Posts Tagged ‘Apple’

When I first saw Shel Israel’s (@shelisrael) tweet and the iTunes store description off of his link, I was skeptical, as was Shel. Visual translations via an iPhone app?

Word Lens is the real thing.

I just conducted a quick test on the iPhone app.

On-screen text message:

iPhone screenshot of the Word Lens translation:

The application has a “Pause” button which takes a still of the translation. In still mode, the translated words become hyperlinks which allows the user to click through to see the translation of the specific word.

How much is this app?

The actual Word Lens application is free and it comes with a Word Reverse and Word Erase tools.

The English-to-Spanish and the Spanish-to-English translation engines are $4.99 each. To access those libraries, you click on the white oval at the top of the screen (it will read “Demo:Reverse Words”) and you are taken to a Languages screen which shows the installed items and the “Available to Download” items.

VIDEO: Word Lens in action – Santa Paula, CA

I photographed the “Smile at the camera” sign at the La Unica bakery then showed the owner how it worked. She was amazed by the translations.

Notes

* I’d rate the translation accuracy around 70-80%.

* The app doesn’t work very well with full pages of text but it will parse through and try to translate what it can.

* The app doesn’t have Spanish regional settings so it won’t know whether to translate “potatoes” to “papas” or to “patatas.” There are hundreds of such words that vary in usage from country to country.

* According to the iTunes listing, the requirements are:
– Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPod touch (4th generation). Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

Is the Word Lens application a game changer in the translation world or is this just another app?

Twitter recently rolled out its new iPad mobile application.  Go to the App Store to get the latest version.  Here’s a review of 5 cool features.

1. The application is made for the iPad. The previous application was just the iPhone version.

2. See multiple “views” on one screen. The new app allows you to see snippets of more than one view at a time.  This is basically a visual “breadcrumb.”  Unfortunately, there are a couple of instances when things get “stuck” and it is difficult to close the active panel.

3. Article/image previews on tweets. Click on an item in your timeline and see the tweet with the article preview below.  This saves a click and gives you a good idea if you want to continue and read the  article.

With the release of Flipboard, there has been a movement towards visual browsing of  tweets.  This is a great next step for Twitter.

4. “Faux” attachments on tweets. Twitter still doesn’t allow for attachments but this “Attachments” screen simulates that action.  On a new tweet, click on the paper clip and you get access to your iPad photo album.  The Twitter app ties in third-party image hosting companies to accomplish the faux attachments.

5. Integration with services.  The app also allows users to connect to third-party services like Posterous for image and video posting.  Video posting?  Apparently the Twitter app is ahead of the iPad development curve and is already listing different video services.

I was surprised by the way the app “knew” how to select my Posterous account since  I never use Posterous on the iPad.

Review

The new Twitter for iPad app is a great step in the right direction – it uses the iPad’s space intelligently and it incorporates preview features like rich desktop apps.  I tested some of the “gestures” mentioned in the Twitter blog post but they weren’t intuitive so they’ve got some work to do there.  All in all, it’s a must download.

Did you see any other great features?  Overall, do you like what Twitter has done?

YouTube announced a new HTML5 video player that works on the Apple iPad device. The player is smart enough to know whether it can display Flash or if it has to switch to HTML5 mode for a non-Flash enabled device.

I tested the new player against the regular YouTube player on an iPad and the new player still needs some work. The new player takes a longer to load, has some funky behavior (a duplicate window appears below the player), and the screen is bouncy when the player isn’t set to fullscreen.

I can see why the new player isn’t available from the regular video page yet.

Furthermore, in order to get the HTML5 version to load, site visitors must have gone to the YouTube HTML5 page and opted in as an HTML5 Beta tester.

This player is basically in development mode. I wouldn’t rush out and start changing all your embed codes but it is worth testing out, especially if it can help you with an existing issue.

This is sample code to embed the new player:

<iframe type=”text/html” width=”640″ height=”385″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID” frameborder=”0″>

“VIDEO_ID” is the ID of the video which looks like an encrypted string. For the videos below, the ID is “FmWNwJRVK_g.”

I embedded a video using the new HTML5 player and also using the standard YouTube player to test on the iPad. I did this for my test but feel free to do the same and test it via your desktop/laptop and via your mobile device or iPad. Remember to opt in to the YouTube HTML5 Beta if you want the player to show up…or you’ll only get a black box in its place.

The New HTML 5 player

The standard YouTube embed method

What do you think? Is the new player useful yet? Will this solve any browser or platform issues for your videos?

Apple released the iPhone IOS4 software update late on June 21, 2010. The update took well over an hour to download and then sync up with the iPhone but it was well worth it.

Among the many new features, the new IOS4 update allows for the iPhone to work with wireless Bluetooth keyboards. I took the new feature for a ride and started blogging.

Did you find any other cool features in the IOS4 update? Drop a Comment below and share.

I purchased the Apple iPad on Opening Day, April 3, 2010, but recently uncovered a rare deleted scene from my unboxing experience.

You can discourage future attempts at humor by leaving a comment here and on YouTube.

You can use the combination of two apps, Camera A and Camera B, to allow your iPhone’s camera to be shared on your iPad.

I thought this was cool because this gives the iPad an input device. You can see the iPhone viewfinder on the iPad and you can snap pictures.

This Bluetooth-enabled combo will be much more interesting once the iPad adds multitasking, which is in the works.

Camera A is free and it goes on your iPad. Camera B is $0.99 and it goes on your 3Gs iPhone.

If you decide to try it out, come back and drop a comment.