A wealth of applications on iOS – Part Two
In part one of the post you can find out about the Note taking strategies I have for creating and grabbing text on iOS
Saved notes – Not written
These sorts of notes are the notes where are you select some text on a webpage or in another application. It could also be a selection which is rich text including a picture or pictures. This type of note will go into Evernote. Then I will know that if I’m looking for something that I have selected and captured from wherever, I need to open up the Evernote application.
Capturing a complete webpage
On iOS it is possible to capture a complete web page and I will send that webpage to Pocket. Then what I have to do is to make a point of opening up the Pocket application on my Mac at some point in time during the week and review those captured websites. Sometimes I do forget and only go to look at Pocket after a week or two, but that’s okay.
Other interesting notetaking applications
I have the application called ThinkBook and I would love to use it because it has such an interesting interface. I like to keep it there because of the fact that it would be great for juggling around parts of text to organise it. Truth is, I use it hardly at all. It is just nice to know that it is there if I need it. The same goes for the application Daedalus. I have a pair of applications called Terminology and Phraseology. Terminology is a dictionary type of application which works well with Drafts. Phraseology is a writer’s application which also has this thing where you can reorganise your work by paragraph or by sentence. It could be used in a similar sort of way to an outliner application. It also allows you to analyse your writing by colouring in nouns in blue, verbs in green, adjectives in red and so on. It also has detailed analysis of your writing that you can use on the inspection page. It gives you various scores on the writing as to how readable it is. You also get statistics which go right down to the average words per sentence and even average syllables per word. For that sort of analysis of writing I prefer to use the application Hemingway on my Mac. Have a look at Good and Geeky Books
IOS Camera Applications
On both the iPad and also on my iPhone I have put a number of camera applications. There are just so many of them to choose from. I have the Sony application which allows me to control my Sony camera over a Wi-Fi connection. There is the Photosphere application which I quite like to use from time to time. Then we have the applications which do specific types of photography such as HDR, Slow Shutter, Pencil camera and Hyperlapse. What I really need to do with these is to decide on a particular day to go on a photo trip and just use one or maybe two different camera apps during the day to really get into what they can do.
An application that I downloaded most recently is called VSCOcam and this is quite interesting. It is a sharing application in the same way as you have an application that works specifically with Instagram. What you do with this application is to create photo stories and you can then share your pictures out to the various social networks. Intriguing looking application and I’m still working out how to use it.
Camera Plus
Camera plus is another useful application that you can use for both photos and for shooting video. It has a handy little slider at the bottom of the screen that you can use for choosing where you want the focus to be. You can also choose to have the camera autofocus for you. There is another button which you can get at, which will let you choose from macro, normal or far. Then there is the slider on the left-hand side which is your zoom and another slider to the right of the button to start the video or to take a picture which is for setting the level of the light. There is also a mode which is to stabilise your photos. If you do a tap and hold then you can lock in the part of the photo where you want to set the focus.
Another interesting facility with this application is that you can use AirSnap. You launch the Camera Plus application on two devices connected with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. I just tried this for the first time using the iPad as the camera and my iPhone 6 as the trigger. It was really easy to set up and I seem to have most of the same facilities for controlling the camera. I can get it to shoot video as well is take photos with AirSnap. I have access to the zoom, I can choose the amount of light for the image, turn the flash on or off. I can even choose whether I want to use the front or the rear camera.
Creative Audio Applications
I am delighted to be back using iOS for recording audio as it works so much better than it did when I tried recording audio with Android. An application that I recently got for the iPad is called Auria and this is a multitrack audio recording application. I had heard good reports about this application and I got it because it was available at half price and I wanted to see if it was going to work out better than using DAW Multi-Track. Either of these two applications would be very good for making podcasts and you have extra tracks to use to insert bumpers, stingers and jingles creatively. There is of course GarageBand but I find that is better suited for creating music that is for making podcasts.
If I am going to record audio with iOS and it is a single track then the application I will use is TwistedWave. This application has a good number of tools and gives a very good audio reproduction of my voice when I connect up my Giant Squid clip on microphone. At some point in time I wouldn’t mind trying out a microphone which connects through the lightning port, but for the moment this is working great. I also have the iRig microphone which is a large microphone that you have to handhold. It does have a connection that allows you to plug in some headphones so that you can monitor what you are recording. I have just ordered a splitter cable that will allow me to do similar with the Giant Squid microphone.
Making a podcast with BossJock
This application works like a soundboard. You tap on one of the carts into which you have already loaded sounds and that sound will play. So you can load it up with your sound effects for your podcast and also any other pre-recorded sections. You could have an intro section for your podcast that you play straight through and then when it is finished you could just start talking to your audience by pressing on the microphone button. You can also use sound bed audio tracks to give you a background audio that will duck out of the way each time you press the microphone button. Using BossJock you can create and record a podcast performance. Have a look at the two videos that I created showing you how to create audio as backing tracks and also how to use BossJock to create an intro track for your podcast.
Utility audio applications
I just got an application called AudioCopy for moving around selections of audio from one app to another. I also have the application Audiobus and this is for routing audio from one application through another and finally to land in another app for recording. This would be an application to use if you needed to create audio with sound effects and you wanted to hear those sound effects as you recorded them. You can also send from more than one app through Audiobus towards the recording app it is directed at. Interesting app, but I haven’t been able to make a lot of use out of it yet.
Audio applications for listening
I have Stitcher which I don’t use an awful lot because I tend to use the application Overcast for listing to podcasts. I also have SoundCloud and AudioBoom that I can use for both creating or publishing sounds as well is listening to what other people have created.
Applications to Entertain and Inform
I have an application called iFooty which I use for getting the football scores. I have set up some favourites so that I can go quickly in to see what is happening with the Premier League Football, Championship League and the Spanish La Liga. This way I can see what’s going on with my favourite football team Barcelona and my non-favourite football team Birmingham City.
I have two applications which are good for looking at the universe and our solar system. One is called Solar Walk and the other is Star Walk 2. Lots of interesting information about what is happening up in the sky at night. Finally, due to this app I might be able to name one or two of the constellations. Not only does it offer information about the stars, but you can get upgrades so that you can see what is happening with comets and satellites. It is not too pricey at only €1.79 to get the all in one bundle. Very educational indeed.
Just got my hands on another application called Text Grabber. What you do with this is to point it at some text, capture it with your camera and then do things with that text. You can edit it, have it translated or just paste it into other applications such as into a Facebook status or send it into Evernote. I just tested it and it did a half good job with some Catalan to English translation. It was very quick to do the translation and if you didn’t know any of the language, then what you got would be helpful. I will have to give it a few more tries and see how it is with Spanish translation.
I have a couple applications which are used for getting into sites that you can learn things from, such as TED Talks and Udemy. It could also be argued that applications such as YouTube fall in the same scope as education. See the Wizardgold Channel for Mac Tutorial videos. That really depends upon the type of videos that you watch. Other applications of this type could include apps such as the Guardian newspaper and also the BBC. Most of the news seems to be bad news designed to keep you depressed and unhappy. So maybe it is a better idea not to spend too much time keeping up with the bad things happening around the world. I also have a couple of mathematics applications which are quite interesting, especially Mathemagics and also Algebra Touch.
IOS applications for Life Casting
I have applications which I am trying out for life logging such as Memento, Heyday, Chronos and Saga. What these applications do is to track your movements and you can then go back into them and add more information. To a large extent, I prefer to use the application DayOne which is a journalling application. It gives me prompts to add journal posts and I keep up to date. Without bugging me too much it gives me the impetus to create new posts about what I am doing. I can add photographs and give it information such as where I am. I can choose whether I want to show my location at the time of making the journal post. Depending upon the sort of life logging you want to do and how public you want to make them, some of these applications do look quite interesting. I will be going into depth about all of these applications in the book I am writing about life logging.
