Touch Edit - A First Look

Little Frog in High Def by Shane Ross

If you happen to follow me on Twitter, you were no doubt privy to the barrage of tweets I did while at the LACPUG meeting on Jan 23. Dan Lebental was showing off this cool editing app for the iPad, TouchEdit, and I live tweeted interesting points he made, and pictures I took. I’d like to go a bit more in depth here. More than 140 characters for sure.

The reason this app came about is because Dan bought an iPad and when he moved the screen from one page to another…he went “hmmm, there’s something to this.” And then he would browse through his photos, moving them about with gestures of his hand like he would if he was holding them, and he said, “hmmm, there’s something to this.” Eventually he figured out that this could mimic the tactile nature of editing film. Being able to grab your film strips and move them about, and use a grease pencil to mark your IN and OUT points. So he went out and found a few people to help him develop this. No, he didn’t do it on his own, he went through about 14 coders (if I’m remembering right) to eventually come up with version 1.o of his software.

Who is this for? Well, he honestly said “This is designed for me. For what I want…my needs.” And I like that attitude. Because if you like something, chances are you’ll find someone else that likes that something. And that is a great way to develop a product. To fulfill a need/want/desire that you might have. read more...