That’s about all I can say for now, but I wanted to throw in a teaser in the form of some sample shots.

Although it are black and white shots, the app isn’t a monochrome app. I just chose that certain filter because we all like MonoPhix, don’t we? Also these images never touched an iOS device.

If you’ve got MonoPhix installed, you can update from the App Store’s update menu and if you have uninstalled MonoPhix because of this issue you can always download it again for free from the download page.

The deadline to enter is 30 November, so only 3 days left.

Enter now or go to the MonoPhix page!

Good luck to everyone participating!

Here’s a list of all apps with download links:

Photography Apps

• MonoPhix (0.99$->0$) – The most powerful black & white app out there.
• MonoPhix HD (1.99$ -> 0$) - The most powerful black & white app out there. (for iPad)
• FlashPhix (0.99$ -> 0$) – Cross processing, automatic correction and lighting control in one easy app.

Games and gaming aids:

• Lingi (0.99$->0$) – A language game for young and old to easily learn Dutch, French or English.
• iDuelpro (0.99$->0$) – The most popular Yu-gi-oh! TCG scorekeeper in the world.

So go and get your future favorite app for free while you can!

As I see it, Steve was one out of the same league as Antoni Gaudi, Salvador Dali, Leonardo da Vinci and Jimi Hendrix. Often misunderstood but visionary. Just like them he saw things no ordinary man saw. As a visionary CEO it’s hard to compare him to other tech CEO’s as he was unique. There is not a single executive in the current IT landscape which excels in the same way Steve excelled, not even Larry Ellison. The closest you can get to a man of relative capabilities is probably Howard Hughes. To cast it into his own words. You can disagree with Jobs and these other people in many ways but you can’t ignore them, because they changed the world. They pushed the human race forward.

As a person I can’t really judge Steve. And it makes me feel sad about writing this as in fact I’m writing this as a tribute to someone who I can only evaluate for his work. From what I know he was a perfectionist often persistent which is in fact not a bad feature. That’s all I know. I wished I knew more but I don’t and I think it’s to his family and friends to judge him as a person. There’s no one else in this world but them who is entitled to an opinion about him as a person and so I look in disgust about the coming screams from people who disliked him for no apparent reason but never knew him.

So I have only a few remaining words for some people who will probably never read this.

To his relatives and friends I can give but shallow comfort, he is not alone wherever he is. A lot of great people have suffered the same fate and it rests us all. So it’s hard, but you can look at all his great accomplishments and smile cause he lives on in each of his unbridled ideas.

To Tim Cook. Take good care of Apple. It’s impossible to replace Steve and it’s hardly possible to find a suitable successor in this world. But try to carry on what Steve started and don’t take wild decisions unless you support them 100%. Disney survived the passing of Walt Disney and Apple will most certainly survive the passing of Steve as it’s in the hands of an excellent team.

To Steve: I don’t believe in life after death, but in times likes these I hope it exists. So Steve, wherever you are I hope you’re in peace and maybe just maybe we can meet in a next life.

The new update basically has 3 new features.

Completely rebuilt vignetting system

We were tired of constantly having to fix vignetting issues and patching stuff so we threw out the old vignetting engine and equipped MonoPhix 3.2 with a new one. Because the vignetting glitch in version 3.0 and 3.1 is actually caused by an iOS quirk it’s very hard to get rid of the glitch completely, but this update comes pretty close. So from now on vignetting should work flawlessly on all standard format pictures and on many cropped pictures or those generated by apps. This also cleared the need for the correction slider introduced in version 3.1. The general vignetting update also makes way for more advanced vignetting effects and the ability to control the vignetting with multiple parameters (eg. radius, hardness, shape, …).

In-app camera access

Now you can shoot pictures directly from within MonoPhix. When we questioned some users this wasn’t directly a killer feature, but apparently people have been switching apps from MonoPhix to others because they could shoot pictures directly from within the app. So now this issue is gone as well and you can easily tap the camera button in the upper left corner, shoot a picture and the default settings will automatically be applied to it.

Gestures

Last but not least is the addition of gestures to swipe between tools. Now for those who question the direction of the swipe, if you swipe to the right the tooltab to the right will open, if you swipe to the left the tooltab on the left will open. See the bottom toolbar as an indicator. There might be an option added to the settings to change this in future versions. All and all, this will be a great way to help you speed up your editing.

This isn’t a particularly bulky update but it adds some important features and hopefully fixes the vignetting woes for many users.

You can download MonoPhix 3.2 here or just press the update button in the App Store.

The opening screen glitch, the biggest reason to get this update pushed out is now resolved.

The vignetting system now has 2 parameters to control the vignetting and these are controlled by one slider. This might seem as quite a pointless change, but the vignetting system is now controlled in an exponential manner. By default it’s much lighter and when you slide the slider tot the far right, the strength and radius parameters are maxed out to give an even stronger vignetting effect. In MonoPhix 3.2 the sliders will be separated to give even more control.

Together with the changes to the intensity of the vignetting, a lot of issues which caused the venetian blind effect on some resolutions were fixed.

At user request we also added the ability to underexpose pictures or fix overexposed pictures. This functionality was added to the Exposure slider in the “processing”-tab.

So version 3.1.1 is a worthy update to version 3.1 and solidifies the features of this major version even adding a new one.

You can find it in the App Store. -> http://hur.lu/ktfs

Today we are pleased to announce the newest version of the most feature rich black and white photo editor for iPhone, MonoPhix. Version 3.1 brings with it a number of fixes for annoying issues as well as stability and performance improvements but also a completely new often requested feature.

Filters

From now on you’ll be able to select a filter for your monochrome conversions. The preset filters are:
-”-” (default)
-Red
-Green
-Blue
-Cyan
-Magenta
-Yellow

Each filter will act like a filter on a camera and filter out light in that specific color. This can be used to enhance the intensity of grass or to accentuate the sky. All these preset filters are available with one tap from within the “Adjust” tab.

Example of the new filter function with the red filter enabled.

 Vignetting improvements

Something which has been bothering users was the quirk in the preview when vignetting was enabled which caused the vignetting to look like venetian blinds. In version 3.1 this is resolved further by adding a few new common picture resolutions to the exception list. If this glitch would still occur users are now able to adjust the preview offset by themselves with an extra slider in the vignetting tab. The vignetting is now also less intense by default and has a higher range.

The new vignetting tab in MonoPhix 3.1

Other fixes

Along with these major improvements came some minor fixes which you will probably not even notice. These include added reliability on iOS 4.3 and up and small performance improvements which speed up the processing slightly. Also there’s now a tooltip at the top of each tab when you next open MonoPhix which will display instructions on hiding a tab overlay and displaying the image unobstructed. These will disappear automatically when the user uses this feature for the first time.

Release cycle changes

We can also announce that MonoPhix will get a shorter release cycle which brings updates and improvements at a faster pace. We are already outlining the the featureset of MonoPhix 3.2 which will bring some more interesting features. MonoPhix normally gets only one major update a year and a few small bug fixing releases but from now one this will change to one major update a year (with UI changes) and about 4 significant minor updates which add extra features and improve existing ones.

–

MonoPhix 3.1 is now available in the iTunes App Store and can be downloaded here.

Here’s the full feature list as seen in the App Store for reference:

• Color filters for Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and of course default (average blending) easily accessible with one tap
• Added a small tooltip to show people how they can hide the tool overlay (this will disappear automatically after being used)
• Vignetting is now lighter by default and has a higher range
• A slider was added to the vignetting tab to allow users to correct the vignetting on the preview in case of glitches
• Fixed vignetting preview glitch on some landscape images (1936×2691)
• Fixed a few minor issues to improve reliability on iOS 4.3 and up
• Small performance adjustments to make the filters run more smoothly

There weren’t any hickups in the development process that caused the delays, I’ll explain what actually was the issue and it’s rather personal.
I’ve been developing software for 6 years now, completely on my own with once in a while a good soul as temporary aid. And that brings with it that the release cycles are rather quirky and dependent on the time I have at hands or on how I’m feeling. Personal issues have had a great impact on the release time of my software.

I just “graduated” less or more. (there are a few things which I still have to handle to get my degree) But this also meant that I had to get some things finished for school as well. A paper on digital image processing and an app accompanying it, I had to do a 3 month internship and there were some additional tasks. Now that’s what’s been delaying development from March and forth.

But that’s not the only thing. Lately there have been some drastic changes in my personal life which require my attention and which even made me lose track of sales and customer support. Some negative and some very positive but all and all a great shift which caused my concentration to reside somewhere at a sub zero level. Development has been halted for about 2 months now and is slowly coming back on track.

But of course it’s pretty annoying that you guys should suffer from this. Luckily I have a great community of users which kept sales alive and prevented bankruptcy during my “absence”. To thank you all for your patience I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. All apps will be free for an undetermined period of time (somewhere between 1-2 days). This means MonoPhix, MonoPhix HD, FlashPhix, iDuelpro, Lingi and iPhix all drop from their respective prices to 0$/0€ or whatever your currency is.

I would say, grab them while you can. If you don’t like them or don’t need them, don’t punch them into the ground with a 1 star rating and a rage comment in the App Store but just leave them be or drop me a mail on how I can improve them.

Enjoy the sale and of course the 4th of July for all Americans out there!

(download links to all apps can be found in the sidebar of this blog. If the apps aren’t on sale just yet, stand by it takes about an hour for the sales to be activated by iTunes)

This Lite version of MonoPhix is a stripped down version which allows you to apply the MonoPhix black & white filter, set the contrast for the black & white and set a blending color for the monochrome with 3 presets (B&W, Sepia and Antique) and infinite variations.

The biggest additions when it comes to functionality come in the form of the ability to choose from multiple monochrome filters (Fast Film/Finest Grain) and the color selection tool.

But here’s an overview of all differences between the full and the lite version:

So head over to the App Store and give it a try! Or for the 14.000 people who already own MonoPhix Lite, just tap the “Update” button in the App Store’s update section.
Click to view slideshow.