iPhone/iTouch Apps

You can of course access Pentax User and ePHOTOzine on your iPhone, which is something useful at least.

John - there's a big difference between accessing by using a Web Browser on the iPhone or Touch and installing the App itself on your iPhone or Touch

The Nikon one which I have can be used when NOT connected to the Internet - this makes it particularly useful .

I've not looked at the Olympus one yet - too busy packing for my trip to France on Friday and checking I have the things needed for my cameras - spare batteries , chargers - you know all the mundane stuff without which it won't work.

Please......leave me out of this discussion.

Perhaps this app might interest some of the "old school" types who miss using a dark room: link

Cheers,

/Ian

That's Brilliant

The possibilities of an App are endless, and those that are trying to argue with the 'what's the point line' just really need to take their blinkers off!!!

Just reading through this I've thought of the following, and am sure others can add to it. Lets not forget that there are nearly 100 million ipod touches and iphones out there!! :-

1. Complete camera manual in your phone, with comprehensive search, glossary etc.

2. Pentax branded app with news updates, shooting techniques, ideas, lens reviews etc.

3. Lens chooser - point your phone camera at say a landscape with 50mm, 100mm, 200mm, 300mm etc buttons along the bottom as a quick guide to keep lens swapping down to a minimum.

4. Location aware apps - sunrise, sunset, maps (including road, satellite, topography & street view), tides, astronomy, Ephemeris and anything else you can think of.

5. PPG - yes seriously PPG, a location aware PPG app, if everyone loaded GPS co-ordinates on their PPG photos the possibilities are fantastic. Imagine when we get to the north west of Scotland in a few weeks, looking for locations, get out phone and click on 'photos taken near me' then find out where it was taken, what direction the sun was facing in at that particular time of the day it was taken etc. etc.

6. Depth of Field calculators

7. Remote control App - this, if all currently available technology was used to its full capability would be a massive App. Full control of the camera, with live view on the phone screen. This truly could have unlimited possibilities!!

8. GPS Logger - with well implemented multi tasking coming to the iPhone, GPS Logging and Places in Aperture 3, this has me quite excited actually!

Im thinking of more as I type, and really, if you can't think of anything, just think, right now you are on the internet, what could you find now that could help your photography? Would you like that in your pocket? Throw in GPS, location awareness, direction awareness, point your camera at a landmark and ask, what is this, etc. etc?

Most of these ideas are available on the App Store now, some are even free, and with now over 185,000 apps on there, I'm sure there are far more ideas already available.

A Pentax app would be a great way for the company to communicate with their community, now that more and more people are moving towards mobile devices for browsing, consuming media etc. It would also make the company more interesting, and more 'current' by using new technology to provide awareness etc.

Just thought of another one, must put MattMatic's flash guide on my phone, fancy writing us an App?

Oh and another one, Ask Hefty. You're at a boot sale, there's an M42 lens you haven't seen before, you take a photo and send it via the Ask Hefty App. The intelligent app has direct access not only to Hefty's copius internal database, but is also cross referenced with Womble's Price Index. I'm sure most on here would buy that one!

Can you connect the iPhone to the K7?

Who needs an iPhone? According to recent consumer tests in Norway, iPhone scored quite low on music quality, can't even drive decent headphones.

Who needs a Pentax, according to recent consumer tests, Pentax scored quite low on new lens choice, can't even get a 300m F2.8!

I'm sorry, I just don't get comments like this, with nearly 100 million units sold (both iPhone & iPod touch), consumers are voting with their wallets, and after reading this comment a quick google took me to an audiophile forum where everyone was discussing their surprise at how good it was.

At high volume in my car, the iPhone sounds very good to me, and it is fully integrated into my car. With iPod / iPhone connectors and ways of controlling them from your steering wheel readily available from most car manufacturers, the iPhone does seem to me to be the only music capable phone that has become an industry standard! Not sure that Mercedes or BMW etc. would offer that level of integration if the sound quality was poor.

With an integrated iPod touch, cover flow, iTunes (the largest music store in the world!), 1000's of radio stations, Shazam, industry standard car integration, industry standard docking solutions for hifi kit, industry standard alarm docks / speaker docks / portable stereo docks etc. winning the JD Power Highest Customer Satisfaction Wireless Smartphone award for the last 3 years running and my own personal experience, if you want music on a phone, I would argue that there is no better choice, but hey some consumers think it's poor, so....

Who needs an iPhone? Well over 50 million people so far as it goes.

Danny if there is bleutooth in the car then most of the time you can connect any phone you want but you're right many cars come with a special connector now for Apple products.

I hope you do agree with me though that the most popular devices aren't often the best

btw since when is anything Apple do standard

Well, I resisted Apple stuff for a long, long time.
Last year I got an iMac for work - unbelievable! It just works!!
Tried an iPod Classic - brilliantly simple interface and extremely usable for music.
Then invested in an iPod Touch. Stunning is all I can say!
(Admittedly iTunes 'issues' on Windows has been a pain... but I just shifted everything to Mac )

I'm definitely up for Apple stuff Wish I'd migrated ages ago

Developments - yeah, I could do it.... if I had the time There's a cost of $99 per year for Apple SDK and iTunes App Store support (maybe more depending on the development environment - but that's a little in the air with OS 4 and the new EULA :roll.


Alas, I don't think there's any way of controlling the Pentax dSLRs If they had BlueTooth then maybe (though Apple has restricted the kind of BT devices that can be attached by limiting the SDK API). It'd be a neat feature, but I can't see any way of technically accomplishing it.

Other database stuff would be useful. In fact, a combined Pentax app with DoF, Hyperfocal, Sunrise/set, user manuals would be cute (though all these things are available through other free apps). For example, I can have the K7 user manual, plus any other PDFs (including my Flash Guide if I needed it ) with "GoodReader Lite"

But there's no harm in bundling it all into a Pentax-only product. Hoya/Pentax only need to pay an external developer to do the job - wouldn't be much more expensive that traditional marketing campaigns!

Matt

For phone calls yes bluetooth is good, and music is doable but not the best experience because of power draw and control. A hard wired kit where you can have full control over the device whilst charging it is the obvious way to go, think 6 disc cd changer in the boot, but replace it with say 500 albums in your glovebox / pocket, with full integrated control from the steering wheel.

We once pulled over to eat over fish & chips and thought 'I'm missing the football!' Put the phone on the dashboard, loaded Sky Sports 1 to watch the game (there's an app for that!) and streamed the commentary over the stereo in the car! You can also stream radio over the phone using services like Pandora, Spotify etc. whilst playing it through the car stereo

Yup, definately, VHS & Windows instantly come to mind!

The example I've just given is a good one for people who have a car, there's a few of them about.

Another example you could argue is this thread. There is a reason why it's called iPhone / ipod touch apps and not Nokia apps, or Sony Ericsson apps, or Samsung apps or....

Now, back to topic, where's my 'ask Hefty' app? What else would you like to see in an app? What would you like from a Pentax app in your pocket 24/7?