Tag: Youtube »

Regular YouTube app users will have noticed that there's no way of creating a list of YouTube videos to play automatically. That is until now in the form of free app PlayBox.

PlayBox allows users to easily create playlists and add any videos on YouTube. It's easy to search through the site from within the app and then tap an option or two in order to add them to the playlist. Users can create as many playlists as they want so it's simple to have one for a workout while another could form a comedy playlist full of videos to cheer even the darkest of souls up.

Once a video ends, the playlist immediately moves onto the next making for an ideal app to listen to via the headphones. Headphone controls can also manipulate the app just like with the iPod app.

Backup options via email are also present for users switching between different devices.

PlayBox looks like an ideal solution for anyone wanting to watch or listen to plenty of YouTube videos in a row.

There's a lot to take in online isn't there? Every day more and more information, whether it be useful new Wikipedia entries or funny and entertaining videos, emerges on the internet. Things can get a little overwhelming. As is fortunately the way, there's an app to help tame it all. At least on the video side of things.

Shufflr promises that videos will find the user. It's not quite as stalkerish as that, fortunately, but it does offer a way for users to quickly see what videos their friends are sharing on Twitter. They can also discover other people with similar tastes - whether that be complex political narratives or cute cats doing silly things. Plus there's the all important personalized video recommendations and the ability to check out trending videos quickly.

For the video fan, Shufflr looks to be an ideal solution to missing out on all the latest and greatest without taking too long to find such things.

It's out now and it's a free download.

It's not always convenient to be permanently around a wi-fi area or 3g connection zone even if it is useful to view YouTube videos while on the go. Fortunately there's now a way for users to watch Standard and High Definition YouTube videos while on the move, courtesy of SPEEDbit HD.

It's an app that allows users to save videos on their iOS device for later consultation. There's no freezing, no buffering, no problems basically with videos loading quickly and smoothly. Other than that, it's a pretty regular YouTube search app but that one feature is a truly useful thing indeed.

Being able to view videos without relying upon a strong data connection is perfect for those who regularly travel to out of the way places or who worry about racking up high data charges.

SPEEDbit HD is a free and universal app. Check out the video below for more details of how it works.

Additional functionality compared to the apps already included on the iPad is always welcome. VideoHunters sets out to ensure that regular YouTube users are just a bit more satisfied with the service compared to simply using the native YouTube app.

VideoHunters offers an easier way of searching, organising and sharing videos. An easy to master UI enables users to quickly search for different channels and interests all within one screen that's easily scrollable, rather than relying on tabs.

The app also keeps everything fresh with over 100 pre-installed themes making things simpler and easier to navigate. These themes provide a collection of videos organized around a specific topic covering everything from World of Warcraft to Cooking and all manners of sports and musical interests. Plus there's always the option of creating a new theme to cover a personal interest too.

VideoHunters is available now for the iPad and is priced at $0.99.

Once upon a time, the mixtape was the most romantic thing that anyone could ever do for me. While the cassette tape gave way to the CD, both offering ways of providing mixes, the digital era didn't really leave any room for romance. Unless of course, the romantic person decides to use something like Dragontape.

Dragontape is an universal app that lets its users create up to 3 hours long mixtapes of their favorite YouTube and Soundcloud clips. They can rearrange the clips however they want, edit and crossfade (in the case of Soundcloud). It's all done via the app and a Dragontape.com account that's quick and simple to get set up, then the only restriction is a person's imagination.

It's an easy app to use with editing only ever requiring one tap of a finger. Switching from track to track is simply a matter of swiping across the screen so it's easy to skip tracks if need be. Users can share their creations with whoever they want via Twitter, Facebook, e-mail and the Dragontape website. Socially minded people can also browse other creations for some inspiration. There's also the potential to collaborate with friends which could provide a great learning tool too for something like a group project.

The potential overall really is pretty great. At its simplest, users can use Dragontape to set up a mixtape of their favorite workout music. There's also the romantic element of creating a mix of tracks for someone they love. Or people could use it to simply create a montage of videos of a beloved pet, or a concert they attended.

Dragontape is available now for all iOS devices. It's currently free but there are suggestions on the app page that it's free while in beta with a possible pricetag added in the future. So best get downloading now.

There are many video providers on the internet that are competing for your glances.  Fighting for market share with among the likes of YouTube, MetaCafe, and Dailymotion, Vimeo has been in a tough position to say the very least.  As a longstanding supporter of HTML5 and the video capabilities that the platform provides, it has been one of the few services that have a fully featured in-browser delivery system for their media on iOS based devices.  They have always hung their hat on the fact that they never needed a supplementary iOS application to play your content, but that looks to be changing very soon.

Projected for an App Store release of some point late in the fourth quarter of 2010, Vimeo has decided to not only be trailblazers in the browser space, but to bring their multimedia expertise to their viewers in an iOS tailored application.  While some could interpret this as backpedaling on their prior plans, Vimeo General Manager Dae Mellencamp seems to think otherwise.

“Vimeo user(s have) been asking for an iPhone app for a long time. Not everybody uses the browser as much, on the iPhone particularly. People have become prone to using the apps. We want to be where the users are.” -- Dae Mellencamp via NewTeeVee.com

This simply looks like a smart business move on the part of Vimeo: to go where the audience is.  As far as I am concerned, in an already tightly contested streaming content ecosystem, it would only make sense to follow in the footsteps of the other market leaders.  Really, it is a marvel that it took them this long to make the jump.

At the end of they day, this is all about the advertising dollars and in order to stay afloat you need the numbers.  This should put Vimeo in a much better position than they have been, plus allow them plenty of room for expansion.  Who knows, we could even be witnessing another party seeking to usurp Apple iAds from their lucrative position atop the In-App advertising heap.  Only time will tell.

[ via NewTeeVee.com ]

There are some things that we know the iPhone can do, from play games to make calls, however, until this app came along we doubt anyone thought about adding their face to a poster in a movie. But that’s what ModdedMovie offers, and it does a brilliant job of it.

The process of making your movie is easy, simply pick a background, choose the type of poster or billboard you want and then add a photo of someone’s face from the iPhone’s camera. You then simply position the face using pinching and dragging gestures and adjust the color and exposure of the image to make it look as natural as possible. We found that picking images focused on a face rather than a group shot worked well and, where possible, shooting a photo specifically for the app provided the best results.There are a bunch of initial styles to choose from including Car Advertising, Advertising hoardings and billboard advertising and, within each, there is a selection of advertising types. These include Happy Birthday, a wanted poster, movie poster, fashion poster and an I Love You message.

Once you have picked your theme and added an image, the fun really starts. The image is rendered within a movie that shows a street scene with a poster containing your picture in the background. The video clip looks a little like handheld footage so you could easily use the output as part of a “have you seen this?!” prank to play on friends. You can view finished movies from within the app or send them to your iPhone’s Camera Roll for sharing online or syncing to your computer. The output is pretty impressive however does need an iPad or iPhone 3GS in order for it to work. In our initial inspection we did encounter a couple of crashes when rendering or choosing certain themes but we hope these will be ironed out with an update. This is version 1.0 after all.

You might be asking, what on earth would I use this app for, and we thought the same, however once you get to grips with it, ModdedMovie does offer a whole host of possibilities including personalized birthday greetings to friends and loved ones. You could even add the video to your own website if you have one or to a home movie as a dynamic introduction. Regardless, this is an enjoyable app to use and, while slightly pricey at $2.99, does offer a number of possibilities and will be great for kids.

ModdedMovie iPhone application Intro from dudeStock.com on Vimeo.

If you've ever wondered why you see a little blue Lego brick rather than a video when using Safari on an iPod, iPhone or iPad, it's really down to the personal preferences of two very rich and powerful men.

Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, is never one to mince his words or compromise when it comes to his company or its products and has exhibited these qualities once again with an "open letter" explaining his thought's on Adobe's Flash products amid the ongoing hostilities between the two companies.

When the iPhone was first launched, many criticized its inability to play the Flash video used on many websites including YouTube. Websites created using Flash technology were also incompatible with the iPhone.

With the launch of the App Store most of these complaints were calmed and Apple's own YouTube app solved part of the web video problem, however a number of major sites such as The New York Times still use Flash and therefor cannot be viewed properly in the iPhone's Safari browser.

Adobe is "lazy"...
At a recent meeting of Apple employees, Jobs was said to refer to Adobe as "lazy" and referred to its buggy versions of Flash for the Mac as reasons not to support it on Apple's mobile devices. These comments were supposed to be behind closed doors, but Jobs' "Thoughts on Flash" posted last week on Apple's website is for the world to see. Apple has also banned the submission of any apps to the App Store that were built using Adobe's new Flash CS5 tools.

In his notes Jobs explains: "I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe's Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads."

Running through six topics covering everything from Flash's inability to work with touch devices through security issues and battery life, all the while promoting the new HTML5 standard, Jobs concludes with this stinging sign off "Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind".

Apple's "smokescreen"...
Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen has, in some part, responded to Jobs' harsh words in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in which he refutes a number of Jobs' statements referring to them as a "smokescreen" as well as finding Jobs' reference to Flash being a closed standard as "amusing". The fight back from Adobe appears to be focussing on its belief that all devices are equal and its software allows developers to create apps for a number of devices while Apple wants to control and manipulate its own hardware and software platform.

In some ways, Narayen is right. Everybody wants their sites and apps to be available on these highly popular Apple devices. Security and performance issues aside, by allowing Flash apps and sites into the mix, Apple would be relinquishing some control and would provide Adobe with more power. Without Flash, app developers must stick to using Apple's own tools to create software for the App Store and web developers must take advantage of the open HTML5 standard to keep their sites compatible. Adobe is left out in the cold until it decides to toe the line.

So what's the result of all this squabbling?
Adobe will push on and allow developers to create content for all of the other devices out there while being forced to ignore Apple, the market leader. On the flip-side, Apple will feel little effect while continuing to develop its ecosystem and maintain control of its developers and platform.

For these reasons, along with Jobs' pigheadedness when it comes to quality and control, the blue bricks will remain until the rest of the world catches up to Apple's view of the future - and that doesn't include Flash.

image credit: Flickr user Ping ping

So Apple had a big day yesterday announcing new computers, the new iPhone 3G S, and of course the long awaited software upgrade to 3.0 with Copy & Paste, MMS, and the new Video Recorder (3G S only). As great as these features are though, I think they’ve completely over shadowed some other great additions, many of which, on a daily basis are going to be far more useful than being able to receive that picture message of my parents dog in a pig costume, scary...I know. I’ve gone through all of the information I could find directly from Apple’s website (these aren’t rumors) and pooled together some of the new features that have slipped through the cracks.

iDisk
MobileMe got some major revision with the “Locate My Phone” feature and the “Remote whipe” but there is also a free application coming out called iDisk. Yup, you will now be able to remotely view you iDisk content straight from your phone, sorry MobileDisk and Air Sharing Pro. An added bonus is that through this app you can send a direct link to any file on your iDisk via e-mail so that anyone you like can view it, this is especially useful for content that is just too large to be sent through an e-mail itself.

Contact Syncing
More good news for MobileMe and Exchange users are the new advances in over the air contact and calendar syncing. Right now turning on syncing from a cloud to a phone will erase all information currently on the phone and replace it with the new info. With 3.0 though users will get the choice between erasing, merging all data, or creating separate profiles.

Apple also states that on top of MoibleMe and Exchange the phone will be able to sync contacts and calendars from Yahoo!, Google, iCal, and Microsoft Outlook. At this point it’s unclear if these are going to be new over the air features or more likely ones that need to be synced through iTunes. We do know though that you’ll be able to add subscription based calendars directly from the phone over the air, this is great for some one like me who needs an alert every time the Cubs are going to play a game or Special Holidays are coming up.

OneConnect is an attempt by Yahoo! to unify all of the social networks you use into one application. They have released this pretty interesting looking application to the iTunes App Store now. Downloading now...

Features:
* Get a full-featured phone book that can integrate contacts from your Yahoo! Address Book, iPhone, and your social networks (including: Bebo, Dopplr, Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, hi5, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube).
* Connect with your friends via Yahoo! Messenger or SMS. Have fun with emoticons, avatars, and photos.
* See what's happening on your favorite social networks with an at-a-glance view of status updates, photo uploads, and more.
* Find your favorite people quickly and call, message, or send an e-mail—with one tap.

[ Read More @ Yahoo! ]