Photo Mechanic "App" for new iPad

[Paul Smith]

The iPad is one of those things that, at first look, may be underwhelming but after some time actually using one you can see the huge potential in it. Sure, a built-in USB connection would be nice, but the camera connection kit does work and there are companies even now working on ways to wirelessly get photos directly from the camera to the iPad.

Regarding pricing of apps, whilst it's true that many apps are free or priced very low in order to get volume sales, there are apps priced in the $30+ range - I've even bought a couple myself. Even Apple's iWork apps are $10 each and they are among the top paid-for apps on the store.

Every photographer I've shown my iPad to has said that they're strongly considering getting one, so the potential market is huge. Of course, only Camera Bits knows the true size of their customer base, but my guess would be that within a relatively short time a large percentage of existing PM customers will own iPads and, for a professional photographer already using Photomechanic, buying a PM Lite version for the iPad would be a no-brainer.

I would hope that, even judging by the discussion here, Camera Bits can see the potential and are maybe now giving some serious thought to an iPad version of PM.

Cheers,

Paul Smith
Featureflash.com

[vAfotoriporter]

During the last few days I was seriously considering to buy an iPad. The seemingly only thing that made me decide against this move was the lack of an alternative to PM for the iPad. Without it I would still need the MacBook and the Netbook too. So the iPad would be just a third device (beside the iPhone) and just for web and e-mail it would be a damned expensive third device.

Having PM would maybe mean I wouldn't need the netbook anymore. Even if it would not allow a large amount of images to be downloaded to it, a quick edit and send from the card would be a good option on the field.

[TGeist]

Different users will want different things from an iPad Photo Mechanic (lite). That's of course a concern.
I come from a different corner, portraits, people, weddings. What I need is selecting and rating a huge number of images, captioning would be a nice add on.

I'd give an arm and a leg if I could do this on the iPad, for instance while on a plane or in bright sunlight (where all laptops suck).

Seriously, I'd pay twice the licennse fee for that than I paid for regular PM. I've been wanting this for so long! Even on the iPhone.

Thomas

[vAfotoriporter]

Different users will want different things from an iPad Photo Mechanic (lite).

I think it is true to all PM users. We all use MP for different purposes with different needs.

That's of course a concern.
I come from a different corner, portraits, people, weddings. What I need is selecting and rating a huge number of images, captioning would be a nice add on.

I think selecting and rating is less of a problem and a basic captioning could be done. The difficult part would be to decide what else to include and how to create the interface to manage it on the iPad.

I too would like to have at least the slect+rate part.

[Dougmc]

I've only played on an iPad long enough to be dangerous with my opinion on this matter. However, I would be concerned that at machine with so little processing power as the iPad (1GHz) would be able to efficiently handle the editing of images. And, because we're all speed-greedy-photographers, once the new iPhone OS4 comes out and allows multiple apps to be running, we'll bog the whole thing down with FTPing and editing at the same time.

I would LOVE to be proven wrong though. The concept would be great!

[vAfotoriporter]

I just got an iPad for testing - especially for photo purposes. Does anyone have any idea what photo managing/editing apps to check out? I know there is no PM competitor app but what might be my closest option?

[Ed Wolfstein]

I've been playing with my iPad for a few weeks now, and it definitely has a spot in my gear bag. Right now, it's a unbelievably nice way to quickly show my work to clients (kind of an electronic portfolio). It boots instantly, and images appear super fast. As an editing tool, I'm not so sure, but here's a new idea: Have an option in PM's toolbar to send selected images to the iPad (kind of like an upload to a host, like PhotoShelter, or other ftp site) or perhaps to a folder in iPhoto (which does the iPad sync nicely). In the future: if the iPad can be tethered to a camera, and ingests can attach IPTC data to tagged images... well that would be something interesting. But for now, it's more of a viewer than a workhorse. My 2c.

- Ed.

[dennis]

I have posted an open letter regarding iPad development here:

http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=5603.0

Hopefully this will answer a lot of your questions.

--dennis

[vAfotoriporter]

I have posted an open letter regarding iPad development here:

http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=5603.0

Hopefully this will answer a lot of your questions.

--dennis

Thanks for the detailed answer. It does answer a lot of things and open up more new questioins like if Android (maybe on a possibly coming tablet) is a better ground for such hopes. Lets hope Apple will change things - however unlikely it is.

Maybe for the catalog it will be able to become some possibility to make it an alternative tool to access the server functions.   

[Kirk Baker]

I have posted an open letter regarding iPad development here:

http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=5603.0

Hopefully this will answer a lot of your questions.

--dennis

Thanks for the detailed answer. It does answer a lot of things and open up more new questioins like if Android (maybe on a possibly coming tablet) is a better ground for such hopes. Lets hope Apple will change things - however unlikely it is.

Perhaps if thousands of photographers contacted Apple and demanded that they open up access to media connected via the CCK they would make it happen.

-Kirk

[vAfotoriporter]

I have posted an open letter regarding iPad development here:

http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=5603.0

Hopefully this will answer a lot of your questions.

--dennis

Thanks for the detailed answer. It does answer a lot of things and open up more new questioins like if Android (maybe on a possibly coming tablet) is a better ground for such hopes. Lets hope Apple will change things - however unlikely it is.

Perhaps if thousands of photographers contacted Apple and demanded that they open up access to media connected via the CCK they would make it happen.

-Kirk

I dont really belive apple would do that. The simply dont want to make iPad that professnal took I think....but definietly worth a try. I surely will write them.

[Paul Smith]

Many thanks to Dennis for the clear and detailed reasons why a Photo Mechanic app for the iPad is not viable at the moment. At least we now know that you have seriously looked into the possibility. Perhaps when Apple releases the iPhone OS 4 software later this year things may be a little different.

Cheers,

Paul

[Kirk Baker]

Paul,

Many thanks to Dennis for the clear and detailed reasons why a Photo Mechanic app for the iPad is not viable at the moment. At least we now know that you have seriously looked into the possibility. Perhaps when Apple releases the iPhone OS 4 software later this year things may be a little different.

Letting Apple know what you want in the iPad would be the most effective way to get things moving.  We've filed a feature request, but we're just one voice.

-Kirk

[platti]

Hi,

I've been playing with my iPad for a few weeks now, and it definitely has a spot in my gear bag. Right now, it's a unbelievably nice way to quickly show my work to clients (kind of an electronic portfolio). It boots instantly, and images appear super fast. As an editing tool, I'm not so sure, but here's a new idea: Have an option in PM's toolbar to send selected images to the iPad (kind of like an upload to a host, like PhotoShelter, or other ftp site) or perhaps to a folder in iPhoto (which does the iPad sync nicely). In the future: if the iPad can be tethered to a camera, and ingests can attach IPTC data to tagged images... well that would be something interesting. But for now, it's more of a viewer than a workhorse. My 2c.

- Ed.

great, so there are already two of us ... this is exactly my idea of using the iPad in context with PM (I consider to buy it after Apples "grace-period" of failures)

[andrewross]

All very interesting to read the "open letter" and it's very much appreciated that the developers here take this seriously.

There are other ways perhaps images can be imported directly into a PM app avoiding some of the interface problems/limitations Apple might have on the iPad as suggested in the open letter, perhaps using HTML5 etc. I'm no expert, but other apps use various ways to pull in files to their app directly, the same could be true with photos?

Also using HTML5 would only require a simple browser interface and perhaps a wireless card/card reader, so constructing a wireless workflow with something like EyeFi could also be very possible to avoid the ingest issues.

I have actually tried a few download/edit/transmits from the iPad using the Apple Camera Connection Kit and although I can't add a caption, it was easy to browse the sd card, select the pix to upload to the iPad, use editing software like PhotoForge to do basic corrections and use a FTP app to drop to various FTP sites,
although all was not particularly fast as one had to navigate thru 3 apps, if this was all in one app, I imagine this would be very fast to do