iPhone

Photosynth

December 22, 2011 By Gordon

A Photosynth created indoor panorama with no post image pixel manipulation. Click to enlarge.

The rock gym panorama above was created with 12 capture frames

Photosynth is an iPhone photo stitching iOS program developed and introduced to the Apple Apps Store in 2011 by Microsoft. This highly rated (4+ stars) app is free. Most iPhone panorama apps can only stitch horizontally, but Photosynth can stitch horizontally and vertically creating a sphere-like and slightly fish-eyed image perspective after the image-stitching engine is done.

All panorama apps have the photographer capture a series of aligned frames to stitch together to create the final panorama. Photosynth does not require the photographer to visually align each successive frame of the developing panorama like some apps similar to Pano. Also, the user doesn’t have to manually engage the camera’s shutter when the frames may (or may not) be properly overlapped. Photosynth just asks the photographer to slowly move the iPhone around until the app is happy with the next potential frame alignment (indicated with a green rectangular frame), upon which, Photosynth records the frame on its own approval. If the next frame is not aligning properly (indicated with a red rectangular frame) no frame is captured and Photosynth waits for the photographer to move and hopefully improve the camera’s holding position. The shooting process is difficult to explain, but the app interface is very intuitive and simple to understand after only a few panoramas. Hats-off to the app devs who created this unique user interface, the UI (User Interface) is so elegant and simple, that iPhone photographers can quickly understand this panorama shooting process.

Photosynth's capturing modes: green; automatic, yellow; manual user over-ride, and red; can't capture.

The Photosynth app has image sharing features and photo geo-tagging integration with Bing Maps. The only negative that I have encountered is the low image resolution compared to what the 8 megapixel iPhone 4s camera can capture.

Photosynth has two viewing modes; plain image and interactive panorama. To view images interactively, you must have a web browser that is running in 32-bit mode and has Microsoft’s Sliverlight plugin, then, you can control the magnification and view direction of the panorama.

Filed Under: iPhone Tagged With: 3D, iPhone, microsoft, panorama, photograph, Photosynth, stitching

iPhone in Mexico

December 8, 2011 By Gordon

Movistar Mexico in 2012 continues to be an excellent value when traveling in Mexico with an iPhone. You will need an older model jailbroken/unlocked iphone (3G, 3GS, 4) or an unlocked iPhone 4S including Verizon’s 4S iPhone. An unlocked Verizon 4S iphone comes with a Verizon SIM card which allows it to work in GSM countries. Most Verizon employees I have talked to are unclear about the iPhone 4S’s GSM capabilities. I think Verizon would prefer you use their included SIM cards internationally, but don’t, the international roaming rates are very expensive; when your Verizon iphone detects that you have arrived in Mexico, you will receive a text message from Verizon with their Mexico roaming rates: Global Data is $5.12/MB, texts are 50 cents each, and voice calls are $1 per minute. Your calls with a Movistar installed SIM are two cents a minute.

Getting a Movistar SIM card is a quick and fairly simple process but you must find a Movistar office that sells their SIM cards. All Movistar stores sell extra minutes but many of the smaller kiosks do not have SIM cards in stock. Movistar Mexico does not sell any GSM phones with the so-called micro SIM cards, though this probably will change, as most carriers are now selling the punch-out SIMs, which allows you to punch-out either the traditional or micro-sized SIM shape at purchase. This means you need to trim the traditional SIM down to the micro size. This takes some care, but not surgical skills. First time you attempt this procedure, under-trim the card initially, and if necessary, shave the card more until it just fits into its SIM slot.

A prepaid Movistar SIM card costs $12 or 170 pesos and your new account will also be credited 100 minutes. Have the Movistar sales agent activate your new SIM card with the agent’s personal phone in the store. If you need to check your Movistar balance dial *12536, you will receive a text message with your current balance. You can use cellular data with a prepaid account on Movistar’s EDGE network which is fine for email downloading, but limit your cellular data roaming. If you use WIFI for most of your heavier data needs, you can easily continue to use your iPhone in Mexico for a reasonable price.

Filed Under: iPhone Tagged With: iPhone, Mexico, Movistar, prepaid, SIM, unlocked, Verizon

Sunrise Switzerland

August 9, 2011 By Gordon

During an August trip to Switzerland, I decided to try the Swiss carrier Sunrise for my communication needs which includes; texting my traveling partner, using Google Maps for bike touring navigation, reading emails, and for my web work. We travelled with two iPhones and one MacBook Air staying exclusively at Swiss or Italian campgrounds. The iPhones are both unlocked with iOS 4.3 and the MacBook Air has Apple’s new Lion OS installed.

Upon arrival in Switzerland, I investigated three of the six possible prepaid carriers: Swisscom, Orange, and Sunrise. I decided to try Sunrise’s voice-text-data prepaid plan. With Sunrise you pay CHF20.00 for each SIM card, we needed two for our two iPhones. Sunrise has regular SIM cards, but if you have a 4G iPhone with a micro SIM slot, their regular SIM cards can easily be reduced to the micro SIM size (no SIM cutting necessary).

Sunrise also gives you a credit of CHF20.00 to start your prepaid account, hence, your Sunrise SIM card is basically free. Sunrise charges CHF7.50 per month for 250MB/month for data use and overages costs 10Rp.(cents) per MB. As a Sunrise promotion, they currently wave the $7.50 for the first month.

So how long did this take to get two iPhones setup and paid for in the Sunrise store? About ten minutes. My Sunrise rep spoke good English, and handed me two SIM cards and told me they would be activated 15 minutes later. By the time I got back to our campground, both iPhones had voice-text-data capability. A pleasant surprise was that the iPhones needed no additional configuration within the iPhones’ Settings app, just plugin the SIM and 15 minutes later, you are up and running.

I have been using Sunrise for 10 days now, and I have only used CHF8.50 of my initial CHF20.00 credit. If you call *121# you can see your prepaid account balance. Sunrise knows where you are in Europe and when I was riding my bike up Nufennon Pass near the Italian border, Sunrise sent me a text message with all the roaming rates if I used my phone in Italy. When you signup with Sunrise, have them set your desired language, so you can understand text messages from Sunrise.

When I needed to work online with my MacBook Air and I didn’t have a wifi connection, I could easily tether my iPhone to my laptop with the USB/30pin Apple cable. Just connect the USB cable from the iPhone to the MacBook (w/Lion OS) and go into the Settings App and turn on Personal Hotspot. Again, no additional Sunrise configuration necessary, this gives your laptop a 3G internet connection almost anywhere in Switzerland. In some locations, the Sunrise 3G wireless connection was more reliable than the available wifi network. With 2 bars of 3G cellular signal strength, I get about 1.5Mbps of download speed and .2Mbps of upload speed.