Adobe has released updates for Camera Raw (6.6) and Lightroom (3.6).

New cameras are supported.

New lens profiles have been added.

Bugs are fixed.

See the Lightroom Journal for a full list of details.

Download the updates here.

 

Category: Software
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“Where do you go to access over 10,000 unique Photoshop presets, templates, tutorials, plug-ins and more? Visit Photoshop Exchange, the Adobe hosted website for customers who want to discover and share Photoshop content with each other. They recently crossed the 10,000th item milestone, adding 600 new submissions since January. The majority of the content is free, and those few paid pieces of content average about $4.

If you’re looking for inspiration, or just want to try out some new styles, effects or practically anything else that can be customized in Photoshop, you will find Actions (51% of Exchange’s content), followed by Styles (15%) and Brushes (10%), as well as shapes, tutorials and patterns, and many elaborate and useful Templates (.PSD files, ranging from Web components and complete site designs, brochures, flyers, 3D presentation graphics, print ads and the like), which can save you time and even help you explore how advanced users build complex and beautiful files.”

Visit Photoshop Exchange here.

Category: Photoshop, Software
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Get %15 off all NIK software products with this code – JPCNIK.

HDR Efex Pro
Color Efex Pro
Silver Efex Pro
Sharpener Pro
Dfine
Viveza
Capture NX

NIK software is among the best of the best in the digital imaging industry.
Just look at all the awards it’s won.

It makes complicated tasks easy. How?

“Photoshop plug-ins take away some of the most labour-intensive photo manipulations and replace them with an easier to use “script”, or presets. Nik plug-ins go one step further and provide the user with a unique ‘U-Point’ technology, allowing for customisation of individual image parameters. And all presets can be further customized to each photographer’s taste.”

With so many great choices, where do you start? I recommend you look very closely at HDR Efex Pro (the most visual and intuitive HDR interface available) and at Tonal Contrast in Viveza or Structure in Sharpener Pro (Clarity or High Pass sharpening on steroids).

Find NIK Software products here.

Category: Discount, Software
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Adobe CS5.5

April 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Adobe has announced a mid-cycle upgrade to their entire Creative Suite.

This paid for upgrade (ships in 30 days) has minimal impact on Photoshop imaging but significantly impacts application uses for digital publishing, generating web content, and mobile devices.

Also announced are three iPad Apps – Adobe Color Lava, Eazel, and Nav (estimated release May).

Read Adobe’s press release here.
Read more

Category: Software
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X-Rite i1Photo Pro

April 8, 2011 | 2 Comments

“The long awaited day is here!  X-Rite i1 Professional solutions, which includes the new i1Photo Pro, are now available. Each solution features the all-new i1Profiler software application designed to delivers superior color results!  i1Profiler is driven by a new color engine, sports a dual mode interface (basic and advanced) and new quality assurance features, plus so much more. The new i1Photo Pro was designed specifically for discerning photographers to attain the highest quality color results and color control throughout your complex digital photo workflow, at a very attractive price.

The new portfolio is comprised of three software/hardware/target bundles ­– i1Basic Pro, i1Photo Pro, i1Publish Pro – and i1Publish, a software/target solution. All four feature groundbreaking new i1Profiler software technology designed to accommodate all levels of proficiency and expertise, and provide the power and control needed to create the highest quality color profiles. The new PANTONE Color Manager color swatch bridging software,  ColorChecker Proof, a new ColorChecker target for direct viewing analysis against a printed target and ColorChecker camera calibration system are also featured.

Upgrade packages are available for those who have i1Pro devices as well as MonacoPROFILER 4 and ProfileMaker 5 users. Read more about the upgrade opportunities and review the features of i1Profiler software at www.xritephoto.com.”

The advances in software make every function more precise.
Printer profiling takes a major leap forward with easy to make light temperature and image specific profiles.

If you haven’t invested in X-Rite technology do it now.
If you have, upgrade now.
This is a major upgrade that all users should seriously consider.

Find out more about i1Photo Pro here.

View more in my DVD 6 Simple Steps to Good Color Management.

Learn more in my digital printing and digital photography workshops here.

Category: color management, Equipment, Software
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Get 15% off Photomatix with this code – johnpaulcaponigro.

Beyond Photoshop, there are a number of HDR software options, both plug-ins and stand-alones. Some of the better-known programs include Artizen HDR, easyHDR, FDRTools, pfstools, HDR Efex Pro, and Photomatix. HDRsoft’s Photomatix is the longest standing and perhaps most robust and sophisticated solution.

Photomatix can be used either as a Photoshop plug-in or as a stand-alone product. It offers a variety of ways of combining exposures, including some non-HDR options. Photomatix offers impressive controls over essential image elements affected by HDR merges. Chief among these are control over halos, micro-contrast accentuation, micro-smoothing and control of saturation in highlights and shadows (areas that tend to need aggressive tone mapping).

With a little care and attention, the effect you produce with these tools can be one of your choosing. If used aggressively, you can produce a contemporary HDR effect that can give your images a new look. If used conservatively, you can produce a classic effect that’s virtually unnoticeable.

Every photographer can benefit from learning HDR techniques …

Read my review of Photomatix here. Stay tuned for the update.

Read more about HDR techniques here.

View more about HDR in my DVD Extending Dynamic Range – HDR Imaging.

Learn more in my digital photography workshops.

Category: Discount, Software
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Save $30 on ColorThink.

Save $60 on Color Think Pro.

Save $30 on Color Valet.

Save $60 on Color Valet Pro.

They say “A picture is worth a thousand words.” In some cases, it’s worth far more. That’s certainly true of the images generated by CHROMiX’s ColorThink. The folks at CHROMiX say, “You can’t manage your color if you don’t understand it. Nothing gets the idea across faster than the graph of a printer gamut.” They’re right.

CHROMiX ColorThink is the award-winning color management toolset that helps you understand your color more than ever before, primarily (but not exclusively) by graphing it. The ColorThink toolset is an application for managing, repairing, evaluating and graphing ICC profiles, composed of nine modules that are proven to “keep your brain on color”.

Profile Manager
Organize your profiles individually or in sets

Profile Inspector
Open all types of ICC Profiles and inspect their color data and other details. Change default settings to fit your workflow. Display neutral rendering curves.

2D Graphing
2D graphing gives you both general and specific views, allowing the overlay of multiple profiles and data sets.

3D Graphing
3D graphing gives you the whole picture. Analyze your devices and workflow. See the cause of proofing and printing problems. Graph measurement files and image colors to compare with device gamuts.

Image Inspector
Open images and see the embedded profile. Export, change(mac only) or delete(mac only) it at will. Learn to handle the files your customers are sending.

Profile Renamer
Profiles have two names; internal and external. Confused by what appears in menus? Change the internal and external names with this tool.

Profile Linker
Some RIPs allow linked profiles to be loaded for proofing purposes. Profile Linker will build those profiles for you, quickly and easily.

Profile Medic
Multi-point integrity checks can be performed on one or all the profiles in your system. If Profile Medic finds fixable problems with a single click it will get you back to work.

Color Lists
Open measurement files from most profiling applications. View them in list form with rendered colors. Apply profiles to the lists for testing and graphing.

ColorThink 2.x lists for $149. ColorThink Pro lists for $399. Upgrades from ColorThink 2.x to ColorThink Pro are $249. Among the many features added in ColorThink Pro are enhanced graphing and profile analysis capabilities; graphs have more detail and automation; background color can be altered; graphs can be saved as movies; profiles can be displayed as points; CMYK and Lab images can be graphed; and you can slice image data and vectors at any lightness value. Can’t decide which to start with? Start with ColorThink 2.x and upgrade ColorThink Pro later, once you see how indispensible this utility really is.

ColorThink is a very robust color management software. Only a few advanced users will use its full toolset. But almost everyone can benefit from using a few of its most essential features.

For me, graphing color is the core utility of this tool. Graphs are useful abstractions. When you’re dealing with a lot of information, graphs can condense and focus information from specific perspectives revealing useful information. This is certainly true of color. Because color has three dimensions (luminosity, hue, and saturation), graphs of color in 2D always leave something out, while graphs of color in 3D give you a more complete picture and more useful perspectives.

ColorThink gives you powerful tools for graphing color in both 2D and 3D. You can graph ICC profiles (input, display, output), color, color lists, or images. You can graph multiple profiles simultaneously for comparison. You can graph profiles and images simultaneously for comparison. You can view graphs in multiple formats such as shaded objects, wireframes, points, and vectors. You can change color and transparency to make comparison easier. And you can rotate, pan, and zoom your viewpoint dynamically.

Every time I lecture on color, I use ColorThink. Every time I evaluate a new inkset or substrate or printing profile, I use ColorThink. While I don’t graph every image before I print it, I do graph particularly challenging images to print and ColorThink always reveals useful information. I recommend it highly.

This utility not only expanded my understanding of color and color management but it has also helped me refine an advanced perspective on color theory (the conceptual tools artist’s often use to help structure color palettes and make color choices). It’s my hope that in the 21st century 2D color wheels (such as Leonardo’s, Goethe’s, and Itten’s) will be replaced with 3D color volumes.


1    An image.

2    A 2D graph (two profiles and an image) tells only part of the story. The gamut of semi-gloss papers seem moderately extended when compared to matte papers; the image appears in gamut for both.

3    A 3D graph of two profiles tells you more. Semi-gloss papers have greatly extended dmax and gamut in dark values but reduced gamut in lighter hues; warm highlights are out of gamut for both (better highlight saturation is found in matte) and cool shadows are out of gamut for matte.

4    Gamut can be sliced at specific luminosity values.

5    Display the effects of profiles on colors in images with vectors.

Visit the ColorThink product pages at www.chromix.com to learn more.

Find out more about the tools I use here.

Learn more in my digital photography workshops.

Category: Color, Review, Software
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Adobe’s lens profile corrections are simply amazing. Lens Corrections automate correction of standard lens distortions, including geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignette. In addition to correcting lens distortions, this feature can also be used to adjust perspective and rotation.

Adobe provides support for a growing list of camera manufacturers, camera models, and lenses: Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Samsung, Schneider, Sigma, Sony, Tamron, and Zeiss.

Adobe Lens Profile Creator

If Adobe doesn’t supply a lens profile for your particular lens you have three choices.

First, you may be able to access a lens profile created by another user on the Adobe Lens Profile Creator forum. Find and share lens profiles at Adobe labs. Of course, these lens profiles will only be as good as the creators were diligent about creating them.

Second, you can visually adjust the parameters of an existing lens profile and save the new settings under a new name for future use. There’s plenty of room for user error with this method but it’s more efficient than creating manual corrections from scratch. Expect to check the results frequently when you apply these settings to different types of images.

Third, you can create your own custom lens profile with the free Adobe Lens Profile Creator utility. Download the Adobe Lens Profile Creator at Adobe Labs. Adobe Lens Profile Creator is a utility designed for photographers who want to create custom lens profiles for their own lenses. The process of creating a custom lens profile for your lens involves capturing a series of images of a printed checkerboard pattern with your specific camera and lens, converting that set of raw images into Digital Negative (DNG) file format (using the Camera Raw plug-in, Lightroom, or the free Adobe DNG Converter), and importing the raw DNG images (or JPEG/TIFF images when creating lens profiles for a non-raw workflow) into the Adobe Lens Profile Creator to generate a custom lens profile. If you create new lens profiles, you can share them with the rest of the user community on the Adobe Lens Profile Creator forums, publishing them directly from inside the Lens Profile Creator. These profiles will then be available via new versions of the Adobe Lens Profile Downloader. This is an extended and complex process few photographers will want to go through, but for those using unsupported cameras and lenses worth the time and effort in the long run.

Using Adobe’s Lens Profile Corrections

You can access Adobe’s Lens Corrections in three locations; Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom 3, or Photoshop CS5’s Lens Correction filter. (Lens profile corrections were first introduced in Lightroom 3. To get Lens Profile Corrections in Adobe Camera Raw CS5, you need to download a version that has been updated after the release of Lightroom 3. You can download the latest free update at adobe.com.

It’s far less destructive to make these types of adjustments to Raw files during conversion rather than after conversion. It’s also more flexible. (Use a smart object and reaccess the controls any time by simply by double clicking the smart object.) However, if you want to apply Lens Corrections within Photoshop, after a file has been rasterized, you can use CS5’s updated Lens Correction filter.

In ACR and Lightroom, you’ll find two tabs under Lens Corrections; Profile and Manual.

Under Profile, click Enable Lens Profile Corrections to activate this feature. Using the EXIF data in your Raw file, the software will automatically select the Make (of your camera), Model (of your lens), and the Profile (for that lens). You can use the supplied lens profiles, download a custom profile made by another user, or create your own (manually or with Adobe’s Lens Profile Creator).

Checking Enable Lens Profile Corrections will also allow you to access three sliders –  Distortion, Chromatic Aberration, and Vignetting – for manually fine tuning the results. If you like the results of one correction but not another, you can decrease or increase the effects in one or more of the three fields.

Under Manual, you’ll find controls for visually creating your own lens profile corrections …

Continue reading on Digital Photo Pro.

Read more in my online lessons.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Category: CS5, Photoshop, Software
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Find the latest free Adobe® Photoshop®-related beta downloads, prerelease tools and experimental technologies available on Adobe Labs in addition to a listing of other Photoshop image editing resources for designers and developers.

Visit Adobe Labs here.

Category: Photoshop, Software
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Get 15% off of Pixel Genius products with this code – JPC15CPN.

The people at Pixel Genius (Martin Evening, the late Bruce Fraser, Mac Holbert, Andrew Rodney, Seth Resnick and Jeff Schewe) produce terrific production tools for use within Photoshop – PhotoKit, Photo Kit Color, and Photo Kit Sharpener.

PhotoKit automates a variety of tasks including color correction, color to black and white conversion, toning, and basic sharpening. PhotoKit Sharpener automates some of the most sophisticated sharpening routines ever devised. They’re so sophisticated they were licensed and modified for Adobe’s Lightroom.

Read more

Category: Discount, Software
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Looking for information on how to price licensing and assignment work?

PhotoQuote Pro is the software I use.

Get 10-15% off with this code (upgrades excluded) – JPC0111.

Stock and Assignment Photo Price Guide
“When someone wants to use one of your photos, you don’t need a number pulled out of a hat, you need help to get paid fairly for your work. You need fotoQuote, the industry standard photo pricing guide for stock and assignment photography.

The fotoQuote photo pricing guide is the only source of photo pricing information for photographers that includes powerful coaching help for every category. The fotoQuote price guide not only helps you come up with a fair price for your image license, but it also gives you the negotiation information you need to help you close the sale.”

FotoQuote Pro 6 New Features
New Markets
Over 86 new categories, including 35 video stock footage categories
New Stock Photography Pricing Categories
86 new photo pricing categories, bringing the total to 304
Updated Stock and Assignment Photography Prices
New Coach Information
38 Assignment Coach topics, including tips on breaking into the video market
Redesigned Interface Enhancements
Streamlined interface makes this the easiest to use fotoQuote ever
Quote Packs
Easy Quote Creation with Thumbnails & License by Image
New International Features
New Stock Photo Pricing Coach Information
Everything you need for pricing and negotiating is at your fingertips
Pricing Assignment Photography
With the new and updated Coach categories the Assignment Coach is so full of information that it’s like having a photo pricing seminar built into the program. You also get negotiating suggestions on how to deal with clients …”

Learn more about PhotoQuote here.

Find more business resources here.

Learn more in my Digital Printing and Digital Photography workshops.

Category: Business, Software
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Get 20% off Imagenomic products with this discount code JPC2007.

Noiseware is the most robust noise-reduction software available. Ironically, while it offers the most sophisticated feature set, very often the default settings when you first open an image are all you’re likely to need. In many cases, very little, if any, additional tweaking is necessary.

In part, this is because Noiseware analyzes the images you process and creates “profiles” or saved settings that it uses every time you open a new image. It intelligently learns your needs by tracking your past images and analyzing your new images. You can also use Noiseware’s tools to create your own profiles, which can be saved and reused. You can save your own Preferences for how you’d like Noiseware to behave and learn. Noiseware also offers 13 default settings (like Landscape, Night Scene, Portrait, Stronger Noise, etc.) and allows you to save your own custom settings, which can be created from scratch or by modifying the provided presets.

Noiseware’s ability to target noise reduction to specific aspects of an image is what makes it unparalleled. You can adjust Noise Reduction based on Luminance or Chrominance; higher settings produce stronger noise reduction. You can target Noise Level based on Luminance or Chrominance; higher settings tell the software there’s more noise. You can target Color Range; Noise Reduction and Noise Level can be customized by hue—reds, yellows, greens, cyans, blues, magentas, neutrals. You can target Tonal Range; Noise Reduction and Noise Level can be customized for shadows, midtones and highlights. You can target image areas based on Frequency (or amount of detail); Noise Reduction and Noise Level can be customized to High, Mid, Low and Very Low frequencies. Finally, you can enhance detail, first, by using Detail Protection to reduce the effect based on Luminance or Color, and second, by using Detail Enhancement, which provides Sharpening, Contrast and Edge Smoothening.

Noiseware’s ability to provide this level of selectivity is extraordinary. It allows you to easily customize noise reduction for separate areas of an image without making complex masks. You’ll want to do this. Here’s just one example, among many, of why you want to do this. Smooth image areas reveal noise much more readily and they support more noise reduction, while highly textured image areas hide noise, but don’t support as much noise reduction without compromising apparent image sharpness.

Read my full review on Digital Photo Pro.

Find Imagenomic’s Noiseware here.

Read more in my digital photography resources.

Learn more in my digital printing workshops.

Category: Discount, Software
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Looking for information on how to price licensing and assignment work?
PhotoQuote Pro is the software I use.

“When someone wants to use one of your photos, you don’t need a number pulled out of a hat, you need help to get paid fairly for your work. You need fotoQuote, the industry standard photo pricing guide for stock and assignment photography.

FotoQuote is the only source of photo pricing information for photographers that includes powerful coaching help for every category. FotoQuote not only helps you come up with a fair price for your image license, but it also gives you the negotiation information you need to help you close the sale.

FotoQuote Pro 6 has just been released and it’s our biggest upgrade in the almost twenty years since the original version of our photo pricing calculator was written. We’ve added 86 new categories bringing the total to 304. The new version now includes both still and video stock footage categories, assignment pricing, thumbnails, international currency and much more.”

Learn more about PhotoQuote here.

Find more business resources here.

Learn more in my Digital Printing and Pro Portfolio workshops.

Category: Business, Software
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Get 20% off OnOne products with this code – PRINT20 !

OnOne offers free Plug-Ins.

You can add professional photographic effects, frames and backgrounds in Photoshop with just a few clicks with PhotoTools 2.5 Free Edition and PhotoFrame 4.5 Free Edition from onOne. You can also download free Lightroom Presets and Camera Raw Presets to speed up your workflow and instantly add effects. These products are yours to keep (they don’t expire) and will save you hours of time enhancing images in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Learn more about OnOne here.
Learn more in my digital photography workshops.

Category: Software
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OnOne software recently announced major updates and additions to their product line.

DSLR Camera Remote HD
OnOne’s popular remote release app now includes the ability to start and stop video on Canon and Nikon DSLR cameras from the iPad.  Specifically designed for the iPad, the new DSLR Camera Remote HD will include a redesigned interface takes full advantage of the larger screen on the iPad, improved gesture-based preview functionality and the addition of starting, stopping and monitoring video from supported HD DSLR cameras from Canon and Nikon.  This update will also include support for additional cameras.

Perfect Photo Suite 5.5
Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, the update to Plug-In Suite 5, includes the next generation of Genuine Fractals, Perfect Resize 7 along with the completely new product Perfect Layers.  In addition, many of the products within Perfect Photo Suite will now be available directly in Lightroom and Aperture, without the need for a separate host application.  PhotoTools 2.6 and Mask Pro 4.1 continue to function directly within Photoshop and do not run as stand-alone applications.

Perfect Resize
Perfect Resize 7 is the next generation of Genuine Fractals.  Perfect Resize adds new features for achieving sharp detail when enlarging images, new gallery wrap and tiling options, and interface enhancements for photographers who want to make the highest quality prints. Perfect Resize can now be used directly from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture without the need for a separate host application.

Perfect Layers
Perfect Layers, is a new addition to the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5.  Perfect Layers gives photographers the ability to easily create and work with layered files in their workflow application of choice and to bring those files directly into Photoshop. Perfect Layers supports the creation of layered files that can be opened and edited by Adobe Photoshop software and can be used directly from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software, Adobe Bridge and Apple Aperture.

Find out more about onOne products here.

Category: Software
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Make electronic or print on demand magazines with MagCloud.

Find out more about MagCloud here.

Find my design resources here.

Category: Books, Software
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adobeproductupdates

Adobe released multiple free updates today.

Camera Raw 6.2
Lightroom 3.2
Dreamweaver CS5 11.0.3
Bridge CS5 4.0.3

Download them here.

Category: CS5, lightroom, Photoshop, Software
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MulticolrSearchLab-FlickrIdee’s MultiColr Search Lab lets you search over 10 million Creative Commons images on Flickr by color using their visual similarity technology.

Learn more in this video. Then try it!

Category: Software, Website
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noiseware

Who doesn’t have noise? If you don’t run into noise in your digital images, at least once in a while, you may not be pushing the envelope enough. You can photograph long after dark; if you haven’t tried it, you owe it to yourself to experience this—it’s magical. And if you find you don’t have a DSLR on hand, this should be no reason not to make pictures with a point-and-shoot or cell phone.

Whether you’re using a cell phone, a point-and-shoot digital camera or a DSLR at high ISOs or with very long exposures, you’re bound to run into some noise. Noise happens. When you have it, there’s a lot you can do about it. There are many ways you can reduce noise during postprocessing; you could even say there’s an art to it. Learning these techniques can improve good exposures and save others.

If Lightroom and Photoshop fail to adequately reduce noise in your images, it’s time to move to third-party plug-ins. For years, they’ve done a superior job of reducing noise, and they still do. While there are many fine third-party plug-ins for Photoshop (Noise Ninja, Neat Image, Dfine, etc.), one stands out from all the rest: Imagenomic’s Noiseware Professional.

For me, Noiseware is the most robust noise-reduction software available. Ironically, while it offers the most sophisticated feature set, very often the default settings when you first open an image are all you’re likely to need. In many cases, very little, if any, additional tweaking is necessary …

Read more at Digital PhotoPro.

Find Noiseware here.

Learn more in my workshops.

Category: Software, Technique
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iPhone OS 4

April 9, 2010 | Leave a Comment

iphoneos4

Yesterday, Apple announced the new OS 4 for iPhone (summer) and iPad (fall).
There are over 100 new features.
The big news is multi-tasking.
The top 7 of 100 iPhone OS 4 items include …

- Background Audio
- Voice Over IP
- Background Location
- Push Notifications
- Local Notifications
- Task Completion

Here are some interesting figures that put this all in a larger perspective.

- Apple is the largest mobile devices company in the world.
- 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies use the iPhone.
- 50 million iPhones sold to date. Add in the iTouch and it’s 85 million iPhones and iPod touches.
- iPhone is 64% of mobile browser usage. Everything else added together is half of the iPhone.
- 450K iPads sold to date.
- 185 K Apps in the Apple App Store now.
- 3500 iPad Apps now available.
- 1,000,000 Apps downloaded on first day of iPad.
- Over 600K downloads of iBooks.
- iAd is in the iPhone OS itself. 60% of revenue goes to the developer.

Learn more at Apple.
Learn more at BestAppSite.
Review the live coverage of the announcement at AppleInsider.
Learn more at The Huffington Post.

Check out my latest article on The Huffington Post.
36 Reasons To Have A Smart Phone Camera Everywhere You Go

Category: iPhone, Software
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