Finding photos in Timebox vs. the iOS Photos App

Scroll, scroll the iOS Photos app

I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me, maybe hundreds, thousands? Since most of my friends have cameras with phones, when we're together, they often tell me stories that have photos to go with them.

Just last weekend, we were celebrating a wedding anniversary with some friends and unbeknowest to the wife,  the husband scanned a bunch of their wedding photos. We had a champagne toast then he said I have a bunch of photos from our wedding! Great!

Scroll, scroll, scroll and he couldn’t find them. It took him minutes. Meanwhile back at the party we watched him scroll for awhile, then talked amongst ourselves. Then, finally he found them.

They were so fun to see and brought back wonderful memories. The couple was reminiscing about the substitute minister, the giant tray the caterers could’t fit through the door, the wild dancing, the outfits and all the guests.

I said dude - you need Timebox! Here’s what should have happened...

He announces that he has the photos and goes to Timebox. He finds the photos right away on the Timebox timeline. We reminisce.

A video of the wedding pics would be really fun for them and to share with friends. He could also make a hardcover book - just to have.

Just enter what you want in Timebox

Announcing Timebox 4.0

New features include book and gift printing, and optional notifications of new and old stories

We’re happy to announce the availability of the latest version of the free Timebox app which instantly organizes all of the photos in your Camera Roll and iCloud Photo Library plus entries from your Calendar into daily photo stories.

With one tap, Timebox also makes a video story of all the photos and videos from a story that can be easily shared through the your favorite social networks.

We appreciate all your feedback and we hope you like our new features which include:

  • Powered by Kite.ly, you can make, print and buy, using Apple Pay™, credit cards or PayPal, beautiful hardcover photo books, photo cases for phones and tablets, posters, prints, stickers and magnets from any Timebox story.
     
  • Optional notifications remind you to view and share new stories any way you like using Mail, Message, iCloud, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vimeo, WhatsApp etc.
     
  • “On This Day” and “During This Week” built-in searches make it easy for you to find, enjoy, and share interesting old stories.
     
  • iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus 3D Touch Quick Action shortcuts for even faster sharing and search.
     
  • Turn off automatically-generated stories by tapping and enabling “Hide Automatic Stories”  in the iOS Settings App.
     
  • As always, no extra sign ups, accounts or passwords. No uploading. Your photos stay in your camera roll or photo library. No ads.

Please download Timebox 4.0 and let us know what you think. We always love to hear from you. If you could also take a second and rate Timebox in the App Store, by just tapping the Rate Timebox button from the Timebox icon menu right in the app, we would really appreciate it.

Thanks again for your support!

6 tips for using Live Photos on your iPhone 6s

Live Photos are enabled when the circles button at the top of the screen is yellow.

Live Photos are enabled when the circles button at the top of the screen is yellow.

Live Photos are a truly fun and unique feature in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

When you have the Live Photos feature enabled in the Camera app, it will automatically include a 3 second video with each still photo that you take.

Here are some things that I’ve found as I’ve been taking hundreds of Live Photos on my iPhone 6s:

After tapping the shutter button, the LIVE indicator tells you that the 1.5 sec video is still being recorded - hold steady!

After tapping the shutter button, the LIVE indicator tells you that the 1.5 sec video is still being recorded - hold steady!

  1. Verify that Live Photo taking is turned on when you want it on. Seems obvious but sometimes I turn it off when it isn’t necessary and then I forget to turn it back on. The concentric circles indicator button at the top of the Photos app screen is yellow (see screen shot). If it's gray instead of yellow, tap it to turn on Live Photos. (If you don't see the indicator, your iPhone doesn't support Live Photos.)
     
  2. Live Photos take a little more space on your iPhone and in iCloud, but it’s at most a couple megabytes per photo, so it’s not a big deal. You can leave it on for most photos without worrying about the space.
     
  3. Since a Live Photo keeps 1.5 seconds of what you see on screen before you press the shutter button and 1.5 seconds after you press the shutter button, you REALLY have to concentrate on holding your iPhone steady and still before and after you press the button.
     
  4. When you press the shutter button, a yellow LIVE indicator will appear at the top of the screen (see screenshot). The LIVE indicator will disappear when the 1.5 seconds after the shot have been recorded. Keep your eye on the LIVE indicator and keep your iPhone steady until it disappears.
     
  5. Since iOS 9.1, the Camera app uses the built-in iPhone motion sensor to sense if you accidentally tip the iPhone down before it’s captured the 1.5 seconds after the shot and if it senses that it cuts the video short. This saves a lot of blurry videos of the floor that happened when Live Photos first appeared in iOS 9.0.
     
  6. Since Live Photos also record sound, it’s a good idea to listen to your subjects to be sure that in addition to the images, you’re also getting the sounds you want. Your subjects will probably not realize you’re recording a video, so you may (or may not) want to avoid record them all saying “smile” or “everyone say cheese!"

Live Photos are an amazing new way to capture the people and world around you.

And when you use Timebox to stitch together a video of a day or an event captured with Live Photos, the result is an almost magical way to share your life.

Give it a try!