Cameras, iPod, iPhone, Mobile Software
Pixcetera iPhone App Gives You Your Daily Pix Fix
One of the main benefits of the Apple iPod and the iTouch, besides the obvious video and music capabilities, is the availability of applications providing any number of services. If you're looking for recent sports scores or pictures, the latest celebrity news, or images from the Pope's Middle Eastern journey, as the frequent commercials say, there are apps for that. In fact, there's one app that provides all of that information.
Pixcetera, which debuted May 1, provides Apple gadget owners with the opportunity to peruse thousands of photographs from around the world, updated daily, for free. Pixcetera also includes captions that give a detailed description of the subject of the picture and sometimes even the equipment used for all you budding photogs.
The captions can be effortlessly minimized or expanded with a simple touch, and the navigable and self-explanatory interface easily lets the user scroll through fast-loading galleries (even those of us with fat fingers who can never seem to move pages without selecting an undesired target) containing hundreds of high-quality, instantly viewable pictures. In the future, to counter one of the few drawbacks and to compete with other free photo apps, Pixcetera will hopefully allow users to instantly upload their own images rather than diverting them to a separate site.
Given that Pixcetera is a service operated by AOL, which also owns Switched, we tried to find fault with the iPhone app. We gotta admit, though, it was tough, so here's our best effort at complaining: We'd love to see a dedicated Science/Technology gallery -- that is our thing, after all -- though, to be fair, the site does offer some space images and other gee-whiz tech-related photos through its National Geographic partnership. Although the app provides classic photographs in other galleries, it's also missing a dedicated History section, with specifically categorized images of famous locations, buildings, and events, such as World War II.
In perhaps the most fascinating array of photographs, the Outer Space section includes an incredible Nebula gallery. This group features the last so-called "pretty" image taken by the Hubble camera, which was just replaced by Astro_Mike and his Atlantis crew (that's astronaut Mike Massimino for all you non-Twitterers).
The galleries are updated daily, so we've been immersed in the results of the space crew's labor, which is detailed in a special Atlantis gallery. We'll also continue to check back every morning in anticipation of images from the new Hubble camera. Since Pixcetera was already ranked 5th among free photography apps after just three weeks, it appears a lot of other people will be, as well.
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