Staff Writer - page 20

This post is brought to you by Wondershare Software, creator of PowerCam.

There are so many times when I wanted to zoom my iPhone camera on some distant object, play with the focus, take full panoramic shots, and most of all, snap myself from a greater distance than my arm’s length! But I couldn’t. The iPhone camera, despite all the tech loaded into the rest of the device, is little more advanced than a pinhole camera made from an Oxo box. But now, PowerCam is a new app that allows you to turn your humble iPhone camera into a much more versatile device….

This post is brought to you by SquidMelon, creator of Stretch.

Most of us who work on a computer sit still for up to eight hours a day AND spend half our evenings on the Mac at home. That’s a lot of sitting around doing nothing physical. Stretch by Korean creative developer SquidMelon is a new app that knows when to remind you to take a break and shows you what stretches you should do. Watch the video here….

This post is brought to you by INTERDOM, creator of Mylifepaper.

We are constantly reading and watching news reports about other people in the newspapers and on TV. Well that may be interesting, but unless you happen to be a celebrity, politician, newscaster (or bankrobber), there is one person usually missing on the daily news: You. Mylifepaper is a new iPhone / iPad / iPod touch app devoted on every page to reporting news about you. Here is the news….

Do you enjoy problem-solving games on iOS whereby the only thing you think you understand as you get started playing is that tapping objects on your touchscreen does something? Splatz is one of those games. Despite its deceptively simple graphics and fairground music soundtrack, Splatz is really absorbing and taxes your memory. Patterns start to emerge….

Crafting great looking, professional documents in iWork or Office can be really tricky, even if you spend a ton of time on the computer. To make things easier, the guys Made for Use created some incredible professional templates for both Office and iWork that make it easier for users to look like a Pages-guru.

We’ve grabbed about Made for Use’s iOS Templates app in the past, but now the team is bringing all the greatness to the Mac with Templates for iWork Pro, and Templates for Office Pro. Both packs offer over hundred of templates for their respective suite of apps. And if you specialize in only one app, you can pick up the Templates Pro Pack for PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Keynote, Numbers and Pages individually.

Templates for iWork and Office Pro are two of the easiest ways to make high quality, professional looking documents, without having to take some college course on Office apps.

To celebrate the launch of Templates for iWork Pro and Templates for Office Pro, Made for Use  is giving away 40 FREE CODES to some lucky Cult of Mac readers. Entering the contest only takes a second, but you gotta play to win.

Here’s How To Enter:

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This post is brought to you by Clickberry, creator of Tagger.

“Every video has something worth tagging” is the motto of iOS video software developer Clickberry. And their new free ($0.00) app Tagger does just that. You play your video, tap objects to add tags, then simply upload to Facebook or e-mail to your loved ones.

Watch the demonstration video here….

This post is brought to you by Detox My Mac.

Prudent Mac users often “clean” their machines to keep them running in tip-top shape. Those in the know repair permissions with Disk Utility, empty caches, delete unused applications and transfer large media files onto external drives on a regular basis so as to clear up space and optimize running speeds. But while all these actions are sensible routine maintenance, they probably won’t make much difference to a heavily used machine running loads of applications whose performance becomes noticeably compromised. Such systems don’t need just a clean but a detox. Detox My Mac selects, scans and deep-cleans your Mac’s system for a thorough detox.

Detox My Mac does not simply offer what the regular OS X disk utilities do but much, much more.

This post is brought to you by Bee Square, creator of Run Sheldon.

Once upon a time, the Tortoise famously beat the Hare in a running race. Now you can help him do it again — against an entire gang of hares.

Run Sheldon is a free ($0.00) running / action game for iPad / iPod touch / iPhone optimized for iPhone 5. You are Sheldon, the legendary Tortoise who beat the Hare to collect the Golden Race Trophy. Now, Old Man Hare wants that trophy back. And being lapine, he has bred a large gang of hares to get it for him. In order to survive, Sheldon has to keep running to escape the evil Hare gang….

You can get so accustomed to swiping to unlock your iPhone and iPad, that by comparison, clicking to awaken your dozing MacBook seems so… unceremonious. Now SquidMelon brings password-protected “Swipe to Unlock” to the Mac with a new app, Lock Screen Plus.

This post is brought to you by Inervit, creator of Dr. Smith’s Music Factory.

What mood are you in? Do you feel like capturing your mood or situation in a song? Dr. Smith’s Music Factory allows you to record your moods forever in musical pieces which you can share with people everywhere. Whether you feel like Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands or Shiny Happy People, Dr. Smith shares your moody blues or good vibrations All Round The World!

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Rising from the ashes of XO Wave, a digital audio workstation for editing music WAV files, comes Xonami, a real-time Internet-based audio editing tool that allows two or more people to work on a music file from different locations while keeping their changes up to date.

As one person makes changes, they are rolled into the work of others. As changes come in, you see them updated on the screen. The connection between the users is secured and files are stored in the cloud. Producers or mixers can either work on existing sound files or they can capture a live recording and work on it in real time, and no one has to be in the same room.

Xonami is still in beta test but users can sign up with a mailing list to keep up to date.

By Andy Patrizio

Rhythmic parts of songs are often programmed, but this takes it to a whole other level. WaveDNA’s Liquid Loops lets you program your beats and rhythms at what has to be the most insane fine grain detail ever seen.

Liquid Loops is an intelligent synthesizer and drum machine that let you build beats as a group, such as four or eight bars at a time. The beats are built with every possible combination of notes and rests possible in a measure, such as the 64 possible configurations of eighth notes in a single 4/4 measure. You choose from a wheel that shows the beats and rests so you can customize the beats any way you want them.

It sorta takes the life out of a drum beat, killing the groove a human provides, but that’s been the knock on drum machines from the get go. A free trial version of the Mac OS X product is available now.

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Jammit has been here at the NAMM show before, showing off its educational app to teach people how to play the guitar, bass, drum and vocal tracks of popular songs.

What’s new this year is the company has teamed with Line 6, makers of effect-laden amplifiers, to give iOS devices a genuine guitar sound. So if you are playing along to Nirvana or Sublime or Rush, the Line 6 connector will make you sound like those songs, and you don’t have to worry about fiddling with your guitar to get Kurt Cobain or Alex Lifeson’s unique tone.

Jammit lets you play along to your favorite songs, removing the instrument you are playing so you don’t have to play over it. You can isolate the parts, loop them to learn them, and even record yourself playing with the band. The app is free on the App Store, but songs, licensed from the artists, cost $2.99 and up. The Jammit song store has more than 1,200 titles.

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. – IK Multimedia has a number of Apple devices for musicians and is expanding some of them to other iOS devices. One example is iRig HD for iPad, a high definition audio recorder that makes quality recordings of vocals or acoustic audio.

iRig HD does a 24-bit A/D conversion for a signal free of background noise or crosstalk. An onboard gain control allows you to find the idea distance for the microphone to get the cleanest recording at the best audio levels.

iRig is already available for iPhone, iPod Touch and Mac. Pricing for the HD model is not available yet.

By Andy Patrizio

Every creative person knows that inspiration can come at inopportune moments. So what if you don’t have an instrument or sheet music handy when a great song pops into your head?

NoteFlight is a service that will give you access to sheet music any time and on any device. Company reps say they aim to be “the Google Docs of sheet music” in that regard.

By Andy Patrizio

At some point or another you’ve probably seen a musician take their hands off their instrument and quickly flip a page during a live performance. Woe to them if they knock a page down off the stand.

The AirTurn BT-105 eliminates that problem by incorporating four programmable pedals that work with any iPad-based sheet music application to scroll the sheet music down so you never have to take your hands off your horn, axe or violin.

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Agile Partners has a number of Mac and iPad apps but not all of them were on all platforms. Here at the NAMM show, it closed that hole a little with the introduction of AmpKit for the Mac.

AmpKit was an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app that let you connect your guitar through an adapter and it would give the effects and sound quality of various guitar pedals and amplifiers. This allows a guitarist to experiment with different sound pedals and types of amps, since they all have different tones, to find the combination they want.

AmpKit uses two-stage amp modeling, convolution-based cabs and positional mics for the most realistic tone possible on both clean and high-gain settings. It runs in the background so you can play along to other apps, whether it’s a sheet music app or iTunes.

AmpKit is a free download, which comes with the basic configuration of amps and pedals. If you want to increase the library, it will cost you.

By Andy Patrizio

One of the first industries to adopt the iPad was the airline industry, because pilots were able to trade their 50 pounds of flight manuals for one iPad that held everything and was rapidly searchable. Musicians are following on that notion, trading in paper sheet music for a 9.7” iPad screen.

Chromatik introduced its eponymous iPad sheet music app that doesn’t just display music, it lets you highlight it, annotate it, make changes and record your own changes. Everything is stored in the cloud, so it can sync with a number of other devices.

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Guitarists have long had the option of a wallet-sized amp with a headphone plug, so they can plug in their guitar and no one else hears them play. But what if you are stuck on a six-hour plane ride? You can’t take a nail clipper on the plane these days, let alone a guitar.

Well, if the TSA doesn’t confiscate your iPad, yo uczn use MoForte’s Power Chord, an app that turns your tablet into a guitar. All you need to do is strum the screen. You can strum or pick strings, adjust the effects and even shake your iPad like using a whammy bar to channel your inner Hendrix. You can even do string scraping, where you simulate the effect of running a guitar pick down the string for that descending screech sound.

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. – If it’s late January in Anaheim, that means one thing: the North American Music Merchant’s (NAMM) convention turning the area around Disneyland into an even bigger madhouse. NAMM is for musicians what CES is for consumer electronics junkies; just a lot more hair and tattoos. More than 90,000 people will descend on this modestly-sized convention center best suited to hold about 10,000 max.

NAMM has run continuously since 1901, making it one of the oldest trade shows in the country. For the last 35 years it has come to Anaheim and has clearly outgrown the modest convention center, but NAMM is reluctant to leave.

This post is brought to you by SquidMelon, creator of Live Wallpaper.

Live Wallpaper is the quickest, easiest way to liven up your desktop. With twenty-three official themes and an ever-expanding assortment of custom themes, Live Wallpaper offers an array of high-res images and animations to liven up your Mac screen, or across multiple screens if you use more than one monitor.

This post is brought to you by Gazelle.

Have you recently gotten a new iPhone, iPad or MacBook? Before you get a new one or if you already have it, make sure you sell your used phone or gadget to Gazelle for cash! Don’t bury last year’s gadget in a drawer — find out what it’s worth on Gazelle.com.

Gazelle takes the risk and effort out of selling electronic gadgets online with benefits such as free shipping and packaging and comprehensive identity and data removal. To date, Gazelle has accepted more than one million trade-ins, helping consumers upgrade to the latest technology and earn quick cash.

This post was brought to you by Time Space System, creator of TS Translator.

Don’t find yourself lost for words while in the Far East on business, taking a tour or visiting relatives — just download TS Translator app onto your iPhone or iPad, select a phrase and allow your tablet to do your talking for you. It’s as quick and easy as instant noodles!

Sefirah is an epic story based on a fantasy world with a thousand years of history. Demons have invaded the ancient Yggdrasil empire, and only Aron and Benjamin can form an army of mercenary rebels to defeat the darkness. This role-playing game for iPhone / iPod touch is an engaging portal to a legendary struggle….

The iPhone and iPad are the perpetual accessories of today’s office warrior, yet even so, the pickings are slim for the professional who wants an app suite capable of reading and writing Microsoft Office documents on the go.

Luckily, that’s all changed. Polaris Office is here, and it’s not just Microsoft Office on your iPhone or iPad: it’s better.