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Portfolio Pro for iPad – app review
When I recently upgraded to the new iPad, my wife became the recipient of my trusty and much loved iPad 2. Since she is a photographer, I knew a portfolio app would be a must have for her. I’ve tried a few portfolio apps in the past but I couldn’t think of one that I was excited to recommend. I decided to do some research and see if I could find a portfolio app with the following features (which I new my wife would appreciate): Easy wireless transfer of photos from computer to iPad, customizable look, low learning curve of app setup and functions.
As luck would have it, I didn’t have to search too hard.
Soon thereafter Terry White posted a very positive review on BestAppSite about a newly released portfolio app: Portfolio Pro for iPad. This statement from his review piqued my interest the most: “Lastly it’s probably one of the easiest to use! Some of these Apps leave me scratching my head on how various features work. However, I had no problem getting up and running in Portfolio Pro within a matter of minutes.”
Terry wasn’t exaggerating. Including the installing of Portfolio Pro it took me all of 5 minutes to have the app displaying photos that I transferred from my Mac. Bam. It’s that quick.
For a full feature rundown follow this link to the App Store where all of Portfolio Pro’s features are listed. I’m just going to concentrate on the features I previously listed as being important.
Ease of wirelessly transferring photos: There a several different ways you can move photos to the iPad with Portfolio Pro. I chose Dropbox because I am already a Dropbox user. Under the settings menu I selected Dropbox under Services. After a login confirmation Portfolio Pro was linked to Dropbox.
I then grabbed a bunch of photos from iPhoto on my Mac and dropped them into my Dropbox folder. To add those photos to Portfolio Pro I selected the large + labeled “New Gallery” (a Gallery is like an Album) then after selecting DropBox (when prompted about where I’d like the photos to come from) my Dropbox photo folder became visible. All of the photos within that folder were already selected (with a checkmark) to import. Next I selected the “Import Gallery” button. Portfolio Pro imported all of the photos as a batch into a Gallery within the app. I viewed the Gallery. With a swipe to the left the photos swapped with a very fluid flip (similar to the “page turn” in Flipboard.) Everything looked great!
Customizable Look (themes): Portfolio Pro has many options for the overall look. From the settings menu you can choose from preset themes or create your own. With options to change the Background color, Slideshow Background color, Navigation Bar color, Photo Names font, Description Font, Thumbnail Title font and more, there are so many options you’d be hard-pressed to not come up with the perfect custom look. Best of all, you can make the changes then save it as a custom theme, which makes switching between your own themes a snap. Add your own branding by uploading your logo and you’ll have a fully customize portfolio unlike any other.
Low learning curve of app setup and functions: By now I hope it’s apparent that Portfolio Pro has met these needs and more. Setup is quick. Loading photos is easy. Changing between themes is a snap. Rearranging photos within a gallery is simple with drag and drop (you can even rearrange the order of the galleries in the same manner).
Viewing with Portfolio Pro: So far I’ve only talked about the Edit Mode, maybe you’re thinking “What about the Client Mode?” Client Mode (or viewer mode) is simple to use, which is important since the whole point is for others to easily view your photos. Portfolio Pro has a built in Home Screensaver, think of it as a “cover” like a magazine except this one is an automated slideshow (or not, your choice) for photos you’d like to feature. One swipe to the left (which is indicated by a large arrow on the right) and the “cover” opens to reveal the Galleries. Choosing individual Galleries or photos is done with a single tap or two finger spread. To move through photos, swipe left or right. All actions are very basic iPad gestures which means Portfolio Pro is ready for even the most novice iPad user.
Future Features I’d like to see: Even though Portfolio Pro is a great 1.0 version app, there are a couple of things that could be added to make it even better. I agree that synch support from Dropbox would be super handy as mentioned by Terry in his review. The lack of synching is not a deal breaker for me but it would make a very easy to use app even easier. I’d also like to see an option for other transitions between photos. The “flip” is visually cool but I could see how some users might prefer a couple of less flashy options like a fade or slide. It would also be nice to have the option of running every gallery in a continuous slideshow mode.
Should you buy this app?
If you’re a photographer, designer or all around creative and you need an easy to use (yet surprisingly robust) portfolio app that will show off your work the way you want: then absolutely yes. Even if you’re not one of those three types of people and you just want a great photo organization app that offers many more options than the stock iPad photo app you’ll love it too!
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- Screensaver (cover) before photo added, Edit Mode
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- Screensaver (cover) after photo added
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- Gallery Thumbnails
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- Gallery Edit Mode
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- Photo thumbnails inside gallery
Disclaimer: I was provided with a free download code for the purposes of reviewing this app. See my review policy here.
The Truth About iOS Multitasking
From Fraser Speirs:
“There is one iOS “tip” that I keep hearing and it is wrong. Worse, I keep hearing it from supposedly authoritative sources. I have even heard it from the lips of Apple “Geniuses” in stores.
Here is the advice – and remember it is wrong:
All those apps in the multitasking bar on your iOS device are currently active and slowing it down, filling the device’s memory or using up your battery. To maximise performance and battery life, you should kill them all manually.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. There are caveats to this but anyone dispensing the advice above is clearly uninformed enough that they will certainly not be aware of these subtleties.“
I’ve had to explain this to many iPhone users too. Be sure to read the full post which I highly suggest to everyone with an iOS device.
iMAME for iPad Get It While You Can – game
“As we said back in April 2010, ”Call us nerds if you like, but the classic 70′s and 80′s arcade games are a heritage worth preserving, a record of the origins of today’s games that needs to be preserved for future generations”. By far the most complete code framework for the preservation of that gaming heritage is MAME (Multi Arcade Machine Emulator). Until now MAME has only been available to those with jailbroken iPads. Today that changed.”
Make Custom iOS Shortcuts: No Jailbreak Required – app quick look
I just ran across this post over at iDownloadBlog that details a great App named Icon Project. The short of it is: If you’d like a way to create custom shortcuts and quickly get to settings or even make one touch phone calls Icon Project can create it for you. It is very much worth the cost of $0.99.
This for me is a very handy and welcomed App. One of the Apps I’ve been missing the most without jailbreak is SBSettings. It does not feature the convenient toggles like SBSettings but it’s a close second and keeps you from having to “drill down” to your most commonly accessed settings.
The best thing is Icon Project allows you to customize the Icon with borders, backgrounds or even your photos/designs. There wasn’t designs for some of the common settings so I quickly created my own in Photoshop and used them as seen below.
If you’d like the same look for your iOS device, purchase Icon Project then save the following images to the photo roll on the device you are customizing and apply the image by tapping on the camera icon while creating the shortcut in Icon Project. In order for the shortcut to work you have to use the correlating preference shortcut address found here by copying and pasting into the URL section under “Select Type” in Icon Project. Update: Apparently the URL shortcuts no longer work under iOS 5.1. So if you want that functionality you’ll have to stay with 5.0 or less.
Brightness
Bluetooth
Wi-Fi 1
Wi-Fi 2
Location 1
Location 2
Network
Tether
Music Prefs.
Background to create your own
Check out the post over at iDownloadBlog for more information and a quick video demo of the App.
