Just three months after Google purchased the developer of last year’s top app in the iTunes store, the company debuted Snapseed for Android this week. The photo editor makes it quick and easy to edit photos on an Android phone or tablet, making for vastly improved images with just a few finger swipes. A one-touch sharing button shoots edited pictures to Google+ for sharing as well.
The free software offers the typical filters that are common in many photo apps, but also makes it simple to adjust image attributes in real-time: brightness, contrast, saturation and more. Snapseed’s interface is the touch-friendly secret sauce, however.
You choose attributes by sliding up or down on the display while moving left to right boosts or reduces the chosen effect. Advanced users will enjoy the software’s Selective Adjust feature, which focuses on your specific choice of object for modifications: You can easily adjust the color of a background, for example, without affecting other image elements.
Samsung was in the news this week with details and a video overview of the Premium Suite software update for its Galaxy S III. The company’s best-selling smartphone will gain many of the useful features already found in the Galaxy Note 2, including the unique multi-window support. This function supports two mobile applications running simultaneously on the display, enabling true multitasking features on a mobile device.
A companion device for the Samsung Galaxy III, as well as a few other recent Galaxy phones, debuted this week as well. The Samsung Muse is a 4 GB MP3 player that looks like a small stone. There’s no display on the device, just a clip, headphone jack and touch buttons to control playback.
What makes the $ 49 Muse interesting then? It gets music from a phone, not a PC. By connecting the Muse to a supported handset that has the free Muse Sync app installed, users can sync audio files to the player.
This may not sound too impressive, but it represents a subtle yet important change to mobile device dependence on computers. Android phones have always been considered “cloud devices” that don’t require a PC to be used. The Muse illustrates how portable music players can cut the PC cord as well, even without any radios for connectivity.
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