) of its subscriber base are still unlimited. Interestingly, Verizon has commented that some customers on unlimited plans would benefit from going on to a tiered plan, and many don’t stream or download enough content to justify being unlimited. Still, it’ll be a downer for anyone who still streams and browses morning ’til night and likes having a relatively low-cost, fixed-rate bill.

This is the latest in a trend of moves across the industry to restrict how much bandwidth customers are taking up. Keeping 100+ million people connected on LTE isn’t easy, and isn’t cheap for Verizon.

This isn’t the first time the carrier has tried to ‘encourage’ people to move to a tiered plan. In the past, Verizon has attempted to put in place a policy to throttle unlimited data customers who used too much data. It has also stopped unlimited customers from being able to get subsidized phones, or devices on monthly installment plans, forcing them to pay for the phones outright if they wanted one. Raising the bill by $20 is yet another move to make unlimited plan customers a little less comfortable, and crowbarring them on to a limited plan.

Verizon is expected to send out an official press release regarding its data plan changes over the next few hours.

Filed under: Tech Industry Tagged: 4G LTE, data plans, iPhone, tiered data, unlimited data, Verizon

For more information about iPhone, Tech Industry, and Verizon continue reading at 9to5Mac.

What do you think? Discuss “Price increase coming for few remaining Verizon customers on unlimited data plans” with our community.

How-To: Make the most of Lightroom to streamline your photo editing & cataloging

by | Oct 8, 2015 |

lightroom-main

When Apple ceased development of Aperture, a lot of serious photographers were very unhappy about Apple’s attempt to palm them off with Photos instead. Many headed instead to Lightroom, the photo cataloging and editing app Adobe created from the ground up specifically for photographers.

If you’re new to Lightroom, our review covers the process of converting from Aperture – everything from importing your existing photo libraries to where to find equivalent features. This piece is about getting the most out of Lightroom – especially when it comes to speeding up your workflow – via some recommended tweaks and tips.

Let’s start with my recommended settings … 

Recommended settings

When viewing and editing photos, you obviously want to view them at the largest size possible. OS X of course offers a full-screen mode, but Lightroom has a built-in one that I prefer as it doesn’t waste any space with the bar containing the close/minimize/expand buttons.

You’ll find this in Window > Screen Mode > Full Screen. With this setting, the menu bar only appears when you move the pointer to the top, but you can choose to keep the menu bar visible if you prefer.

fullscreen

Next, we come to what I personally consider the single most important Lightroom setting for anyone who shoots in RAW format rather than JPG: XMP files.

Lightroom offers non-destructive editing. That is, you can walk back any changes you make to a photo at any point in the future, be it seconds or months later. That’s great, but by default, the log of all the changes needed to walk them back is stored in the Lightroom catalog (or library) itself. If the catalog gets corrupted, that’s your edits gone. If you reimport the photos on another Mac, that’s your edits gone. So Adobe offers an alternative, known as XMP files.

If you go to Preferences > Catalog Settings and check ‘Automatically write changes into XMP,’ then Lightroom writes the change log into a separate file stored with the photo. This only works with photos shot in RAW format, like Nikon’s .nef format.

xmp-files

These files have the same filename as the photo, but with a .xmp extension.

xmp-folder

If you reimport the photos, Lightroom checks for the presence of a corresponding XMP file and reapplies all the edits. As well as offering peace of mind, this is a really handy feature if you want to import the same photo into more than one catalog. Which brings me to a key decision you need to make …

Single or multiple catalogs?

You can, if you wish, have a single Lightroom catalog for all your photos. At the other extreme, you could have a separate catalog for every shoot – an approach taken by some professional photographers. There are pros & cons to both approaches, and I suggest most people will want to pick an option somewhere between the two.

A single catalog, containing every single photo you’ve ever taken, offers one key benefit: universal search. Provided that you keyword your photos (a topic I’ll come to shortly), you could, for example, search for all photos of your partner. Or all photos taken in New York. Or – if you keyword with the care of a stock photographer – all photos of a model wearing a green dress and using an iPhone.

The downside is that a single catalog soon gets rather unwieldy. If you have a modest number of catalogs, most of us will know which of them contains a particular photo, and you can always import the photo into more than one catalog if desired. Here’s what I do: a small selection of catalogs where it’s obvious where to find a photo. If I’m looking for a photo of The Bean in Chicago, it’s going to be in Travel. If I’m looking for a photo of a dancer, well, you get the idea.

catalogues

So, my view is: if you’re a stock photographer, and never know what a client might ask for, consider a single master catalog. If you’re a wedding photographer, have one catalog per wedding. Everyone else will probably be best using a small number of separate catalogs.

Importing and keywording photos

I mentioned searching for photos by keyword. It’s an enormous help to keyword your photos. For example, in this case I wanted to find my favorite photos of the Golden Gate Bridge. I selected five-stars and put ‘golden gate’ into the text field, and Lightroom instantly shows my two 5-star rated photos of the bridge.

keyword

The secret to keywording is to do it when you import photos. In this way, and with some thought given to when you import, you can automate much of it. For example, if we zoom in on the keywords here:

zoom

I was importing a whole bunch of photos shot in San Francisco, so all the keywords bar ‘Golden Gate bridge’ and ‘travel slideshow’ were entered once, and automatically applied to all the photos during the import. You’ll find this option top-right in the Import panel (you may need to open the panel):

import

All I had to do afterwards was add a few keywords to individual photos here and there.

You’ll notice an additional option here in the form of ‘Develop Settings.’ Very occasionally, you may want to apply a Develop preset (for example, high-contrast black-and-white) to all the photos in a particular shoot. If you do, you can choose it from the dropdown here and then it’s automatically applied during import.

Initial cull & file-naming

It’s been said that the difference between a good photographer and a bad photographer is the number of photos they take. A good photographer shoots sparingly, because they know what they want to achieve, and know how to achieve it. A bad photographer takes a ‘spray and pray’ approach.

I tend to agree, but at the same time, you don’t always know in advance which will be the best shot. For example, I’m a huge fan of the ‘blue hour’ – that time around 30-45 minutes after sunset when the sky has a blue glow and there’s just a touch of color remaining from the remnants of the sunset.

sydney-05

But sometimes the glow doesn’t happen – if it’s too cloudy, for example – and it could start raining between the sunset and the best blue hour moment. So I’ll take a photo every 5-10 minutes as the sun sets, so I have some banked shots just in case. In the above case, though it did get cloudy, the moody sky was rather lovely, so I kept that shot and deleted the previous ones.

This is part of my personal philosophy for photography: I want one photo per scene, not a whole bunch of similars. My one exception to this rule is when deliberately shooting a series of related photos. For example, one time when I was in DC I arranged to meet up with a local dancer to shoot some sunrise photos at the reflecting pool.

series

So, you need an efficient system for culling photos – deleting the ones you don’t want, leaving you with the best. To use my system, you’ll need to make one more setting change: in the Photo menu, check Auto Advance.

auto-advance

So, import your photos, go to the Library tab and double-click the first photo to view it. What I then do is apply a numeric rating to each photo. I won’t bore you with the historical reasons for me using 0, 1, 3 and 5 instead of 0, 1, 2 and 3, but it’s habit now so I stick to it.

As you view the photo, press a number key. My system is:

0 – Delete
1 – Probably delete
3 – Probably keep
5 – Probably a favorite

I say ‘probably’ because you’ll likely need to do more than one pass to be sure. For example, you may think a photo is a keeper until you come to a better version. I am very sparing with 5s, for reasons I’ll get to.

As soon as you press a number key, the auto advance setting means it will immediately move to the next photo. So rating each photo is a very quick and easy process. Once I’ve done my first pass, the first thing I do is actually delete the zeroes. To do this, click the Attribute setting at the top to open up this panel:

0-rating

Set the <=> symbol to =, and then set all the stars to off (you may need to select 1 star and then select it again to toggle it off). Lightroom will now display all the photos you rated zero. Do a quick scan to double-check, then CMD-A to select all and backspace to delete. Lightroom will ask you whether you merely want to remove the photo from the catalog, or delete the file. I’m ruthless, so I delete the file – make your own choice here.

Next, I select all the 1 stars. These are the photos I think I’ll probably delete, but wanted to check that I had better alternatives. What I do here is run through them again, this time rating them as 0 or 3, to delete or keep. Repeat the above step afterwards to delete all the zeroes.

Now I have the photos I want to keep, with my favorites labelled. I now rename the files sequentially. CMD-A to select all, then fn-F2 to rename. I have renaming presets for 1-, 2- and 3-digit filenames, depending on how many photos I’m keeping.

rename

Processing

Now I’m ready to process the photos – or what Lightroom calls developing, after the dark room days (which I am old enough to remember – from my 14th birthday, my bedroom was really a darkroom with a bed in the corner).

Photo editing is a very personal process, but here’s what I do …

I always crop first, as I have some presets that apply a post-crop vignette. I mostly process very quickly and easily by applying one of my own presets, but I do use some built-in ones, and a few third-party ones. My approach is to keep travel photos and portraits looking pretty natural, and to allow myself to get more carried away on fashion shoots.

For a good 90%+ of my photos, though, I use one of five presets that I created (three of them with one variation each).

presets

That makes for very fast editing, and ensures that each shoot has a coherent look, rather than wildly-varying ones. I may tinker a little with the result of the preset, but usually not too much.

If you currently find yourself doing a lot of hand editing on individual photos, my top tip is to really pay attention to what you do to each photo. Chances are, you’re quite repetitive in your choices – and you can then turn what you’ve done to one photo into a preset that you can use for similar ones.

For example, I take a lot of blue-hour shots. With almost all, I want to do exactly the same thing: cool the white balance, to emphasize the blue tone; boost saturation, to bring out the remnants of the sunset and further deepen the blues; increase the black-point, for greater drama. (I also under-expose by one stop, but I do that in-camera.)

If you adopt my approach of observing your editing and creating presets, you will dramatically boost your editing speed.

Speaking of which, while I generally avoid similars, when I am shooting a series – like the dance shoot – I process the first one (probably with a preset) and then sync-develop the rest. Click the edited photo first (important) and then shift-click the last one. That will select them all. Then click the Sync button, bottom-right in the Develop tab.

sync

Note that you’ll typically want to deselect the crop, unless they are tripod shots.

deselect

Sharing photos

I have a number of different export presets, for example, one for this site, which outputs at 1024 pixels wide, another for large prints, another for desktop photos and so on.

I said that I’d come back to why I use the 5 rating sparingly. That’s because no-one wants to see all your trip photos, even if it was with Unicef and included a lot of cute kids. But a handful of your favorites? Sure, people will be up for that.

cambodia

I typically give 5 stars to anything from two to six photos per trip. I used to do a lot of business travel, and I enjoy leisure travel today, so I’ve visited 68 countries to date. My 5-starred travel photos? 93 in all, which is a slideshow people might want to view. 3000 photos, not so much.

I hope this has been helpful. Please do share your own tips in the comments.

Filed under:
How-To Tagged: Lightroom, Lightroom tutorial, Photo cataloging, Photo editing, photo management, Photo processing, photography, photos, Photoshop

Continue reading more about
How-To, photos, and Photoshop at 9to5Mac.

What do you think? Discuss “How-To: Make the most of Lightroom to streamline your photo editing & cataloging” with our community.

Apple TV & iPad Pro to hit stores early November after late October online launch

by | Oct 8, 2015 |

iPad Pro Official 16-9

The revamped Apple TV set top box and iPad Pro will both begin showing up in Apple Retail Stores for sale during the first week of November after going on sale via Apple’s website in late October, according to reliable sources. It is also likely that the first online orders of both products will reach customers in early November.

Apple has previously said that the new Apple TV will go on sale at some point in October, and that the iPad Pro would go on sale in November. However, the company did not say that the first Apple TV units will arrive in early November, or that the iPad Pro would actually go on sale online in late October. We reported earlier this week that the iPad Pro will show up in stores in early November, narrowing the tablet’s availability window.

Apple is also preparing to launch a new 4K 21.5-inch iMac as soon as next Tuesday, potentially alongside upgraded “Magic Keyboard,” “Magic Mouse 2,” and “Magic Trackpad 2” accessories with the company’s latest input technologies. Apple has also been working on faster versions of the 5K 27-inch iMac line and new laptops with the latest Intel chips, but it is currently unclear if those are ready for debut next week as well.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple Inc, Apple TV, Computer keyboard, iMac, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod, iTunes, Magic Trackpad

For more news on AAPL Company, iPhone, and iPad continue reading at 9to5Mac.

What do you think? Discuss “Apple TV & iPad Pro to hit stores early November after late October online launch” with our community.

OS X code reveals new Apple Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2, & Magic Trackpad 2

by | Oct 8, 2015 |

Smart Keyboard iPad Pro

Apple looks to be preparing to launch updated versions of its keyboard, trackpad, and mouse accessories as code in the latest OS X 10.11.1 beta references next-generation versions of the products, as first spotted by Consomac.

The updated products referenced in the OS X files includes a “Magic Trackpad 2”, “Magic Mouse 2”, and “Magic Keyboard”. The hints at upcoming new versions of the accessories comes just as Apple plans to launch a new 4K 21.5-inch iMac next week, as we first reported earlier this month.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a hint at redesigned Mac accessories. A couple months back internal FCC documents referenced a “Magic Mouse 2” alongside an updated wireless keyboard.

While there isn’t much in term of how the updated products might differ in design or features from past generations, some are speculating that Apple could add a Force Touch-like experience to its Magic Mouse and Trackpad, allowing it to bring the pressure sensitive touch technology that it introduced with Apple Watch and brought to the iPhone 6s and its latest MacBook trackpads.

Filed under: AAPL Company, Mac

Visit 9to5Mac to find more special coverage of AAPL Company and Mac.

What do you think? Discuss “OS X code reveals new Apple Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2, & Magic Trackpad 2” with our community.

4K video shootout shows iPhone 6s outperforming $3k’s worth of Nikon DSLR

by | Oct 8, 2015 |

1

Fresh from showing how an iPhone 6s and a few cheap accessories can enable you to do a great photoshoot, Fstoppers’ Lee Morris  has now put the iPhone 6s video capabilities up against a semi-pro Nikon D750 DSLR. The results are actually quite shocking, the iPhone 6s delivering much sharper results, as seen in the 200% zoom above and video below.

There are a few riders, of course … 

First, as Morris notes, the footage was shot in ideal conditions: outdoors in bright light. This is the least-taxing environment for a camera. As I noted in my own camera tests, it’s a different story in low light.

Second, he was using a Tamron lens rather than a Nikkor one. I’d have been really interested to see the same footage with the Nikkor 24-70/2.8.

Third, the Nikon is of course far more capable in other ways, with selective focus via shallow depth of field heading the list.

But with all that said, I have to say I’m astonished at the difference shown. It really does show what a capable camera the iPhone 6s is given the right conditions.

We’ve of course already seen Apple’s own demonstrations of the photographic credentials of the new iPhones, with reviewers agreeing. We’ve also seen the evolution of iPhone cameras, and carried our own video test, but the video below really does drive the point home.


Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: Camera, iPhone 6s, iphone 6s plus, Nikon, photography

For more information about iOS Devices, iPhone 6s, and Camera continue reading at 9to5Mac.

What do you think? Discuss “4K video shootout shows iPhone 6s outperforming $3k’s worth of Nikon DSLR” with our community.

Google updates iOS search app to show map results, GIFs, allow review posts with photos

by | Oct 8, 2015 |

google-app

Google has updated its official search app for iOS to version 9.0, adding three new features.

• Add a photo or review for your favourite local places
• Get map results right in the app when you search for an address
• Tap and play animated GIFs in image search results

The app supports Siri-like spoken search queries, speaking the answer to questions. You can also get Google Now cards through the app, which aim to proactively offer you information you might want based on your location and other clues in a similar way to iOS 9’s proactive assistant feature. The company added always-on “Ok, Google” functionality in August.

Google is a free download from iTunes.

Filed under: Apps

For more information about Apps continue reading at 9to5Mac.

What do you think? Discuss “Google updates iOS search app to show map results, GIFs, allow review posts with photos” with our community.

Jimmy Iovine says Apple Music paid signups going well, no free ad-based tier needed

by | Oct 8, 2015 |

iovine

Speaking at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco, Jimmy Iovine said that “Apple has taught me not to give out numbers [but] I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t doing well.”

Iovine said that while a free ad-supported tier could allow the company to rapidly acquire subscribers, a tactic popularised by Spotify, that wasn’t a route Apple wanted to take … 

Reports CNET..

Iovine said Apple could quickly raise [subscriber numbers] to 500 million if it offered a free ad-supported model.

“We don’t want to do that. We believe that we’ve built something powerful enough and strong enough that it will work.”

Iovine said that free tiers were unfair to artists, noted The Verge.

Free is a real issue. This whole thing about freemium, maybe at one time we needed it. But now it’s a shell game. These companies are building an audience on the back of the artist.

In a nod to Steve Jobs’ famous comment about Apple being at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts, Iovine said that both sides of the equation were needed.

Tech companies don’t have it all figured out, either. “Just because you go to Burning Man doesn’t make you Hunter Thompson,” he noted of the tech industry’s profoundly uncultured perspective on art. “The media business needs to have tech people and give them stripes and the tech businesses needs to give media people stripes,” he added. “Or it’s going to keep being the Star Wars bar in Tatooine.“

Jimmy Iovine wasn’t the only senior Apple exec at the summit: Jony Ive also spoke fondly about Steve Jobs and his new role at Apple.

Photo: The Verge

Filed under: AAPL Company, Apple Music Tagged: Apple Inc, Apple Music, Jimmy Iovine, Steve Jobs, Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit

Check out 9to5Mac for more breaking coverage of AAPL Company, Steve Jobs, and Apple Inc.

What do you think? Discuss “Jimmy Iovine says Apple Music paid signups going well, no free ad-based tier needed” with our community.

All seven Harry Potter books now available to buy in iBooks, featuring exclusive interactive animations and author notes

by | Oct 8, 2015 |

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 12.21.27

A notable omission from the iBooks library has been Harry Potter, the most successful literary book series. JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, has kept eBook rights exclusive to her own website until today. This morning, Apple announced that all seven of the books are finally available to buy in the iBooks app to be read on iPhone, iPad and Mac.

The books include more than just the text of the story. The ‘enhanced editions’ feature brand new interactive elements, animations, ‘elaborate’ artwork, notes from the author and exclusive covers.

In a press release, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company is thrilled to offer them exclusively on the iBooks Store.

“I’m thrilled to see the Harry Potter books so beautifully realised on iBooks for the digital world; the artwork and animations in these enhanced editions bring the stories alive in a delightful new way,” said J.K. Rowling.

“Harry Potter fans are going to love how their favorite stories come to life,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “J.K. Rowling’s legendary series is perfect for enjoying on your iPad or iPhone and we’re thrilled to offer them exclusively on the iBooks Store.”

Until now, the Harry Potter digital books have only been available for readers to purchase through the Pottermore Shop. Starting today, iBooks® users can experience the books with all new exclusive custom covers for each title, and typography including the custom Harry Potter typefaces and new section headers and drop caps.

 

Filed under: AAPL Company

Check out 9to5Mac for more breaking coverage of AAPL Company.

What do you think? Discuss “All seven Harry Potter books now available to buy in iBooks, featuring exclusive interactive animations and author notes” with our community.