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myPANTONE, v1.0 ($9.99)Developer: X-Rite/PantoneApp Store rating

This application seeks to virtualize thevenerable fan-deck of the Pantone Mix-ing Systems that anyone in the graphicarts will immediately recognize. Usingthe iPhone’s touch screen interface, asimple swipe takes you to the desiredrange of colours, then a tap brings up aparticular page, and one more to a pre-cise swatch complete with the requisiteRGB, LAB and HTML values. The user

can then drag the swatch down into thecolour well running along the bottom ofthe screen. The application also comesloaded with a wide variety of PantoneSwatch libraries including the new GOEcolour system and their Fashion +Home Designer collection.

The myPANTONE app also integrateswith the iPhone camera so that users cantake a picture of the scene or object andsample the colours to build colour setsbased on any hue in the image. Users canalso access any image in their iPhoto col-lection for the same purpose. Thesecolour palettes can then be shared in anumber of ways. Users can email HTMLimages of the palette, email colourpalettes that can be imported intoQuark, Corel and Adobe applications, or

simply upload the palettes to the my-PANTONE.com palette-sharing site.

The downside is the lack of colourmanagement in the iPhone OS meaningthat your screen view is useless as aproofing tool in the pressroom. Likewise,sampling colours from a photo takenwith an iPhone camera will produce veryapproximate results when referencedagainst the real scene. However, if used asa reference tool this application gives auser access to immediate cross-referenc-ing between colour libraries and the abil-ity to experiment with colour groupingson the go. And while $9.99 might seem abit pricy in the $2.99 world of iPhoneApps, the depth of information providedis invaluable to anyone working withcolour on a daily basis.

The impact of mobile communications on printingchanged forever on June 29, 2007, when Steve Jobs un-leashed the first true smartphone on an unsuspecting

world. At the time of the launch, naturally producedwith Apple’s perceptive and precise mar-keting, much was made of the iPhone’sability to utilize applications created bythird-party developers. While many sus-pected that Apple’s App Store businessmodel would do well, few predicted therunaway success that this concept turnedbusiness would enjoy. At the time ofwriting, there were 96,539 applicationsavailable in the Apple App Store rangingin price from free up to $899.99 for ahigh-end video surveillance application.

This sort of excitement was once savedfor the prepress environment throughQuark and Adobe extensions, but nowthird-party development is becoming abeacon for even the most pedestriantechnology consumer, which bears out inApple’s App store numbers.

With a worldwide developer commu-nity numbering the in the thousandshungrily eyeing Apple’s growing slice ofthe smartphone pie, naturally there is agreat deal of competition to get in on thecreation of the next big thing. Storiesabound of humble college students de-veloping an iPhone app for a school as-signment suddenly making $300,000 in a weekend whentheir app becomes a viral hit. As for the functionality ofthese Apps, some 99-cent products have become indis-pensable in people’s lives while others are useless in spiteof a relatively high price.

I wrote about the potential threat of this iPhone tech-nology to the graphic arts community in the July editionof PrintAction (Apple and the iFuture of Print), and forgood reason – Apple’s seductive technologies have thepotential to undermine the foundation of several seg-ments of the traditional print market such as magazine,newspaper and book publishing. Many application de-velopers, however, are also focusing on building tools forpeople actively involved in the graphic arts.

Hiflex was the first major player to embrace the mobilecommunications aspect of the iPhone with the release ofits Hiflex iPhone Portal. This app allows Hiflex MIS users

to checkup on what isgoing on back atthe plant, see detailsabout customer interactions, ac-cess estimating capability, CRMfunctions and production feed-back all via their 3G or wirelessinternet connection. Transferring

this kind of functionality to a remote device frees up man-agement and sales staff to spend more time in the fieldwithout packing around a laptop.

This year’s PRINT 09 tradeshow in Chicago broughtthe announcement of other iPhone applications target-ing the graphic arts community. At their press confer-ence, X-Rite announced the myPANTONE iPhoneapplication, giving any designer the ability to create andshare Pantone Colour Palettes remotely – “wheneverthey find inspiration” as their press release emphasized.Also, EFI was demonstrating the latest version of its PaceManagement Information System featuring a compan-ion iPhone app enabling remote access. With the PaceiPhone application users can monitor their client’s work,track shipments and receive live status updates. Utiliz-ing Apple’s in-app services, users can also text, email orcall from within the program or even access a live Web-

cam feed of theirpressroom floor.

As a print guy and an avidconsumer of paper periodicals and

books, I was reluctant to embrace the potentially dis-ruptive iPhone. With Hiflex, EFI and X-Rite developingiPhone applications, however, I thought maybe it wastime for another look. So, following that old adage of“keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” I de-cided that it was time to lay my hands on an iPhone andset out to discover if there is anyway this domineeringtechnology would be able to help the print communityrather than hinder it.

As a relative newcomer to the iPhone mobile platform,and always one to seek maximum function for minimalexpense, I began searching through the myriad of appli-cations available in the App Store for other software ti-tles geared towards those of us who still make a livingproducing the printed page. Of course, you won’t findthe Hiflex or EFI Apps in the consumer-oriented AppleApp Store – these proprietary applications are compan-ions to elaborate and pricy MIS applications. However, Iwas able to find several Apps available to the generalpublic, ranging in price from Free to $9.99, and rangingin function from indispensable to useless. Here are a fewof the more notable Apps:

14 • PRINTACTION • NOVEMBER 2009

iPhone Apps for Printing

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Color Expert, v1.0 ($9.99)Developer: Code LineApp Store rating

Aimed at the same demographic as my-PANTONE, Color Expert is an interac-tive colour wheel and swatch tool thatprovides both artistic and scientificanalysis tools for colour selection. Ver-sion 1.0 offers an interactive colour wheel

with multiple colour schemes to choosecomplimentary, split complementary, tri-adic, monochromatic or analogousmatches. The swatch libraries focus onthe four principle Pantone groups as wellas web safe and HTML colours. The nextversion of this application is due beforeyear-end and promises several enhance-ments including full CMYK support, newinput methods, camera support andpalette export for Adobe workflows.

Colorstrology, v1.0 (FREE)Developer: X-Rite/PantoneApp Store rating

I downloaded this bit of fun whilesearching the App Store for “Pantone”.According to X-Rite: “You are part ofthat rainbow of light and just as beingborn on a particular day under a par-ticular Sun sign offers insights into yourpersonality and nature, there is also apersonal colour that corresponds to thereal you” – clearly they have some hip-pies working the marketing depart-ment. Colorstrology tries to tell youwhat colours are best suited to your as-trological type by birth date. For my

birth date, the choices presented werewildly inaccurate. As a designer, ifyou’re going to try to predict your cus-tomer’s colour preferences by divina-tion, you might as well try to read thedried-up chicken bones in the bottomof a KFC bucket… don’t waste yourtime with this one.

Palettes, v1.6 ($9.99)Developer: Richard MaddyApp Store rating: UnratedYet another colour sampling and paletteorganizing application for the designer

on the go, Palettes seems much moreartistic in its approach to colour ogani-zation. Users can create, save and sharecolour pallets for virtually any use.Colours can be sampled from any sourceincluding photos or websites as well asbeing added using any one of severalcolour models. As one of the earliestcolour palette applications available inthe iTunes App Store, Palettes estab-lished a fairly large and loyal followingin the design community well beforePantone officially entered the fray. Timewill tell if they can hold onto that loyaltynow that the big boys in the colourworld are in the game.

WhatTheFont, v1.1 (FREE)Developer: Bitstream Inc. dba Myfonts.comApp Store rating

I hate when I have an idea for a softwaretool and somebody else develops it first!I’ve always dreamed of creating an appthat could identify fonts by sight. Thisclever application by Bitstream Inc. usesthe iPhone camera to take a picture of a

Continued on page 30

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font then connects with www.myfonts.com, Bitstream’s online font storefrontto identify (and hopefully sell you…) thefont. The process is pretty straightfor-ward – first take a picture of the desiredlettering from either a printed piece orsignage (or use a webpage or any photoin your iPhoto library); second, selecteach letter of the photo, and identify it;third, upload your sample to the myfontswebsite and wait for the result.

The app works best with letters thatare not too cursive or connected andwith high-contrast well-lit photos. Tak-ing a photo of the typography on a Co-rona beer label in a dingy bar didn’twork too well, but a nice clean shot of apizza menu (on the way home from thebar) did correctly identify “ITC Sou-venir”. Currently the app doesn’t enjoyvery high ratings in Apple’s App Store,but for a FREE tool this v1.1 app showsa lot of promise. If nothing else, it’s funfor you type geeks out there.

FontShuffle, v1.1.2 (FREE)Developer: FontShop AGApp Store rating

FontShuffle is a very elegant and simplis-tic font selection tool for the designer onthe go, offering more than 650 font sam-ples are organized by visual similarities.The application contains the entire col-lection of FontShop, one of the web’s up-scale font vendors and the library isupdated constantly – which makes it auseful shirt pocket resource for buddingtypographers.

Zac BolanContinued from page 15

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well as adjust exposure, saturation, tintand make black and white renderings.Additionally sketch and soft focus filtersare included along with a tacky assort-ment of cheesy special effects… I’m surethe Colorstrology marketing team willlove the Rainbow effect.

However, there real benefit here is im-mediate access to online image librarieson a mobile device – a feature that mightbe quite useful to a project manager awayfrom their desk. Anyone can created a freePhotoshop.com account and enjoy im-mediate use of up to 2 GB of storagespace for images. Of course, Adobe’s hop-ing you’ll want to buy more.

Photoshop.com Mobile,v1.0.0.209 (FREE)Developer: Adobe Systems Inc.App Store rating

The companion iPhone application toAdobe’s Photoshop.com website allowsusers to access their stored images fromany place and perform simple editingfunctions. While this modest app offersnowhere near the functionality of a fullversion of Photoshop, users can use theiPhone’s touch screen and gesture tech-nology to crop, rotate and flip images as

Graphic Arts Measurement Converter v1.0 ($1.99)Developer: Artillery Lounge LLCApp Store rating: UnratedEvery monitor in every prepress depart-ment I’ve ever visited has had a little cheatsheet taped to its side with common impe-rial fractions and their decimal equivalents– an absolute necessity for anyone buildingfiles to a specified layout in XPress or In-Design. Graphic Arts Measurement Con-verter translates measurements between allcommonly used units: metric, imperial,points and picas with either a built in cal-culator interface, or a designer’s fractionstable. This app is little pricy for somethingyou can make yourself, print out and stickto your monitor with a piece of tape – how-ever, there’s the cool factor of using youriPhone for something other than Tap TapRevenge. Maybe v2.0 will include Ciceros,one can only hope!

File storage, scanning and proofingUnless you are a full time photographer ordesigner, your universe consists of muchmore than just fonts, colour palettes andPhotoshop. Sometimes the most effectivetools are those that streamline mundaneeveryday tasks such as PDF viewing, filesharing, scanning and faxing. Documents toGo was a mainstay when the Palm Pilotruled the mobile computing roost and therelease of their iPhone version earlier thisyear was met with great enthusiasm. Simplyput, D2G enables users to store, read andalter Microsoft Office documents or displayPDF files on their iPhone. Anyone in saleswill appreciate the ability to carry MS Wordcorrespondence and MS Excel estimatesalong with PDF proofs in their shirt pocket.

Another application that makes simpleyet effective use of the iPhone’s camera isScannerPro. This app enables users to takephotos of any paper document, adjust thecontrast to make a clear black and whiteimage, then send the document by email orMMS – in effect a mobile fax machine. Agrowing number of Mac users have Mo-bileMe accounts for online storage andbackup of files, amongst other things. Withthe MobileMe iDisk application, sub-scribers can access any file stored in theiriDisk for viewing or forwarding.

And they keep on coming…By the time you read this, the applicationcount in Apple’s App Store will likely havetopped the magical 100,000 mark. That isa pretty big number, but a sizable num-ber of those software titles fall into thecategory of useless ‘iFart-style’ applica-tions good only for a quick laugh at a frathouse party. However, as the app marketmatures, some really intriguing softwaretitles are beginning to emerge and em-power Apple’s genre-defining mobilecomputing platform to move beyond thesmartphone moniker.

And while mobile applications for thegraphic arts will likely remain a nicheproduct for some time to come, with thecontinued growth of the App Store moreare likely to come. Following the lead ofHiflex and EFI, major workflow vendorssuch as Kodak and Esko would be foolishto overlook the opportunity to connecttheir users to the hottest mobile comput-ing device on the market today.

Zac Bolan’s blog: blog.softcircus.com

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