Back in December, 2010, I reviewed the pic.me Tripod Case for iPhone 3G/3GS. It’s a lightweight and low profile case that that transforms into a multi-angle tripod stand and a viewing stand. At the time, I wrote,

The pic.me iPhone case is an attractive case that offers good protection for your iPhone from everyday scratches and bumps. The built-in “kickstand” is a great substitute for users who may otherwise want a tripod simply for time lapse or to get into their own photos. It’s also a great stand for watching video or playing games on your iPhone. Overall, it’s a good case. It packs a lot into a little.

Now, an iPhone 4 version of the case is in the works.

mini-mal, the company behind the pic.me case has created a Kickstarter project to help with funding for the startup costs of tooling the iPhone 4 version of the case. A pledge of $25 or more is a pre-order for your choice of either a black or white iPhone 4 pic.me case. Shipping within the United States is included. Add $3 if you need the case shipped internationally.

According to Joey Chun from mini-mal, the new case works with both the GSM and CDMA iPhone 4 — that’s both AT&T and the new case design of the Verizon iPhone 4 here in the U.S.

Here’s more from the Kickstarter project page:

The pic.me case is a multi-functional iPhone 4 case with the main purpose of allowing users to better utilize the amazing HD video camera built into the iPhone 4. We would like your help to kickstart this project from a single prototype to a high quality production piece. Check out the video!

If you pledge money and the project does not get completely funded, your credit card will never be charged.

The Pic.Me Case
The idea behind the iPhone 4 pic.me case is to add maximum function to a case that normally just protects your iPhone from bumps and bruises. By adding an arm that rotates and locks into 19 different positions over 270 degrees of motion, the pic.me case can stand on its own in a plethora of different positions. These different positions allow you to set the angle of the iPhone just right so that you get the angles you want when viewing the screen, taking photos or shooting video. When you’re done, the arm folds into the case so it’s out of the way. It’s like having a mini-tripod with you all the time.

For more information or to pledge and preorder the pic.me Case for iPhone 4, visit the Kickstarter project page.

Click here to order the pic.me case for iPhone 3G or 3GS in black or white from Amazon.com.

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Disclosure: mini-mal is an advertiser on Life In LoFi, but I really like the 3G/3GS case and they purchased their ad after I wrote my original review.

Want to win the pic.me iPhone case by mini-mal that’s shown above? I’ve got a case for an iPhone 3G or 3GS that I’m giving away to one lucky reader this week.

I recently reviewed the pic.me case here on the blog. It’s a very good low-profile plastic case that will not only help protect your iPhone 3G or 3GS, but it also has a built in “kickstand” which can be used as a tripod or a viewing stand.

The case I’m giving away is a black case. It’s in great shape and has only been slightly reviewed… (we don’t have a 3G/3GS, so I’m giving away my review case).

To be eligible to win, let me know by commenting below. You can comment as many times as you like, but only your first comment will count. Cut-off time to enter is 6:00 PM Central Time tomorrow, Wednesday, December 15, 2010. The winner will be determined by The Random Integer Generator. Winner will be notified by email. This case fits an iPhone 3G or 3GS only.

It’s a very good case and is available in two colors — black or white — for $19.98 in mini-mal’s Amazon store.

Amazon.com link: pic.me iPhone tripod case by mini-mal

Good luck!

UPDATE: We have a winner! Random.org chose number 7 — congratulations to Scott Prestridge who just won himself the pic.me iPhone 3 series case! Stay tuned… more stuff to give away soon! =M=

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Your iPhone should never be naked. A good case protects against scratches and shocks, while adding a couple of millimeters between your camera lens and things that want to scratch it.

The pic.me iPhone tripod case by mini-mal is a very good case for your iPhone. It offers additional functionality along with protection. Probably my biggest complaint about the case is that it isn’t available for iPhone 4 yet.

The pic.me iPhone tripod case for iPhone 3G & 3GS is a lightweight and low profile case that that transforms into a multi-angle tripod stand. It also transforms into a viewing stand.

The case itself is a lightweight plastic that pulls apart to fit snugly over your iPhone. Pads of felt inside the case not only help slide the case on and off, but they protect your iPhone from scratches while putting it on and offer a little bit of shock protection once the case is on.

It’s a low profile case, adding very little weight and size to your iPhone. The gloss plastic looks like your iPhone 3G or 3GS. It has just enough give to protect the phone, yet be durable. Its shiny surface will probably scratch fairly quickly with normal use going in and out of your pocket or purse. So do most hard plastic cases that protect iPhones. Better the case than your phone.

The cool part about this case is a small, versatile swing out arm at the base of the case that becomes a viewing stand or a tripod of sorts. The arm is ratcheted and swings around up to about 300° depending on use. It extends the versatility of the pic.me case. It’s all pretty sturdy and should hold up well with normal use.

I had no problems with the swing-out arm or “kickstand” as one user called it. It works great horizontally as a viewer. It’s great for playing games, showing slide shows on your iPhone, or watching movies. It works great for many uses holding up an iPhone either on its side or straight up and down.

Swung out 90°, you can use the stand vertically for hands-free FaceTime calls. Swung around the full 300°, the case becomes a tripod of sorts, allowing you to place and stand your iPhone for photography — self-portraits, group photos, time lapse. It’s pretty handy.

When not in use, the kickstand folds into the base and adds very little size to the case. All controls and mics are unobstructed and you can plug in your USB cord to charge and sync with no problems.

This isn’t a rubberized case — it’s shiny plastic all the way. That means that it’ll look good, but it’ll have no tack and slide across your dashboard if you put your iPhone there (What? Am I the only one who does that?). Also, at this time, it’s not available for the iPhone 4 yet, but that’s in the works.

The pic.me iPhone case is an attractive case that offers good protection for your iPhone from everyday scratches and bumps. The built-in “kickstand” is a great substitute for users who may otherwise want a tripod simply for time lapse or to get into their own photos. It’s also a great stand for watching video or playing games on your iPhone. Overall, it’s a good case. It packs a lot into a little.

The pic.me is available in two colors — black or white — for $30.00 in mini-mal’s Amazon store.

Click here to order the pic.me case for iPhone 3G or 3GS in black or white from Amazon.com.

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Disclosure: I was supplied a case for this review by mini-mal. I used a loaner 3GS for this review.

If you choose not to upgrade, soon you’ll be experiencing app updates that are OS 4.0 only. What do you do? Should you upgrade when iTunes or App Store show updates or should you just ignore the updates?

Until you update your iPhone 3G or 3GS to iOS 4, you’re okay updating apps. However, I think it’s better if you update on your iPhone using the App Store app only. If you update apps on your iPhone, OS3 will only let you download and update the apps that are compatible with your hardware and installed OS. It won’t let you download any apps it can’t run.

You could update your apps in iTunes on your computer but I recommend against it until you’ve updated to iOS 4 on your phone. iTunes will download all updates, even the ones that are incompatible with your phone and OS. I learned this one the hard way.

What happens if you accidentally update your apps in iTunes and download a version that’s incompatible with your phone? Not much. The new version will show up in iTunes and the old version will stay on your iPhone. When this happens, iTunes won’t overwrite the app with the phone with a version that won’t run, but you do lose the backup of the older app in iTunes.

This is more of an irritant than a problem until, for some reason, you lose the app on your iPhone — say, accidentally deleting it or having to reinstall the app. At that point, there’s almost no way to reinstall the older version of the app — it’s pretty much gone forever.

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There actually may be a way to your old apps back. We’ve covered it previously. Click here to find out how.

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Updating what you can on your iPhone is a good idea. You’ll have the newest version of the app that you can run and you’ll probably get some cool new features in the meantime.

If you stay with iPhone OS 3 either by choice or circumstance, keep in mind that you are using an end-of-lifed operating system. Although an old iPhone is still much more useful and versatile than most new phones available, you’ll find that more and more apps will be for the newer OS only. Until you update to the newer OS, you may have to get used to seeing a constant “Updates Available” badge in iTunes.

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iPhone lens and microfiber cloth

The iPhone camera lens is teeny. The actual lens itself is protected by an external lens casing. While the lens casing is about 4-5 mm, the lens itself is less than 2 mm. Even a small smudge or a fingerprint on your lens can really effect the quality of your images. Fortunately, keeping your lens clean is quick and easy.

To clean the iPhone’s lens, Apple recommends that you use a microfiber polishing cloth, such as the one that comes with the iPhone or one that you would use to clean the lenses of a pair of eyeglasses. For me, a quick breath on the lens casing adds just the right amount of moisture to handle just about any dust or smudges. I then carefully clean the casing with the corner of the cloth (or a well-worn T-shirt), using small, soft circles as if I were polishing the lens.

Regardless of what Charmin and Kleenex say about how soft their paper is, they’re still made from wood pulp and don’t compare to the softness of the synthetic materials used in microfiber cloths. You don’t want to risk scratching your lens and permanently damaging your camera.

For regular cleaning, I used to use a very small amount of alcohol-based liquid lens cleaner and a Q-Tip cotton swab to clean my lens, but as my father — a very old-school analog photographer — pointed out to me, you don’t want to risk any liquids getting inside your lens, even a slight amount. Actually, he wasn’t that nice about it…. Also, the iPhone lens casing has an anti-reflective coating that can be worn off by liquids or aggressive cleaning.

You should never clean the iPhone touch screen (or any other part of the iPhone) with any kind of liquid or aerosol cleaners, especially those which contain alcohol, ammonia or other solvents or harsh ingredients. These common household cleaners could damage your iPhone’s sensitive touch screen.

Got an iPhone 4? Read our updated post, “Keep your iPhone 4′s lens clean.”

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Related links: iPhone Lens Coating (from Loblogamy)

Bottom Line: Nice faux-DOF but hampered by less than full-res output

Autofocus

Autofocus for 2G/3G Camera by JFDP Labs brings sharp focus and gradual depth of field (DOF) to the iPhone 2G and 3G cameras. The app is optimized for the older generation iPhones which have no built-in focus features at all. It doesn’t modify the hardware on these devices. It does not add hardware autofocus to the devices. It achieves the focus effect by either automatically or allowing you to manually select and define a focus area and then reproducing a gradual depth of field focus blur from that point.

The focus effect is adjustable, subtle and nice, but the app has a few problems in this initial release.

Autofocus 2G/3G sample showing the DOF effect

The focus effect that the app adds is nicely done and different than other focus apps, such as FocalLab. The focus effect starts as a gradual blur and blends into a ghosting effect further into the focus falloff area, reproducing lens artifacts. Because it’s not a true hardware focus, this effect doesn’t work with all images, but with an image that’s composed with a strong separation between foreground and background, Autofocus reproduces a very nice, natural-looking depth of field — much like the DOF created with a DSLR and a fast shutter speed.

The app has an adjustable focus area. The focus box can be adjusted to any size or proportion using simple finger swipes. Once your image has been taken, there is a slider which can adjust the focus falloff and allows you to reduce or tweak the blurred area. I think that without adjustment the focus effects are subtle enough and natural looking and I found myself not using this feature much during my tests.

The focus feature is very straightforward and easy to use. There are three focus modes: Auto, Manual and Disabled. The Auto mode analyzes the preview to try and determine the area of focus. I found Auto mode to be slow and inaccurate in this first release. Auto mode would often have a hard time finding my subject in the viewfinder. The focus box often landed on a part of the image that wasn’t my main area of focus, even though I had it centered in the viewfinder.

I found it much less frustrating to use the app in Manual mode. For me, manual mode was much more quick, easy and responsive. One tap on the screen instantly moved the focus box to that spot, just like in the iPhone 3GS camera. Manual mode is also where you can pinch and zoom to adjust the size of the focus box to match the your subject. I quickly got the hang of using the manual focus and it is my preferred mode when using the app.

There is an adjustable countdown timer which delays shutter release from 0-10 seconds. When the auto-focus mode works, I can see that this would be very handy for self-portraits. The app resets to a defaults to a three second countdown each time you open the app. I found this to be a little annoying and would like to see the app either retain my previous settings between launches or have some means to disable the timer.

For me, the biggest flaw of Autofocus for 2G/3G is the app’s low output resolution. The app saves images at 768×1024 pixels — not even 1 megapixel. This greatly reduces image quality and severely limits print sizes for images shot with this app. The largest image size I’d print from this app would be 4″ x 5″ prints (at about 200 dpi); I think you’d start to notice pixelization and a reduction in image quality on any larger prints. FocalLab, while not having as nice a DOF effect, at least saves in full resolution on my 2G.

In the release notes, the developer says that they are making improvements to the auto-focus algorithm. This will be welcome and should make the app even easier and better to use. However, the low output resolution makes this app unusable for creating anything but the smallest of prints for a serious iPhoneographer. I hope high resolution images are supported soon in a future release. For now, this is a good app for creating nice DOF effects for photos that will be viewed on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or email. It’s a good, simple app that does a nice job of reproducing a DOF effect, but for me the low resolution output really limits its use.

Autofocus for 2G/3G Camera is currently $1.99. [ App Store link ]

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