There has been a lot of discussion lately about the mute switch and how it works with alarms.  See thoughts by John Gruber, Andy Ihnatko or Guy English.  We ran across this problem when creating Easy Alarms.  I was not aware of the fact that the alarms made sound when muted and I was of the opinion that was the wrong choice since I often use alarms to remind me of things during the day.  Daniel leaves his phone on mute and does not want to have to remember to unmute to have the alarm wake him.

I see both sides, but as a third party developer you do not have the option to make sound when the phone is on mute so Easy Alarms does not make sound when an alarm goes off when muted.  By combining the use of a third party alarm app with the iPhone alarm app, you can have it both ways.  Use the iPhone alarm app to wake you up in the morning and use a third party app like Easy Alarms for daily alarms.

We’d love you to try Easy Alarms, it’s free

We’re happy to announce that Instaview is now available on the Mac App Store.

You can also learn more about it here on our website.

It’s time to reveal what we’ve been working on these last few months, but first a little background. Instagram, an app available for iPhone is in the words of its creators at Burbn, “a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends.” The number of people who have adopted this service as their favorite way to share photos has been nothing short of amazing. A recent article puts its userbase at 5 million.

We too have enjoyed using the app over the last several months and have decided to provide a way for Instagram users to view these photos with a native Mac application.

Instaview allows you to easily set up one or more windows which will each show an Instagram photo stream. You can choose from several picture frames styles to showcase each photo stream. An overlay appears when you mouse over each stream window, allowing you to see more information about the photo being displayed. At that point you’re a click away from viewing who has liked or commented on the photo, further information about the Instagrammer, the ability to like the photo, follow the contributor or add your own comment. Our badging feature lets you know when new photos are available for viewing. Finally, each window can also become its own slideshow which will cycle through its stream’s photos.

Instaview will be available Monday August 1st exclusively from the Mac App Store at the introductory price of $5. Feel free to contact us for more information.

We at RogueSheep are happy to announce our latest update to TouchUp for iPad, our creative photo editing application.  We’ve been collecting feedback since its initial release in October of last year and are excited about the new features this version has to offer:

Flickr

We’ve brought home the full promise of Flickr in this release with full integration of Flickr functionality.  This includes the ability to browse and import photos using your Flickr sets, tags and favorites.  First you’ll need a Flickr account, but with that TouchUp will allow you to securely log in so you can import your photos as source material and also export your TouchUp creations.

New Filters

Pixelate – Drop the resolution of specific areas of your photo.

Sharpen – Use this filter when you want to make the edges in your image stand out.

Vignette – This fades the corners of your image.  Apply a mask to the areas you don’t want fading into the shadows to make them pop!

Cross Process – This ‘lo-fi’ filter simulates intentionally developing your photos with the wrong chemical solution for a cool effect.  Learn more here.

Redscale – Another ‘lo-fi’ filter simulating incorrect exposure of camera film.  Learn more here.

Improved Mask Functionality

(The ‘mask’ is simply the part of the photo that has the effect applied to it.)

Swap Effect – This feature allows you to keep the mask you’ve created on your current layer while switching to a new effect.

Copy Mask – This allows you to apply a new effect of your choosing on top of the current effect and reusing reuse the mask you’ve created for the current layer.

AirPrint

If you have an AirPrint enabled printer, TouchUp now detects your printer, therefore allowing you to print wirelessly.  Don’t have an AirPrint printer?  There are software options to turn the printer connected to your desktop device into an AirPrint-detectable printer. For Macs, we found that eCamm’s Printopia software works great.

If you have questions about TouchUp, feel free to contact us.

Macworld Expo 2011 is fast approaching and we still have a few passes to give away for free admission. If you are an Apple fan and can make it to San Francisco this week, you will not want to miss this event. Last year was a fantastic time. Besides the show floor full of great products, developers and other goodies for all things Apple, the expo played host for a lot of great content and talks. I’m sure this year won’t disappoint.

Of course, you will once again find RogueSheep showing off our iOS software including TouchUp for iPad. We’ll be at booth 818, kiosk #61 in the Mobile Application Showcase. Last year the Mobile Application Showcase was a huge hit. This year will be the first for iPad apps, so it’s bound to be even better. We’d love to see you there, so be sure and stop by to say hello if you are at the expo. We have some great buttons and other fun schwag to give away.

If you would still like a pass to come see the expo show floor for free, just send a quick email to macworld2011@roguesheep.com

Hope to see you there!

 

As we start to wind down and settle into the holiday season here at RS HQ, we have a couple of quick updates for you about our newest app: TouchUp for iPad.

Problems with RAW images

A few of our users have reported problems importing RAW photos into TouchUp after updating to iOS 4.2 on their iPads. Some photos in the RAW format will result in a very low resolution image when imported from the Photo Library. The resulting image is about the size of a thumbnail (less than 200 pixels on a side) and when scaled up to fit the display in TouchUp will immediately look very pixelated. In our testing here and with the reports we have had from users so far, the problem seems to be only occurring with RAW images from Nikon cameras (the .NEF format).

It appears that something changed between iOS 3.2 and 4.2 that has caused this problem. If you have seen this behavior, we suspect you have also encountered similar issues with other applications when trying to use the same RAW images. We have reported the issue to Apple and have been working with them to resolve the problem, but the process has been slow so far. We are also continuing to look into ways to work around the issue independently.

When we have more news we will be sure to share it here. If you happen to have encountered this problem with RAW images from other vendors besides Nikon, be sure to let us know here so we can communicate that to Apple as well.

 

TouchUp Featured in iTunes Rewind for 2010

In some slightly better news, we were thrilled to find that TouchUp was featured as one of the apps in the iTunes Rewind promotion on the App Store. The Hot Trends in Apps block featured prominently at the top of the store lists several categories of iPad apps that were big movers on the App Store in 2010. TouchUp is one of the apps selected for the Pen and Brush section! We couldn’t be more thrilled. Thanks to Apple and all of you for a great launch of TouchUp in 2010.

 

If you have any comments or questions about TouchUp, be sure to let us know. Enjoy the holidays and see you again in 2011.

A week ago we released a new version of SnoGlobe, one of our RogueSheep apps, and this week I decided to share a little behind the scenes data. SnoGlobe was previously priced at $0.99 and had been languishing in the sea of iOS apps. On a good day we sold 2. For the entire month of November we made $40. We figured we could do better as a free app with ads, and besides, we were itching to take iAds out for a spin.

First, the good news. Putting iAds into an iOS application is as easy as the documentation says it is. And in its first week as a free app with iAds, SnoGlobe had respectable downloads, over 50,000 ad requests, and made 3 times what it made in all of November.

Now for the not so great news. As you’ve probably just done the math in your head, that comes out to $120. That’s more than it was bringing in as a paid app, so we made the right choice. But $120 from 50,000 ad requests must mean an abysmal fill rate. Turns out that’s exactly the issue, but for a completely valid reason: Most of our downloads and over 42,000 of the ad requests are from Turkey, but there are no iAd ads in Turkey yet.

Nonetheless, we are glad we did it, and and I am sure we’ll integrate iAds into future RogueSheep offerings. Without further ado, here’s the iAd data from SnoGlobe’s first seven days:

Here at RogueSheep we hope you are as excited about the holiday season as we are. With all the running around buying perfect gifts we know you need a break. If you haven’t already sent your holiday cards we have some great news about two of our iOS apps that should save you some time. You’ll be able to re-energize so it will not be a mad-dash on Christmas Eve to fulfill all those wish lists.

Last year around this time we introduced a new seasonal iPhone application, SnoGlobe. If you haven’t seen it before, SnoGlobe is a faithful reproduction of a traditional holiday snow globe with flakes that react to the motion of your device. You can add a photo from your Photo Library or take a new one right on the spot. SnoGlobe is great for ringing in holiday cheer. We found a lot of folks enjoyed the application and we wanted to spread the joy even further this year.

SnoGlobe 2.0 was released today. This update adds support for iOS 4, cleans up a few minor issues and incorporates Apple’s new iAd technology. The biggest change though, is that SnoGlobe is now free!

Now there is really no reason to deprive your iPhone or iPod of some solid holiday decor! You can find it in the App Store at http://itunes.com/app/SnoGlobe

 

One app isn’t enough to contain all the Yule-tide fever in our flock. If you are a fan of our award-winning postcard application, Postage, be sure to check out Holiday ~ Postage. It uses the same virtual postcard engine as Postage, but gives you 10 holiday inspired postcard designs and the interface is dressed-up just perfect for the season. This edition of Postage contains some of our very best designs, so don’t miss it if you didn’t grab it last year. You can find Holiday ~ Postage for just $0.99 on the App Store at http://itunes.com/app/HolidayPostage.

 

Happy Holidays

All of us here at RogueSheep hope each one of you has a fantastic holiday and thank you for your support. We look forward to bringing more exciting products and updates to you in the coming year!