Photo Mechanic "App" for new iPad

[platti]

Hi,

Why PM on an iPad? The iPad is no working place, so leave PM where it belongs to: on a PC, a Mac or a Notebook.

[Paul Smith]

Hi,

Why PM on an iPad? The iPad is no working place, so leave PM where it belongs to: on a PC, a Mac or a Notebook.

Nobody is suggesting that an iPad version of PM would replace the necessity of using PM on a desktop/laptop computer. However, there are situations where a well-designed iPad version of PM could be extremely useful. For example, for a sports photographer sitting behind a goal line in the pouring rain, you can have an iPad sealed in a watertight Ziploc bag and have full control of the iPad through the bag. Try doing that with a laptop or notebook computer!

- Paul

[mbbphoto]

Once the catalog app is out perhaps an iPad version could be considered.
If only a stripped down ingest and caption of PM and a method of searching and reviewing the new catalog archives (thumbnails).
I do sympathize with Camerabits, having to work with 2 platforms is bad enough...
Having said that, the iPad does look like a game-changer
Marc

[Hayo Baan]

Once the catalog app is out perhaps an iPad version could be considered.

Agreed: the precondition for even considering an iPad version should be that the cataloguing functionality is ready and (mostly) bug free. But even then, it should not be considered lightly as it will be quite an investment to support a completely new platform (I expect the PC and Mac to be a lot more similar than e.g., the Mac and the iPad…).

Cheers,
    Hayo

[andrewross]

Andrew,

But doesn't it seem like having 16 or 32 GB of capacity on the iPad would be severely limiting when today's flash cards are pushing 32 GB?  You'd have to send the data and delete it as the new photos are coming in since you'd run out of space (assuming you don't already have several GB of iTunes on the device or iBooks.)  You can download the images faster than you can upload them, and pausing to caption them would only slow things down.

The iPad is just an iPod Touch with a bigger screen and a few bells and whistles thrown in.

-Kirk

Hi Kirk

I think the real user who would need Photo Mechanic on an iPad would be news and entertainment snappers who always have a need for the fastest, quickest solution to send out a selection of images early in the field rather than just the use as 16 or 32 GB of storage need, as you're suggesting.

(BTW: Have you seen the AirStash device, its a wireless SD card reader (CF version in development) working as a wireless file server, easy to set up through any browser (HTML5 compliant) so actually one wouldn't even need to store any images on the iPad if the photgraphers goal was to send masses of images off a big card)

This early send can make a huge difference; its odd to think that any person with an iPhone in a few clicks can just syndicate his/her pix to social networks or wherever, but a working photographer cannot do that for his/her syndication needs without having to boot up a laptop and plugging in numerous devices like a card reader, 3G dongle etc. I certainly can see sense on a deadline to be able to get out an iPad work in a familiar software work flow (Photo Mechanic), have visual/touch confirmation on editing, built in 3G and a wireless card reader.

The whole emphasis of Photo Mechanic on the iPad would be as a quick and visual/touch work flow; imagine this, pinch/expand to enlarge/reduce the image to check on focus, swipe to rate the image, tap its corner, the pix turns over you can add your headline, caption etc, tap again returns you to the pix and then drag the pix over to an FTP shelf, a very visual and intuitive confirmation in editing.

I suspect many a photographer in the coming years will use the iPad also as a portfolio device for client meets and that's also something Photo Mechanic could be useful for in the iPad app!

- Paul, glad you're on board with this wish, I know we all been so long talking about the need for something like this - hope this gets into the realms of reality! See you down in Cannes for the Fest soon!

Cheers

Andrew

[Kirk Baker]

Paul,

Why PM on an iPad? The iPad is no working place, so leave PM where it belongs to: on a PC, a Mac or a Notebook.

Nobody is suggesting that an iPad version of PM would replace the necessity of using PM on a desktop/laptop computer. However, there are situations where a well-designed iPad version of PM could be extremely useful. For example, for a sports photographer sitting behind a goal line in the pouring rain, you can have an iPad sealed in a watertight Ziploc bag and have full control of the iPad through the bag. Try doing that with a laptop or notebook computer!

Have you tried accessing an iPad through a bag?  I thought the iPad/iPod/iPhone touch technology requires measuring the resistance of one's skin on the glass in order to get positioning information.  A barrier like a bag may defeat this technology...

-Kirk

[Kirk Baker]

Andrew,

But doesn't it seem like having 16 or 32 GB of capacity on the iPad would be severely limiting when today's flash cards are pushing 32 GB?  You'd have to send the data and delete it as the new photos are coming in since you'd run out of space (assuming you don't already have several GB of iTunes on the device or iBooks.)  You can download the images faster than you can upload them, and pausing to caption them would only slow things down.

The iPad is just an iPod Touch with a bigger screen and a few bells and whistles thrown in.

I think the real user who would need Photo Mechanic on an iPad would be news and entertainment snappers who always have a need for the fastest, quickest solution to send out a selection of images early in the field rather than just the use as 16 or 32 GB of storage need, as you're suggesting.

That's not what I'm suggesting.  I'll take another try at describing the problem:

You're in the field with your camera and it has a 32 GB card full of images and its time to ingest, caption and upload them to your server.  You take out your iPad, connect your card, run your Photo Mechanic Mobile application and start the process.  While images are being ingested, you're browsing them, zooming them, captioning them and choosing which images to upload, then queuing them for upload.  Sounds great.  But here is the problem: you're not faster at uploading the images than the speed of the download and eventually the iPad reaches its storage capacity and the download has to either be put on hold, or has to abort.  You can't continue to let the iPad operate unattended and you need to get back to shooting the second half of the game.  What do you do?

(BTW: Have you seen the AirStash device, its a wireless SD card reader (CF version in development) working as a wireless file server, easy to set up through any browser (HTML5 compliant) so actually one wouldn't even need to store any images on the iPad if the photgraphers goal was to send masses of images off a big card)

That would be much more attainable.  The download speed would never be an issue since it would be throttled by the upload speed.  The images would have to make it onto the iPad temporarily (or perhaps in memory if enough was available) but wouldn't fill up the iPad.  Since user interaction is completely avoided, there would be no bottleneck besides the upload speed.

This early send can make a huge difference; its odd to think that any person with an iPhone in a few clicks can just syndicate his/her pix to social networks or wherever, but a working photographer cannot do that for his/her syndication needs without having to boot up a laptop and plugging in numerous devices like a card reader, 3G dongle etc. I certainly can see sense on a deadline to be able to get out an iPad work in a familiar software work flow (Photo Mechanic), have visual/touch confirmation on editing, built in 3G and a wireless card reader.

These social networking photos are likely coming from the iPhone's camera.  How many photos can one reasonably take on an iPhone in a short period of time?  Not many.

The whole emphasis of Photo Mechanic on the iPad would be as a quick and visual/touch work flow; imagine this, pinch/expand to enlarge/reduce the image to check on focus, swipe to rate the image, tap its corner, the pix turns over you can add your headline, caption etc, tap again returns you to the pix and then drag the pix over to an FTP shelf, a very visual and intuitive confirmation in editing.

I suspect many a photographer in the coming years will use the iPad also as a portfolio device for client meets and that's also something Photo Mechanic could be useful for in the iPad app!

I can tell that there would be much interest in such a product, if it worked well.  But at this time Cataloging is our highest priority and we don't have the resources to branch out and write a new application for a different platform.

-Kirk

[Paul Smith]

Have you tried accessing an iPad through a bag?  I thought the iPad/iPod/iPhone touch technology requires measuring the resistance of one's skin on the glass in order to get positioning information.  A barrier like a bag may defeat this technology...

-Kirk

Hi Kirk,

This was something I only thought of while writing the post and, like you, I thought that the bag may act as a barrier to the touch technology. So, I actually put my iPad in a Ziploc bag to try it and the touch technology still worked perfectly through the bag. It even worked with the iPhone, which could be useful in some circumstances.

Cheers,

Paul

[mbbphoto]

You're in the field with your camera and it has a 32 GB card full of images and its time to ingest, caption and upload them to your server. 

iPads will only get bigger in storage, next years will presumably double in capacity. Most of us don't shoot that much at one time. 20 gigs is a huge job for me....

[vAfotoriporter]

I never tried the iPad but iPhone works great in a watertight plastic bag....even underwater.

Use of PM differs from shooter to shooter. Some shoot tens of gigs some don't shoot a gig during an assignment.

On my part I use a netbook at the moment and I don't allways ingest the photos onto it. Just open the card in a contact sheet quickly look through the photos to find the selcts (or just select those tagged in camera) and send them.
Of course it is not ideal. Maybe not even safe. But on a short deadline there might not be enough time for an ingest and PM is still the best used this way.
And this part I think could be ported to the iPad.

Actually PM is a great app for simply viewing photos sorted, arranged and filtered by metadata or ratings. This would make a great PM light or PM simply viewer app for the desktop as well as for the iPad (or even for the iPhone).

And there is the option for the catalogue management and support that could be supported by an iPad with the right software support on the iPad.

But don't forget the problem of having to invest into development on a completely new platform. This not just in theory but it totally means the need to redesign PM from scratch. PM does not support shortcuts, nor does it have any other controls than the screen. Camerabits would have to select which features can and need to be implemented. Then they would have to design a completely new control system for it and start either making new code for it or transfer parts of their original codes and finetune them for the iPad. It would be a really great task.

I am sure there will be some apps for features like this. And probably not much of them will be near PM. Maybe teaming up with some outside iPhone/iPad developer companies could help all of us. If Camera Bits does not want to enter this segment, someone could make it for us to be something similar. But this kind of business can still be complicated.

[dmwierz]

You know, as someone who shoots 2 or 3 pro sporting events every week, I would absolutely KILL for a replacement for my 12" PowerBook for quick editing, captioning and transmitting in the field. If the iPad gave me the capability to straighten/tone/crop images and there were a version of PM available, it would solve 90% of my needs.

And, the Hard Drive size isn't an issue since I rarely shoot more than 3 or 4GB of images each game. I would simply offload the iPad after every game or two.

Kirk, you seem pretty negative on the whole iPad thing, which is fine for you, but it seems a lot of your customers are trying to tell you THEY are interested even if you're not...

[Kirk Baker]

You know, as someone who shoots 2 or 3 pro sporting events every week, I would absolutely KILL for a replacement for my 12" PowerBook for quick editing, captioning and transmitting in the field. If the iPad gave me the capability to straighten/tone/crop images and there were a version of PM available, it would solve 90% of my needs.

And, the Hard Drive size isn't an issue since I rarely shoot more than 3 or 4GB of images each game. I would simply offload the iPad after every game or two.

Kirk, you seem pretty negative on the whole iPad thing, which is fine for you, but it seems a lot of your customers are trying to tell you THEY are interested even if you're not...

I'm interested.  We just have other higher priorities at this time.  I explained this in my last post.

I suppose if nearly every one of our customers wrote us and told us that they would rather have an iPad PM than further development on Mac OS X and Windows products then we would definitely listen and change course.

-Kirk

[Paul Smith]

I suppose if nearly every one of our customers wrote us and told us that they would rather have an iPad PM than further development on Mac OS X and Windows products then we would definitely listen and change course.

-Kirk

Obviously further development of PM on the Mac OS X and Windows platforms takes priority. Although, personally, I have very little interest in a cataloging feature in PM. I'd much rather have development of a means of basic levels adjustments and crop rotation/straightening.

I think that many people who were maybe a little apathetic to the iPad when it was first announced will change their mind after spending some time using one. With the right apps it really does open up a world of possibilities.

Just my 2c.

- Paul

[ralphdaily]

I'm getting an iPad at the end of the month but I am much more interested in the catalogue solution.  Please don't be distracted from that.

Ralph Daily

[andrewross]

I'll take another try at describing the problem:

You're in the field with your camera and it has a 32 GB card full of images and its time to ingest, caption and upload them to your server.  You take out your iPad, connect your card, run your Photo Mechanic Mobile application and start the process.  While images are being ingested, you're browsing them, zooming them, captioning them and choosing which images to upload, then queuing them for upload.  Sounds great.  But here is the problem: you're not faster at uploading the images than the speed of the download and eventually the iPad reaches its storage capacity and the download has to either be put on hold, or has to abort.  You can't continue to let the iPad operate unattended and you need to get back to shooting the second half of the game.  What do you do?

I'm not sure about other photographers, but I would want to browse the card in the card reader etc rather than download to the device for speed - sorry should have been clearer, also I don't usually send 32 GB of images in that situation either, just a set of the best pix. If I would be sending more, I would take a laptop and grab a coffee coz if I'm sending that many I'm no longer shooting. The idea is that its for a quick selection of images for an early send, not as a replacement to the laptop for larger job needs.

The idea of this app is t fill a need between the large usage of the full blown version and the low needs version of the iPad version a photographer might need