CUPERTINO, California—May 31, 2010—Apple® today announced that iPad™ sales have topped two million in less than 60 days since its launch on April 3. Apple began shipping iPad in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK this past weekend. iPad will be available in nine more countries in July and additional countries later this year.

“Customers around the world are experiencing the magic of iPad, and seem to be loving it as much as we do,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We appreciate their patience, and are working hard to build enough iPads for everyone.”

iPad allows users to connect with their apps, content and the Internet in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before. Users can browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ user interface. iPad is 0.5 inches thin and weighs just 1.5 pounds—thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook—and delivers up to 10 hours of battery life.*

Developers have created over 5,000 exciting new apps for iPad that take advantage of its Multi-Touch user interface, large screen and high-quality graphics. iPad will run almost all of the more than 200,000 apps on the App Store, including apps already purchased for your iPhone® or iPod touch®.

*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices. Read More

In April, Apple launched its “magical and revolutionary” new device, the iPad. Just 28 days later, it seemed the real magic was how Apple sold more than a million devices in that time period. As I write this at the end of May, iPads are in short supply in most Apple stores. Here in the New York City area, I couldn’t find a single iPad 3G, and there were only a few lower-end Wi-Fi models to be found.

Apple’s sales record here is even more impressive if you factor in that iPad is a new class of device, somewhere between the phones and computers that most consumers understand. It’s also a category of device that’s vexed every vendor who’s tried to enter this space over the last decade.

So how did Apple do it? Why did Apple succeed where no one else has and how did they do it so quickly?

The answer is, it took a decade of education and teaching. The key to Apple’s success is that the company often takes the time to explain things to the consumer that no other vendor bothers to do. By keeping a laser focus on key features and introducing them one at a time over a period of years, Apple taught and evangelized everything the consumer needed to know to understand the iPad from day one. Without that foundation, it’s not likely the product would have been nearly the success it has been. READ MORE

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Remember how, back on Windows, you used to use the Win key and the Control key quite often? Well, on OS X, the Command key is your best friend.

There are two Command keys, one each side of the spacebar. You should find them easy to reach with your thumbs while typing.

Mac OS X is stuffed full of keyboard shortcuts – quick ways to get things done without taking your hands off the keyboard. The vast majority of them are done by holding down Command with your thumb while tapping another key with a finger.

Some of these shortcuts are universal: Command+S always saves what you’re working on. Command+Q always quits the app you’re working with. Command+N usually opens a new document; Command+O usually allows you to browse to a particular document so that you can open it in the current application.

Other commands vary according to the application you’re using. For example, in iTunes, Command+T shows the visualizer; but in Safari, Command+T opens a new tab…..READ MORE

Iphoto doesn’t have the capability to make panoramic pictures unfortunately. You have to seek out 3rd party applications such as Doubletake. Here is a tutorial that will help you integrate the two.

Starting DoubleTake

To stitch two or more images seamlessly together, wide or tall panorama, drag them onto DoubleTake. This will also work when DoubleTake is in the Dock, or if you drag from Iphoto.

When DoubleTake opens the images, it takes a look at the edges of the images and makes a guess about the……Read More

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One of the great things about Iphoto is that it has very easy color correcting tools. So you don’t have to be a Photoshop Guru to make your pictures look beautiful, colorful and vibrant. For purposes of this demonstration, I’m using Iphoto ‘08.  From what I can see in Iphoto ‘09, everything looks the same. As I said, I  plan on upgrading soon! Bad me.

Basics

Open up a picture

Basic Color Correcting

What I like about Iphoto is that if I’m in a hurry I don’t have to open Photoshop up and play with curves and levels. All I have to do is click on ADJUST and it’ll open up a palette where I can start making color corrections right away. Sometimes I even like how my picture looks corrected in Iphoto better than I do in Photoshop! But then again, maybe I just didn’t calibrate my monitor right.

When you click on ADJUST  a palette will pop up and you’ll be able to manually adjust the exposure, contrast, temperature ,etc.

You can lighten or darken the picture playing with the exposure, levels and contrast. Levels gives you the histogram for easy guidance. The top peak in the middle is probably a good level of light and dark areas of the picture. As you drag the middle button to the right, you will see the peak move to the right as well as see your picture lighten up significantly. This is an indicator of where you might have too low of an exposure or if you drag the middle button to the left, you’ll see too high of an exposure.

Highlights and Shadows: You can play around with these features to pinpoint areas of the picture to enhance. For instance, if you want to enhance some of the lighter areas of the pictures you would adjust its highlights.

If you drag the bar to the right, really light areas of the picture will darken and the opposite is true for shadows.

I suggest you play around with all of the lightening tools until you find the desired effect. You can always reset the picture if you want to start over.

Saturation, Temperature and Tint: When color correcting in Iphoto, these are the three areas you’ll want to focus on. Saturation will allow you to enhance all the colors—saturating them!  If you want black and white, simply move your slider to the left and it will remove all the colors!

So your yellows will be more yellow, greens more green, red more red. Temperature–I like this one alot. You can make your picture look warm, more yellow in appearance.  This is great for beach photos where you have a nice sunset. Playing with the temperature gives a nice warm feel to the picture. Tint—it will enhance the greens or reds in your picture, so use this one sparingly unless you want a washed up looking photo.

All of these effects are created by moving the sliders back and forth — super easy! If you don’t like it, press RESET and start over again. Don’t press DONE until you are sure you are finished, otherwise you will need to re-import the picture unless you have a duplicate.

If you want to see how this is done live–check Apple’s video on Iphoto ‘09 Improving Pictures. Click on Improve your photos. Now if you have many “birds” you’d like to kill with one stone, try Iphoto Batch Enhance 3.

Color Correcting Multiple Pictures – Iphoto Batch Enhance 3

Feroxsoft has an application that can color correct pictures in batches. It’s called Iphoto Batch Enhancer 3. It’s compatible with Iphoto ‘04 and up. It only takes 3 steps

1. Select the Photos to be processed

2. Click one or more options in the Iphoto Batch Enhancer and apply

3. Watch each picture get enhanced—recommended not to use any other programs while this process completes.

Download Iphoto Batch Enhancer 3

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Ok now why would I write about Iphoto alternatives on a website entirely devoted to Iphoto? Well….for one,  we always like to see who tries to compete with the “industry-standard” type of software. It gives you an idea of what new features others try to add to keep up. It’s always good to check out the competition so you can see whether the software you are deciding on is worth the price or if you’d be best served with the cheaper less-known software. For instance, before Adobe Photoshop Elements came out, the only cheaper alternatives to Adobe Photoshop were Corel’s Paint Shop and others. However, they could not come close to the features and robustness that Adobe Photoshop offers , which is why it is still the industry standard in Graphic Design and Photography today.

Whether or not these alternatives have an edge over Iphoto is up to the user of course. But if you are curious,  here they are:

Picasa

What’s great about Picasa? —-It’s FREE!! AND…..it’s Mac, Linux and PC compatible. Of all the applications out there, this one goes head-to-head with Iphoto. Some people (now don’t slap me–I’m just saying!) prefer Picassa over Iphoto. Well you be the judge of that. I downloaded Picassa 3.5  to see how it compares. I’m bad and haven’t upgraded yet to Iphoto ‘09  ( I still have Iphoto ‘08) so I’ll have to go at it stand-alone. A review for Picasa vs. Iphoto coming soon….nevertheless here are the general features of Picasa.

New with Picassa 3.5

• Add Name Tags —similiar to Iphoto ‘09 Faces
• Geotag with Google maps– similar to Iphoto ‘09 Places
• Import, upload, share all at once
• Tags–Bulk Tagging, quick tags and tag counts
• Basic Photo Editing —similar to Iphoto versions
• Organize photos in Web Albums  -like Events and Albums in Iphoto
• Print pictures, make albums, print to web — all similar to Iphoto

Check out Picasa

Cost: FREE

Photo Mechanic

Though not well known like Picasa, Photo Mechanic seems to have similar features to both Iphoto and Picasa. However, this seems more geared towards professional use regarding workflow.

The latest Photo Mechanic Version 4.6 includes:

• Live Ingest for importing photos from wireless or tethered shooting;
• The use of GPS in photos –similar to geotagging in Picasa and places in Iphoto
• New Upload templates: Secure FTP, Amazon S3, DF Studio, ExposureManager, Flickr, Gallery 2, SmugMug, and Zenfolio;
• You can convert RAW images
• New Exporter templates for Goggle Earth, Soundslides, and HTML or Flash slideshows;
• Tagging Features
• Much more.

Check out Photo Mechanic

COST:  $150.00

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