Swipe Issue 36 Sample

NEWS 4 APPS 11 FEATURE 19 HOW-TO 24

iPhone SWIPE

NEWS • REVIEWS • TIPS

Welcome

mag

A note from the editor Hello and welcome to the first issue of Swipe in 2014!

We took an extended break over the festive period but now we’re back to get you through January, and the rest of the year, with all the latest news, app reviews, and help.

In this issue we first take a look back at 2013 and how Apple fared in our Feature section.

We also have some great apps on test, including the iOS release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the jagged-edge photo editor Fragment, and Sonic’s latest racing game. There’s lots of help in our How-to section as well, with some tips for Keynote and Find my Friends.

Along with all this, we are currently updating the Swipe app to make the most of iOS 7. With the upcoming version, it does mean you will need to have iOS 7 installed, so if you’ve yet to update, open the Settings app, tap General, then Software Update.

Thanks for reading

Meet the team

Contributors Steve Jarratt Craig Grannell iOS, iPhone, iPad, AirPlay, AirPrint, iTunes, Safari, iCloud, iMessage, and any other trademark is a trademark of Apple inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Screenshots are for illustrative purposes only and all prices are correct at the time of publishing.

NEWS

Snapped up Apple buys SnappyCam

I

n another sign that Apple is willing to spend more of its considerable bank balance, the company has purchased SnappyCam, an app which allows the iPhone to take high-resolution images faster than usual. The app has already been removed from the App Store.

SnappyCam boasted that it could take photos at up to 20 frames per second, putting it on a par with DSLR cameras.

We imagine that Apple will put some of the technology to use in its own Camera app and integrate it with the Burst mode that’s already present in the iPhone 5s. n

Two new drones Parrot unveil fresh models

T

he Consumer Electronics Show has been in full swing in Las Vegas this week, and iPhone-controlled drone makers Parrot has been showing off its latest creation, a new ‘MiniDrone’.

This new model is vastly smaller and lighter than the full AR Drone they currently sell.

The MiniDrone will also come with two detachable wheels allowing it to run along the floor or the wall before taking off again. 9to5Mac has captured a video of it in action on the trade floor. However, the full specs and pricing details have not been revealed and most likely won’t be available until later in the year.

Image © The Verge

The new Sumo shown next to the Parrot MiniDrone

Parrot unveiled a two-wheeled ground unit called ‘Sumo’ as well, that will travel along the ground and has a built-in foot allowing it to stop instantly and jump up to heights of 80cm. Again there are no pricing details for the Sumo as yet. n

APPS

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Rockstar Games

Rise through the criminal underworld in Grand Theft Auto

G

rand Theft Auto: San Andreas (GTA: SA) sees you playing as Carl, known as CJ, as he returns to San Andreas from Liberty City to bury his recently deceased mom and is quickly thrust back into the gang life that he left behind. What follows is a sprawling adventure set across three distinct areas – the inner city of Los Santos, the wilderness of San Fierro, and the casinos of Las Venturas.

San Andreas originally appeared on the PlayStation 2 in October 2004 and the whole game is ported to the iPhone. That does mean the game weighs in at a massive 1.63 GB, so make sure you have plenty of room before installing. The game kicks off with a short cinematic introduction followed by some simple missions to get you used to the controls.

Onscreen controls are the order of the day and they can be hard to tap quickly

As with most games ported from a game console, all of the necessary options and controls are placed on screen. Controlling CJ is handled by a fake analog stick in the bottom left, while buttons for shooting, punching, or getting into cars are on the right hand side.

Once you’re in a car, there are several different ways of controlling your direction, but none of them are perfect. You can use the analog stick, a ‘flick’ method or on-screen arrows, which is the worst of the three. You can easily swap between the options from the in-game menu if you’re ever dissatisfied with your choice. GTA:SA does support the iOS 7 controller framework, but the first few released have been met with criticism so we’re not sure they would help here.

There’s a wide variety of missions with some requiring you to chase down enemies

Once the basics of the game are out of the way, the story starts to unfold through a series of missions that are triggered by heading to certain houses. To begin with these are all based around The Grove, a street area controlled by your crew known as the Grove Street Families. While you’ve been away the rival gangs the Ballas and Vagos have taken over and you set about restoring dominance.

Everything is pretty simple until you have to start shooting at people.

Despite Rockstar’s best efforts, aiming and shooting at targets is somewhat frustrating, as you need to tap multiple times to kill one person before moving on to the next. The small screen of the iPhone doesn’t help either as it is often difficult to pick out what you’re aiming at.

You can change the look of CJ by getting haircuts and buying new clothes

Beyond the missions, GTA offers a world of opportunities. If you don’t want to progress through the story then you don’t have to. Get hold of a few guns and you can go on a virtual rampage. Kill a few innocent bystanders and your wanted level creeps up, causing the cops to get involved and start hunting you down.

Staying alive for as long as possible while you leave a trail of destruction behind you can be just as satisfying.

The stars in the top right represent your wanted level with the cops

As the game offers so much space to explore, you can actively get lost investigating what every area has to offer. San Fierro even features a huge mountain that you can climb up, as well as an abandoned airstrip, which hides a jetpack that you can strap to yourself and fly around. GTA is not a game that takes itself too seriously, as it features plenty of comedic violence along with a liberal smattering of swear words, this is definitely a game for over 18s.

The playable area is huge. We’ve only investigated the bottom right corner so far

While the controls may not be perfect, the sheer scope and size of the game are unmatched by any other offerings on the App Store. The fact that a game that is nearly ten years old can be squeezed on to your device and playable from your pocket shows the true power of the iPhone. We would recommend that you stick to newer devices for the best experience, mind.

Even when testing on the 5s there were times when graphics popped in and out so can only imagine it being worse on the iPhone 4s. If you’re looking for an in-depth story or just want to start a virtual rampage to let off some steam, GTA: SA will give you hours of entertainment. n VERDICT

AUTO-MATIC BUY “The onscreen controls can be frustrating but San Andreas still offers a console quality game for your iPhone”

DOWNLOAD SCREENSHOTS

Fragment Pixite LLC

Turn boring snaps into psychedelic gems with this photo editing app

T

he makers of Tangent and Lorystripes return with another photo manipulation app, this time one that adds prismatic patterns on top of your photos using imagery from the photo itself – a bit like viewing your snaps through shards of glass or a kaleidoscope.

Fragment’s control system is simple, well thought out and nicely implemented

The interface is very user-friendly and cleverly executed. The style of fragmentation is selected from one of 46 presets, and these can be moved, scaled and rotated using the usual touch gestures as well as icons.

The image consists of a fragmented version of your photo, plus the original photo beneath. You can alter the style and position of the fragments and make edits to the photo imagery within, toggling between the two using the circular button at the top.

Sliding scales Tapping the triangle at the bottom brings up another panel providing control over the Brightness, Contrast, Additive, Blur, Invert and Desaturate settings. A sliding scale adjusts the strength of the effect, increasing it in some fragments, while decreasing it in others (and vice versa). It’s an unusual system, presumably designed to ensure a contrast between the various elements. Finally, a scrolling palette along the bottom allows you to colorize the image to suit.

The Edit controls affect adjacent fragments to different degrees. By sliding the Blur control from negative to positive, you can see how the various fragments react

With these seven functions you pretty much have total control over the look of your image, although it’s easy to keep on endlessly exploring without settling on one result! And If you’re ever short on inspiration, you can always hit the Randomize button or, instead of loading your own photo, tap ‘Inspiration’, which loads in a selection of images created by other Fragment users.

Fragment’s prismatic effects can give the same image focus and drama – or make it totally abstract

If you want to take your fragmented picture even further, you can tap on the triangle situated top right, which takes you to a separate menu.

Here you can save your creation and share it with others, but if you hit ‘Refragment’, it will flatten the current image (so it’s no longer editable), and then use this as the basis for you to fragment it further still. Do it enough times and you’ll end up with dozens of tiny, random elements.

By using the Refragment option, you can build up some bizarre images

We’re really impressed with Fragment; the controls are ingenious, it’s a pleasure to use and it all works smoothly in real-time on our iPhone 5s. The app can be used subtly, to add focus or drama, or applied freely to create striking abstract imagery.

If you can see how it might add some interest to your photographs or help unleash your creative side, we’ve absolutely no problem with recommending that it join the other tools in your ‘photo apps’ folder. n VERDICT

SMASH ‘N’ GRAB “Once you get used to its way of working, you’ll have lots of fun fragmenting your photos and creating mosaic masterpieces”

DOWNLOAD SCREENSHOTS PLAY VIDEO

FEATURE

I

t’s been something of a rollercoaster ride for Apple during 2013, with its general perception and share price taking a few hits. At the start of the year, it was still smarting from the iOS 6 Maps debacle, and then reduced orders for iPhone 5 components, scaring investors and causing its stock to tumble. Also, the lack of any brand new products made it feel like Apple was simply reinventing its own creations – “Apple has stopped innovating” cried its critics. It looked like 2013 was going to be another tough year…

January

The year kicks off with the first of the ‘cheap iPhone’ rumors, which, were on the right track, if not entirely on the money. The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg both suggest Apple is to release a cutprice phone using a polycarbonate shell instead of expensive aluminum.

February February ushered in the first speculation that Apple was working on wearable tech – swiftly dubbed the ‘iWatch’.

The New York Times reported that Apple was experimenting with a watch made from curved ‘Willow’ glass made by Corning. Bloomberg backed up the story saying that Cupertino had up to a hundred engineers working on a smart watch, including key staff from the iPhone and iPad projects.

A patent filed by Apple for a wearable computer added further evidence, showing a device that snapped on to the wrist and featured a multitouch display allowing the user to interact with playlists, review recent calls, respond to text messages, and so on.

The internet is awash with iWatch concepts

March Apple still dominates smartphone market share in the US, with over 37% of the subscriber base – an increase of 3.5% of the previous quarter. Apple also topped the JD Power survey for smartphone satisfaction for the ninth time in a row, scoring 855 out of a possible 1,000.

Rumors of the next iPhone begin to circulate, with iMore citing an August release date. It’s believed the iPhone 5S would be an update of the iPhone 5, and a report from China suggests it will include a fingerprint sensor.

Apple acquired fingerprint technology company AuthenTec in 2012 for $356 million, and this could be the first fruits of that investment.

April Rumors about a new iPhone go into overdrive, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that the device is set to enter production in the second quarter. This is supported by a Bloomberg article suggesting that Foxconn has been asked by Apple to hire more staff.

Image credit: iDownloadBlog

Apple reports its quarterly results, with sales of 37.4 million iPhones and 19.5 million iPads generating $43.6 billion in revenue, and a net profit of $11.6 billion. With $145 billion in the bank the company plans to buy back some of its shares.

Speculation about new iPads begins to surface, with case designs suggesting it’ll be thinner than the iPad 4, and with a smaller bezel. It’s generally accepted that it’ll take its design cues from the iPad mini, and feature a quad-core A7X processor.

Image ©: Cult of Mac

Rumors surrounding the budget iPhone grow apace, when an alleged photo of a white polycarbonate shell surfaces. The suggested specs include a 3.5-inch retina screen, the A5 processor (from the iPad mini) and the same 5MP camera in the iPhone 4. Despite the inaccuracy of the proposed specs, it’s now clear that Apple is indeed manufacturing a phone with a plastic shell.

The leaked plastic case from Tactus

May Apple awards Sharp the contract to develop displays for the next iPhone.

Japanese newspaper, Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun reports that the order runs to 600 million units per month. The screen dimensions indicate that the device – now regularly dubbed the ‘5S’ by the press – will be a similar size to the iPhone 5, with production expected to begin in June for an August or September launch.

Apple announces that the 50 billionth app has been downloaded from the App Store – a feat achieved in less than five years since launch, averaging around 28 million downloads per day!

Despite some negative press due to an apparent lack of innovation and ambition, Apple remains the most valuable brand in the world, according to Marketing Week, which calculates Apple’s brand value at $185 billion.

Google, in second place, trails with a $113.7 billion value.

June Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference takes place and, as expected, unveils iOS 7, a major graphical overhaul of its mobile operating system, featuring a clean, stripped-back look led by Jony Ive. Initial reactions to the design are divided, but it’s coming whether we like it or not.

Among a slew of new features are some interesting snippets, like an API for physical iPhone controllers and support for iBeacons, which transmit information to your iPhone as you move into range, such as special offers or kiosk information.

HOW-TO

Get started with

Keynote

M

aking a presentation on your iPhone is simple if you use Apple’s own Keynote app, a part of the iWork suite of applications. To help you get started we’ve been through the app and what follows are our selection of the best tips.

Starting up As with the other iWork apps, you can save your presentations to iCloud.

During the initial start-up process you’ll be asked if you want to use iCloud. We recommend that you do as you can then access your presentation from a computer through icloud.com and edit online as well.

Make a selection from the default themes to get your presentation started After confirming that you want to use iCloud you can start building your presentation. The app comes with plenty of default layouts and you can choose from these if you don’t want to design the whole slide. We went with the Editorial style, but you can choose the option that best suits the presentation you wish to create.

Building your presentation Once you’ve chosen your style, you’re presented with the front page. Any text areas that can be edited will state ‘Double-tap’ on them, so simply do that and add your text. To alter the style of the text, tap the text box once followed by the icon.

There are three options called Style, Text, and Arrange. The Style option has a few default options which you can use to quickly alter the look. From the Text option you can find the bold, underline, and italic options along with alignment and more default text styles. The last selection, Arrange, allows you to change the layer order and the placement of the text in the box. From here you can also lock the layer so that it won’t be moved around accidentally while editing or interacting with other options.

Edit your text quickly by using the default styles that are available

iPhone SWIPE

NEWS • REVIEWS • TIPS

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