I enjoy quickly putting together videos using my iPhone and occasionally an iPad. I often capture videos using Filmic Pro [1], ProCam 3 [2] or the built in iOS camera app. Sometimes I’ll add a few still images and a bit of music.

Two recent examples:

Turkeys, while cycling, and a Glorious Picnic Point Walk.

However, I’ve been surprised to learn that iMovie on iPhone or iPad lacks important features found on the Mac version.

I find this state of affairs rather surprising while Apple moves iOS upmarket via the new iPad Pro. To wit: Apple CEO Tim Cook at the September, 2015 iPad Pro introduction [3]:

“This is the clearest expression of our vision of the future of personal computing, a simple multitouch piece of glass that instantly transforms into anything you want it to be…”

One would think that iPad Pro’s iMovie would have feature parity, if not superiority over the Mac OS X version… Rather, the current iOS iMove app lacks:

1. White and color balance adjustments. The designers appear to believe that “filters are sufficient”. Occasionally useful, filters are no substitute for real white balance and color adjustments.

2. A deep and wide sound effect and theme music library. The mac version of iMovie includes an extensive sound library. The iOS version is unbearably thin.

Compare the screens:

Mac OS X iMovie

iMovie on iPad

iMovie on iPhone

Extra Credit for iMovie iOS developers:

3. Use the cloud…. iOS users should have access to a great set of royalty free music and video stock footage via iCloud. Apple might offer some interesting commercial tunes to Apple Music subscribers.

4. Think different about visual events. Rather than promoting oldster music in the worst way [4], why not embrace live events? I contemplated this opportunity while listening to Phox [5], after avoiding Melt Banana [6], at the inaugural Eaux Claires Festival [7].

Most “festival people” are too far from the stage to enjoy all aspects of a show – particularly when most venues lack live big screens. Why not expand iMovie so “festival people” can stream and share – p2p style – their experience, live. The band could place iPhones around the stage, near instruments and above the scene. Everything would be available and mixed. A true immersive experience.

The event and interactive views from all iOS users are archived locally and via iCloud.

Make it the best!

Links

[1] Filmic Pro.

[2] ProCam 3

[3] iPad Pro Introduction.

[4] U2’s Bono issues apology for automatic Apple iTunes album download.

[5] Phox

[6] Melt Banana

[7] Eaux Claires

* “Hey Apple” is a play on iOS’s new “Hey Siri” prompt.

** Apple’s track record on sticking with more advanced vertical apps is not promising – see the Aperture debacle.

*** I’ve kept a log of iPhone camera progress: http://www.zmetro.com/i6s/

website

website.

Tim O’Reilly:

In many ways, Uber and Airbnb represent a 21st century update of the franchising model. In franchising, the parent company brands and markets the product, sets standards for producing it, and charges a licensing fee and receives a percentage of revenue from each of its franchisees.
 
 The difference is that technology radically lowers the barriers to being a franchisee. In many ways, you can call the modern trend “the franchise of one.” The smallest unit of franchising in the past was a small business, with all the overhead that implies: real estate, equipment, uniforms, employees (including managers), and so on. Today, the franchise can be a single individual, and that individual can work only part time, so it’s really “the franchise of one or even less!”
 
 Branding and advertising are much less necessary because the app itself becomes a customer habit that delivers business. There are little or no capital requirements, workers can schedule their own time, and turn their own under-utilized personal assets (a car, a house, or other equipment) into business assets. In her book Peers Inc, Robin Chase refers to this as “excess capacity.”
 
 Internet era networks don’t just seek to eliminate workers, they seek to augment them. Invest in software that empowers your workers, allowing them to multiply their effectiveness and to create magical new user experiences for customers.

Turkeys

Mattermark:

Once these communication tools get fully integrated into the health community, my bet is that we’ll initially hear some complaining from the incumbents: most likely, something like ‘my staff had to learn all of these new apps, and it didn’t really improve my clinic at all!’ just like with EHRs in round one. But then, just like before, we’ll see health care providers quietly divest themselves of the low-end jobs that they don’t really want to be doing: getting their patients to eat healthier, exercise more, watch their blood pressure, and seek peer support groups. Those have never been moneymakers anyway, right?

Scenes from a recent University of Wisconsin football game.

Picnic Point.

A brief video captured while walking on Madison’s Picnic Point.

Music: Kronos Quartet does Sigur Ros.

UPDATED:
Listen to this event via a mp3 audio file. My question begins at about 30:40 of the 58 minute event.

I often try to attend WisPolitics’ periodic lunches. These events feature members of the political class, including elected officials, candidates, lobbyists and many other parts of the “machine”.

The meetings are a rare opportunity to publicly question our elected officials [3].

And so it was on Friday, that current US Senator Ron Johnson, running for re-election in 2016, participated in a WisPolitics event.

My question:

I am glad that you mentioned liberty and accountability (in your opening remarks).

During the past few years, the CIA has admitted hacking into the Senate computers [1] and the Director of National intelligence acknowledged lying to Congress [2]. Both are felonies. Yet, nothing has been done.

You have voted repeatedly for secret courts and domestic spying. How will our grandkids view these decisions?

Johnson defended his votes (I did not get the sense that he understands these issues in depth – see Barton Gellman at Purdue) and mentioned that he has met with members of the “secret courts”. I responded that the lack of oversight does little for most Americans and that the non secret courts have begun to require warrants for certain government actions.

Suggested Reading:

Eben Moglen on Snowden and the future.

Retroactive immunity for US telecom companies.

Behind the European Privacy Ruling That’s Confounding Silicon Valley.

Why Sony’s Breach Matters.

Parallel Construction

Stingray phone tracker

How is NSA breaking so much crypto?.

Another perspective: The Painful Truth About Snowden – John Schindler.

John Oliver interviews Edward Snowden.

The Secret History of American Surveillance.

Suggested Films:

Citizen Four and the Lives of Others.

Listen to this event via a mp3 audio file. My question begins at about 30:40 of the 58 minute event.

Watch it here.

[1] CIA hacks into Senate computers.

[2] Director of National intelligence acknowledged lying to Congress.

[3] A question free Madison appearance: Russ Feingold and Elizabeth Warren.

[4] The Cap Time’s Jessie Opoien posted a thin event summary.

wispolitics.com.

Ron Johnson’s Campaign Website 2010 campaign website via archive.org My archive. @senronjohnson

Russ Feingold’s Campaign Website. 2002 website and 2010 via archive.org My archive. @russfeingold

Jay Stanley:

China is launching a comprehensive “credit score” system, and the more I learn about it, the more nightmarish it seems. China appears to be leveraging all the tools of the information age—electronic purchasing data, social networks, algorithmic sorting—to construct the ultimate tool of social control. It is, as one commentator put it, “authoritarianism, gamified.” Read this piece for the full flavor—it will make your head spin. If that and the little other reporting I’ve seen is accurate, the basics are this: