NaBloPoMo 2019.1
Hi. I lied! I will be posting while I'm away because NaBloPoMo, the idea of which has been drifting in & out of my consciousness for the past couple of weeks... and not with dread, so here I am! I may be the only person on the planet still doing it the way it's always been done, but whatever. I'm OK with marching to my own drummer.
Random seasonal photo (imagine snow).
I have a question or a few for y'all. As you know, I recently got a new phone... my first iPhone! (It's my only iThing!) I'm getting things figured out and set up, but I'm curious to hear any tips & tricks you might have to share.
Here goes:
- When you upgrade or get a new phone, what are the first things you do... which settings do you tweak?
- What are your favorite PHOTO apps?
- What photo collage app do you use?
- What are your favorite other apps?
You are a Stalwart Blogger, for sure! (And I'll be here . . . reading every day.)
I've had an iPhone since iPhones came out . . . and my phone is NOT my only iProduct (I'm a Mac person) . . . so I think the tweaks and adjustments I make for a new phone will be a lot different than what you're going to end up doing. For me, I usually tweak the way my phone and my laptop and iPad "communicate" (because some of it is just TOO MUCH interconnection for me). And I really work to turn off notifications and most of the "tracking." I also get rid of as many "add-on" apps (that come with the phone) as I can, and I organize my phone screens for convenience.
I used to use a lot of different photo apps . . . but now that the iPhone camera is so great, I find I don't need them as much. I like PhotoToaster (for filters), PicCollage or PicFrame (for collages), and Fontmania (for adding grahics and text). I used to use something called FabFocus for portraits, but now that the iPhone has the Portrait feature, I never use it anymore. Gale Zucker recommends an app called Bena for motion-activated selfies. I've been meaning to try it, but haven't yet. . .
Other apps? Oh . . . so many. So very many . . .
Have fun! XO
Posted by: Kym | 01 November 2019 at 07:18 AM
Like Kym, I've had an iPhone since they first came out. I think the first thing I do is arrange my apps and put the ones I use daily on the first screen - things like mail, my calendar, 1SE, a habit tracker, the podcast app, Remember the Milk, Spotify and Threes. I try to keep this first screen pretty clean. Then I organize the things I don't use at all that can't be deleted and put them on the last screen so that I don't even see them. The middle screen is for stuff I use but not necessarily daily like the clock, calculator, Evernote, Wordpress, etc. For photo apps, I like Transfer Pro for transferring photos from the phone to my laptop, I use Word Swag for adding words to photos, and I use AirBrush, Retouch and Resize Image a lot for editing and resizing. I think I'm in with NaBloPoMo, too. I've been debating and I told myself I'd see if anyone else was doing it before I made my decision. I see that you're in and so is Laurie the Etherknitter so I think I will, too!
Posted by: Carole | 01 November 2019 at 08:08 AM
I am a long time iPhone user and much of what Carole and Kym said is very true. (although I am not a Mac user - I use a PC so it can be tricky transferring photos from one platform to the other) In the latest iPhone (I have the iPhone 11ProMax) I have found no need at all for any other photo app (and in my previous iPhone version 10Max I did not either). For collages, I use Picmonkey (which also has text and a billion other options) For easy transfer of photos from one platform to another, I use Adobe Lightroom. I did do some major settings updates on this latest iPhone - I use the "light" mode and have brightness set just under the halfway point (these things are under "Display and Brightness". I have True Tone turned on and have night shift set (my hours are 8PM to 7AM) I also have text size moved up to the half way point. Other favorite apps: Overdrive, my local library app. I also have Spotify. Good luck and welcome to the world that is Apple!
Posted by: Kat | 01 November 2019 at 08:48 AM
Hi! I am NaBloPoMo-ing too, and I too imagine I am the only one doing it!
I have an old iphone and I really just use it for e-mail, knowing the time and weather, and instagram. I use something called Layout for making photo collages. If things get complicated I just hand it over to tech support, ie my husband!
Posted by: SquareMary | 01 November 2019 at 09:03 AM
I'm going to enjoy your NaBloPoMo and your iPhone photos. I have a 7 and would love to upgrade, but I'm not the photographer you are, nor the techy. Plus, I guess I'm cheap.
Posted by: Margene | 01 November 2019 at 09:18 AM
My favorite feature on my iPhone is Reminders. You can, "Hey Siri" and tell it to remind you Monday at 2:00 to sign up for a thing, or pay a bill, or pick something up, or do whatever it is you need. If you don't have a specific time something needs to be done, you just tell it to remind you to do a thing - look up a book or author or podcast. My brain is full, so I need help remembering!
My kids love Google photos and you can set your phone so that pictures go directly there when you take them. You'll have them on your phone as well, but you don't have to fuss with iCloud and you don't have to worry about running out of room on your phone.
Have fun with the phone! Looking forward to the blog posts!
Posted by: Margie D | 01 November 2019 at 09:47 AM
A great photo editing app is Snapseed, recommended by Gale Zucker. It's especially good for photos taken this time of year, when the lighting is less than ideal.
Posted by: Sarah | 02 November 2019 at 05:26 PM
I have an iPhone 7 and just so you know, we are the people that use things until they just aren't useful any more. So upgrading is not a part-time job at our house. The first thing I tweak on all my electronics is security. I tighten down as much as I can. Partly because of malicious stuff, but I also try to starve the data vampires that are apps (and Apple to some extent). Data is now more valuable than oil depending on how you measure such things, and I like to control mine as much as possible. If you troll through your Security settings and apps you may be surprised at who you need to nudge back into the sphere you want them in. Hubs thought I was a little zealous about this, but after spending some time talking to someone who works in cyber security, I'm an even bigger believe. And now, I'm going to pick up my virtual soap box and move along. ;-)
PS Best thing I learned by accident on my iPhone? Some text got deleted in something I was doing and I shook my phone in frustration. Voila! A box pops up asking if I'd like to undo that. Heck yes, and there was my text back. Lifesaver from time to time.
Posted by: Robby H. | 02 November 2019 at 07:53 PM
Not sure I have much to add - and I might be an outlier here - but I have ALL my apps on the home page of my phone - organized into folders for those I don't mind making two clicks to find (which is almost all of them) and hanging on their own for those I want to access quickly. Sara says I have a LOT of apps and Katie says I don't have that many ... so I'm not sure. but when I see a phone with more than one screen of apps (my moms!!!!) it drives me crazy.
I have three favorite apps in my Photography folder - 1. Collage (free, with upgrades) for collages - I especially like that I can make non-square collages if I choose a layout that has a non-square grid and then I can crop it to be a rectangle (i.e., I leave the bottom squares empty and just crop them out) 2. Layout (free) - previously mentioned - works really well with Instagram because it makes squares 3. Capture (free) - captures a photo from a video. it saves the photo as a separate image that's the same def as the video. (a few of my daily photos have been captured this way when my videos have been better than my still photos).
All this said - congrats on joining the iCommunity ... and I look forward to what you share as you learn! (like many others, I've been an iPhone/Apple user for so long I'm not even sure what I know ... and don't!)
Posted by: Mary | 03 November 2019 at 03:02 PM