This is another post in the weekly post series called, the app of the week. This post highlights a great App (new or old) for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, or the web that I believe is due some attention.
This weeks app is called PDFpen by developer Smile Software. This app is currently at an introductory price of $9.99 and available in the AppStore. This application also goes very well with Smiles Mac apps PDFpen and PDFpen Pro including iCloud sync for your PDFs.
I am going to start a new weekly post series called, the app of the week. This post will highlight a great App (new or old) for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, or the web that I believe is due some attention.
This weeks app is called HappyShutter by developer ThirdSight. This application is yet another camera app for iOS but this one stand apart from the rest. The app uses a new technology to detect when all of the subjects of your photo are smiling. Once everyone is smiling the picture is taken and saved directly to your devices camera roll. In my testing this app has worked very well it has even been able to differentiate a smirk or slight grin from a full smile. This app is currently at an introductory price of $0.99 and available in the AppStore.
John Gruber via The Talk Show
During episode 69 of The Talk Show John Gruber and Dan Benjamin were discussing the death of HyperCard. HyperCard was way before my time but I believe I get the gist of what it was trying to accomplish. I don’t have the exact quote but John basically said that HyperCard allowed normal users to create small insignificant apps for their own use. Gruber said that the lack of a simple programming interface was a “blind spot” for Apple.
I don’t think we need simple programming interfaces anymore, because HyperCard existed in a time when all software was sold in stores in little cardboard boxes. Meaning that it was expensive to write, distribute, and sell software so third party developers wouldn’t allocate resources to simple little apps. Now that we have an App Store on iOS and OS X developers that can code in much more complicated languages can write these simple apps and still make a living selling them for $0.99. I don’t think Apple or Steve Jobs killed HyperCard because they foresaw the way applications would be distributed today. HyperCard was killed because they understood that when normal users need a simple app they shouldn’t have to write it themselves, they should just search for one that is already available.
As you all know I am the resident Apple fanboy of The Love of Tech Podcast and The Gadget Gurus Network as Zack Egolf pointed out in last weeks guest editorial. With swirling rumors of the pending launch of the Mac app store I wondered if the Mac app store would have as large of an impact on desktop apps as the iOS app store did for mobile apps.
