I’m obsessed with certain types of organization… yet am actually not all that organized. So those few things that I can keep total control over, I do my best. You know, things like my wallet, my desktop and my iPhone. And sometimes my room. Sadly, that’s about it.

I don’t think I want to admit, even to myself, how many hours I use my iPhone every day, I’m going to put the estimate at over 6, especially since I’ve usually run the battery down by 3pm. WHAT I’m doing during all that time… well yeah I’ll just say BIG business.

So… here’s how I have my apps organized… the games folders are new (I used to just have a bunch of folders all named “Games”)… and I’m only sharing this because I’m curious how everyone else does it. Folders in iOS 4 changed my life. What about yours?

first screen has my most used apps (in theory)

second screen is everything else, organized into folders

third screen has all the games, though I haven’t found a great folder system yet (hence this blog post)

fourth screen is for my junk folder and where I keep new apps that I’m testing before being put info a folder

So… how do you do it?

When Joe Philipson asked me to accompany him to Japan Nite at The Viper Room over the phone from Austin while he was hanging out at the SXSW Music Festival I just said yes. I didn’t really even know what the heck he was talking about. Seriously… it sounded cool… but I still had no idea.

It wasn’t, in fact, until we actually got to The Viper Room on the night of ??the concert that I even found out exactly what was going on. A bunch of Japanese bands playing one after the other at a really cool LA venue. There was Chatmonchy, JinnyOops, Red Bacteria Vacuum, Omodaka and OKAMOTO’S. Ok, this I could dig… if I like the music.

I did.

My favorite band was JinnyOops, although the version I loved was not the full band… as they were missing their horn players… but I do still enjoy their recorded music very much!

I brought my iPhone and the Olympus E-P2 that I have on loan from Olympus… and was amazingly impressed with both cameras. I haven’t really used the iPhone for much, but recently downloaded Hipstamatic app and have been shooting some fun shots with it… and I used it on the crazily lit stage with some pretty cool results.

OKAMOTO’S via iPhone regular camera app:

OKAMOTO’S via iPhone Hipstamatic app:

chatmonchy via iPhone Hipstamatic app:

OKAMOTO’S via Olympus E-P2 :

JinnyOops via Olympus E-P2 :

You can see the entire set HERE.

I’m looking forward to shooting more with the iPhone and a LOT more with Hipstamatic. I didn’t do much with the Olympus this night… but it’s been amazing otherwise… so some great images should be forthcoming.

Click to download TiltShift in iTunes

(see update at bottom of post, 11/24/2010)

I heard about this iPhone app called TiltShift this morning (though it’s been out for some time now)… and had to try it out for myself. From what I’ve seen there are a few of them out there… but this one looked to me to be the most interesting one. It’s $1.99 on the Apple app store… so you can see my first impressions here before taking the plunge. ;)

Tilt shift movements in photography were originally provided on large-format view cameras… then Nikon introduced a lens for 35mm cameras in the 60′s and Canon in the 70′s. It was originally used to correct perspective shifts in photography such as in architecture… but most recently tilt shift used much more often for creative effect. When used properly you can make real-life scenes look like miniatures or toys… which is fun.

Unfortunately tilt-shift lenses aren’t cheap. Canon’s tilt shift lenses are both over $1k and I’m sure Nikon’s are around the same. So… people usually resort to Photoshop. You usually can’t get the same effect out of your images… but if they are shot perfectly and Photoshopped perfectly… you can get the tilt shift look without having to actually buy the lens (and learn to use it properly).

Enter the iPhone and the billion apps for it. Now you can do tilt shift photography right on your phone… and it actually looks pretty neat. Not perfect, not professional… and certainly not like a real tilt-shift lens. It is, however, very cool for something that can take less than a minute from capture to Tweeting your latest faux tilt shift masterpiece… and all from your beloved iPhone.

Check out the TiltShift app on iTunes. For $1.99 it’s pretty darn cool.

These are images I shot today at Disneyland and edited directly in the TiltShift app.

Click to download TiltShift in iTunes

UPDATE

Michael Krause, author of Tiltshift app, emailed me to explain some things and let me know about the recent update!

“To clarify the erratic behavior of the save function and the missing want-half-size-dialog:

The dialog appears only for photos that take a long time to process (more that 20 seconds) for example. This only happens with high-resolution photos and lens blur. What probably happened to you was that you saved a high-resolution photo in half-size and you got the dialog. Later you loaded this saved half-sized photo and saved it again. Because the source was no longer high-resolution it was automatically saved as is without asking for resolution reduction again.

Regarding the Bokeh possibility this is not well documented but the three main points are:
1) Lens blur must be on.
2) Bokeh is best with night time images with isolated light points
3 )The blur level and blooming factor must be high enough that blooming kicks in.

A third issue you mentioned was that the parameters are not reset when loading a new image. You can reset all parameters at once with a tap-and-hold gesture on the button to the left of the slider.”

Version 2.1 was released on Oct 21, 2010.

Thanks for the answers and for the new software update, Michael!

We (Lan, Bonny, Paul Dateh and I) all flew to Oregon for Adam Wallenta‘s wedding, which I’ll write about in a future blog… but here is a quick video of Bonny’s first run after her surgery.

It was shot with a regular iPhone 3G (not 3GS) using the jailbroken iPhone app Cycorder. Cycorder allowed for ridiculously slow shutter speeds when it was dark… which made for some really cool effects with fast motion.

Also we learned that Paul Dateh doesn’t run fast in a suit.