DreamStream [App Store] is a new piece of software for the iPhone and iPod touch that gives you a personalized wireless portable picture frame. It can access photos you have on your phone, or with internet connectivity provide you with links to MobileMe galleries, Facebook, Flickr tags and RSS image feeds. I tried attaching to my MobileMe account and Flickr images and it worked just fine.

You also get widgets that display the time, weather in cities you select and the date. Happily, the app runs in either portrait or landscape mode.

I thought the documentation was a bit thin, and adding images from your camera roll on the iPhone is a bit time consuming as there is no way to select multiple photos -- you have to add them one at a time.

I'd love to see a method to add scrolling news feeds from selected sources, and perhaps an option to add music from your on-board collection. Remember that iPod touch users will only have Wi-Fi as an option for connectivity.

As it is, DreamStream is a nice, well performing app, and certainly worth the $1.99US asking price. I like the ability to see the photo streams from friends around the country, and now when my iPhone is idling and charging on my desk it has something to do.

Here are some screen shots of Dreamstream in action:

A while back I discovered Flickery, a new desktop client for Flickr. We've covered a few different clients in the past, including FlickrFinder and Photonic, as well as Flickr's own Flickr Uploadr. Aside from Uploadr, we haven't seen many updates lately, which is why Flickery is a breath of fresh air.

Flickery provides a good-looking interface for navigating your photos, photosets, contact's photos and photos from your groups, as well as an easy-to-use uploader. I love the saved search folders it can create, and the Download button at the top is a feature I've missed in some of the other clients I've looked at. Being able to quickly grab the highest-res version of a photo is a real boon in many cases.

There are a couple of tweaks I'd like to see in future versions. Author Matthias Gansrigler at Eternal Storms is very responsive, so I anticipate that user feedback will heavily shape future releases.

One thing that gets me is that the only way to view the full-size version of a photo is to open it in full-screen mode. I'd rather have the full size image downloaded when I double click a thumbnail, and then be able to resize and zoom as desired. I know it's a longer wait time for the download, but I don't have a lot of use for the medium size image and end up waiting twice, so it evens out. I'd also like to see the pagination of the photosets evolve to be more easily navigable, allowing me to skip to page 120 without hitting next 120 times.

The search and filter functions are excellent, and the additional features such as emailing, posting to groups, adding to iPhoto and organizing sets and favorites make Flickery one of the best desktop Flickr experiences I've found. Flickery is currently available for $12.70US and is available for a free, 15-day test drive. The price is an introductory special; it will eventually go up to $19.20US. If you're using Flickr regularly, it's definitely worth a look.

We're at a new juncture in the course of iPhone development, I believe. Twitter has basically monopolized the "text exporting" function of your iPhone -- if you want to broadcast text from a mobile device, most of us do it through Twitter. But now, we're seeing a whole host of sites and services aiming to be the distributors for your richer media: photos, audio, even video (as well as the iPhone can handle it, anyway).

Radar is one such service, and they'd really like to handle any photos you want to send out into the world. But unlike a site such as Twitpic, they're not content with being just the repository. They want to host, share, and deliver. Whenever you want to mess around with pictures on your iPhone, whether that be taking them and sharing them, browsing your friends' pictures from Flickr, or looking at funny shots from CollegeHumor, Radar wants to be there.

They gave TUAW an early look at their new software, just released to the App Store, and we were duly impressed -- they've got hooks into a surprising number of places, and it's clear they've worked hard to make themselves fit somewhere into your photosharing flow. But is it worth it to have yet another site acting as a go-between for you and your photo content? Read on to find out.

As noted by Robert yesterday, the first boxed copies of iLife '09 reached users today. The two iLife '09 apps that have changed the most are garnering the lion's share of excitement this week. iMovie and iPhoto have some rather dramatic improvements, and I'll detail the iPhoto changes here.

Before you install, please note that the iLife '09 setup will nuke your older iLife apps. You'll need your original install disc to revert. I ran a Spotlight search and those old iLife apps are nowhere to be found. If you think you might want to roll back, be sure to back up your apps and your iPhoto library beforehand.

When you start up iPhoto for the first time it updates your libraries and starts an immediate search for faces in your photos. That search goes on in the background, so you can do other things with iPhoto at the same time.

Here's a rundown on the new features:

The most technically advanced feature is Faces. iPhoto now does some face recognition to help you automatically find people in your bushel of images. You start by identifying a face, and you enter the person's name. iPhoto will then suggest matches in your library, and you can confirm them with a click. iPhoto generates a cork board where you can see one example of each face you have identified. Double-click on that face and it displays all the other faces that match.

The technology is not perfect. It didn't get all the matches right, but when it was wrong I'd have to admit the person it found had a similar face. To try and trick it, I showed it a picture of a parrot. Although there were many similar shots of the same parrot, iPhoto utterly failed to match any of them. I think Faces wants human faces (although there are examples of penguins being recognized, and Mac|Life has tested it out successfully on feline faces).

Check out the gallery for some close ups of iPhoto features and controls, and read on for more notes on the updated features.

It's a miracle! You're an Apple fanboy, you're in Morocco, and you look up in the otherwise blue skies and see the wispy shape of an Apple logo appear for a moment before dissipating. And you're lucky enough to get a picture of it:


Could it be that Planet Earth is sending Steve Jobs a get-well card? Or is it just a random occurrence?

Photographer Piero Formica's original Flickr picture can be found here.

Thanks to TUAW reader Michael for the tip! [Via iPhone Savior]

We'll have more coverage and reactions tomorrow to Apple's announcement this afternoon of Steve Jobs' leave of absence while he tends to his health. While we may have different takes on what the news means for Apple's immediate and long-term prospects, I believe we can all join in wishing Steve a full and speedy recuperation. I'm sure we also all send Tim Cook our hopes for Apple's continued success.

To that end, TUAW wants to give you a voice as part of our audio get-well card to Steve. You can call in your message to our voicemail hotline at (917) 512-7398 x41469, or record it yourself and upload the MP3 or AAC file to our dropbox at http://tr.im/getwell -- we'll edit the messages together for next week's podcast. Be sure to identify yourself on the call.

If you want to do a photo or illustrated card, you can upload it to the same dropbox, or simply tag it with 'tuaw' on Flickr to add it to our pool, and we'll highlight the best in a gallery later this week.

If you're blogging your thoughts on today's announcement and Steve's health as it relates to Apple, feel free to leave a link in the comments.

... a very merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, happy Kwanzaa, and happy New Year! (And a happy Festivus. Sorry! The airing of the grievances may now commence.)

[via MacBytes]

Way back in September, our friends (including former TUAW blogger Nik Fletcher) at Realmac Software started trickling out details about their newest Mac app: LittleSnapper. Now after a thorough beta process and lots of hard work, the application is finally available! I have been using the application since its first alpha and I have to say, it is a strong contender for my favorite Mac utility of the year.

LittleSnapper was developed to solve the problem of organizing, sharing and notating screenshots -- especially screenshots from web pages. LittleSnapper does this, and more, effectively and beautifully.

I'll be posting a more in-depth review soon, but here are some of my favorite features:

• Take snaps from any browser, without installing a plugin. Regardless of the browser you use, you can take a snap by invoking the LittleSnapper keyboard shortcut or clicking on the LS menubar icon.
• Save and view the web archive of the site you snap. You can view full web archives within LittleSnapper and access the code (using your choice of editor). This is really useful for development work.
• Use DOM selectors to snap specific portions of a web page. Within LittleSnapper's built-in browser, you can use the DOM selector (think Web Selector for Safari) to capture a specific element. I love this feature.
• Edit images non-destructively within the program. You can add blur, highlight specific parts of the screen, add text and callout arrows within LittleSnapper and export the image with annotations on or off. The blur feature especially is sure to save me lots of unnecessary Photoshop time.
• Open a snap directly in Photoshop.
• Share snaps via the web using either QuickSnapper, Flickr or your own FTP or web server.
• Organize snaps into collections and set rules to automatically file snaps in place based on content or tags.
• Import your existing screenshots into your LittleSnapper library

Realmac's page has more detail and case studies (full disclosure: I'm one of the users they profiled). If you take a lot of screenshots, especially of web pages, I really encourage you to give the app a try. The unregistered version lets you take up to 30 snaps to try out all the features.

LittleSnapper 1.0 requires OS X 10.5 Leopard and is $39.99 US for a single license (5-user Studio licenses are available for $129 US). All LittleSnapper licenses include full access to the QuickSnapper service.

Thanks, Alex!

The folks at Flickr have released some good news today. Specifically, their mobile site at m.flickr.com has been improved to include, among other things, video support for the iPhone and iPod touch.

It seems to work by playing a Quicktime version of your clips, thus getting around the whole lack of flash support. The folks at Flickr note that the iPod touch and iPhone are the only mobile devices that can play the movies for now, but others will be added soon.

Other improvements to m.flickr.com include the option to comment on photos and add them to your collection of favorites. I found the site to be very fast indeed over WiFi and no slouch over EDGE, either. Those of you with later model iPhones (and iPod touches) will have to tell me how your experiences have been.

Thank you to Flickr and the Yahoo! Video Platform group. Now if only some others would follow suit (we're looking at you, Hulu).

[Via Daring Fireball]

Some forms of Apple fandom are quick and simple -- the button, the tote bag, the temporary tattoo (not to be confused with the more permanent variety). Some forms, however, require commitment and patience. I don't speak the predominant language over at useloos.com, but I can guess that the translated caption for this photo gallery might be "How do you like them apples?"

Update: Per Cult of Mac, It looks like the source for the tattooed apples is this Japanese site -- translations welcome.

Yes, one very patient apple tree owner applied icon stencils for the Apple & iPod logos to a treeful of apples, and then let the sunshine do the work. The results can be seen to the right and at the gallery -- a bushelful of neatly logofied fruit, ripe for the munching. Talk about living your brand.

Thanks Tim!

Do you like keeping up with friends on social networks? Do you have an iPhone? If so, you might be interested in a new social networking application for the iPhone called Ziibii. Ziibii [iTunes link] brings an innovative approach to viewing your social networking sites and RSS feeds -- without ever leaving this one app. Ziibii allows you to see friend updates, videos, and photos from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube.

Ziibii's killer feature is its "River" feature, which depicts friend updates, photos, videos, and RSS feed headlines "floating" down a river on tiny rafts. You can interact with the river and rafts with gestures. Moving too fast? Move your finger left or right on the screen. You can even make the river flow in the opposite direction by swiping your finger against flow.

Rafts too close together? Pick it up and move it. If you tap on a raft, you will be presented with a full screen view of the update and get the option to share that update via email or Twitter. If you get sea sick with River view, you can also give list view a try, which stacks updates on top of each other; swiping right to left loads more updates.

Ziibii comes pre-loaded with some good blogs (TUAW is listed under the "iPhone Stuff" section), and you can also add your own RSS feeds via the "My Feeds" setting.

Ziibii has a very nice user interface, and allows you to quickly see all of your friend updates in a unique fashion. However, we would like to see an option to post updates and photos to Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. We would also like to see support for Pownce and Digg, among others. With the price of free, Ziibii is a must-have application for anyone that uses social networks. You can download Ziibii from the iTunes App Store.

For your evening amusement (and nothing more), Flickr user elbewerk has found a creative way to try and convince people that, no, he's not actually using a PC.

Persuasive? Perhaps not. But at least it's marginally more honest about being a PC compared to, say, an MSI Wind.

[Via Digg.]

Gizmodo found these pictures of a customized MSI Wind laptop that comes complete with glossy finishes, Apple logos and Mac OS X. The laptops feature the name "MacBook Nano."

The laptops have 10-inch screens, 2GB of RAM, 320GB hard disks, a flash media reader, and the specifications feature Windows XP Professional and Mac OS X 10.5.5.

Gizmodo notes that they can't tell if the laptops are a custom hack, or are being illegally sold. Descriptions on the images appear to be in Chinese, so if you can let us know what they say, be so kind as to leave us a comment!