eXtensions: AMITIAE

AMITIAE - Friday 27 January 2012

Updated Apps: iSomtow; and Panorama 360 Camera

By Graham K. Rogers

Updated apps

It seems that currently, almost the moment I download an app or write about it, the app is updated. A couple of times of late I have looked at an app, and within a day or so there have been some important changes to the features. Two of the three apps that I was notified of earlier today were recently reviewed. One arrived about 3 months ago and I will write on that separately.

iSomtow

Only this week did I find the app called iSomtow, which is a useful linking mechanism for followers of Siam Opera and other musical output of this Thai artistic giant to keep up to date. When I reviewed the app, I was also quite impressed with the amount of access to free and online music that was available for users to listen to or view, including a full-length, video version of his opera, Ayodhya, which I listened to for the first time this week. I was suitably impressed and want more.

An update of this app to version 1.13 made available earlier today reported that customization features have been added. One of these appears to be a direct link to a box office phone number for upcoming concerts on the iPhone version of the app, removing the former Tickets and Box Office buttons.

Panorama 360 Camera

I looked at the fairly new Panorama 360 Camera only a couple of weeks ago and was rather impressed with the way in which a user was able quickly to assemble the images for a panorama using the app's automated system that recognised the edges of previous shots as related to the image that was currently in the camera view.

This has now been updated to version 4.4 which can take frames faster and has a faster stitching ability. I was already pleased with what it could do, but the updated really had made things faster, both with taking the images and the processing of these into a full 360 degree image. We are also informed that there is a better 3D view.

What Panorama 360 still lacks is the ability to take images above and below the current horizontal input. We may hope that Go2Share are working on this as well as a beefier output. A test 360 panorama was saved as a JPEG image 3961 x 576 (2.3 MP) with a size of only 267KB. Economical, but this seems limited.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.

For further information, e-mail to

Back to eXtensions
Back to Home Page