Anyone use iTartan?

[IRISH]

has anyone bought and used the iTartan application? is it useful for identifying tartans?

[Vegan Scot]

I don't use iPhones but this is almost reason enough to make me set aside my cultural differences and splurge!

[Cynthia]

I don't have it, but I looked it up in the app store. Only 99 cents... no reviews yet. I don't think I would design a tartan using it, but I guess I could see it being handy for tartan identification or showing someone when you're chatting with them, if the app worked smoothly. I might consider getting it for my iPhone 3GS, but I'll wait a little longer.

[IRISH]

i bought it over the weekend and at the moment it is eye candy at best. i haven't had the time to fully explore the functions, especially the tartan editor/designer so there's a lot more to learn.

what i have noticed is that the colors tend to be very bright when compared to the real thing in wool.

[Cynthia]

Yeah, my husband told me to go ahead and get it last week as well, when I mentioned it to him.

Like I said, I wouldn't use the tartan designing features, but it might be handy to have when I want the tartan info (not that I expect to come across a lot of tartans when I'm fabric shopping or anything, but on that rare occasion when someone mentions a tartan to me, it's a quick way to pull up the design).

That's one thing I don't like about computer design images... the colors always look off to me.

For the price, and if you like having interesting apps, I guess it's worthwhile. I can't see most people caring about tartan information, but it hasn't crashed the few times I opened it, so it works at least on the viewing tartans side of things (again, I'll never mess with the designing part of it). If it had cost more, I don't know if I would have bought it in all honesty.

[IRISH]

the problem with identifying an unknown tartan is that one needs a means of inputting an image of the desired tartan to be identified.

much like the song identifying apps where you can hold your phone up in a packed nightclub to capture the song being played by the dj and then get the title and artist of the song, one needs to be able to send an image of a tartan and be able to get back an id of that tartan. not sure if that will ever be possible...

[Cynthia]

Yeah, I was thinking about that. Those music identifying apps are awesome

Surely there'd be a way for visual recognition someday soon? Image recognition is getting better (there are even services out there that photographers use to help look for their images online -- even altered -- to make sure they're not being used without permission). Makes you wonder how close something like that would be for an app. Especially if it has a set database to pull from, like tartans, without having to search everywhere online or in some even bigger database elsewhere.

[MacMillans son]

the problem with identifying an unknown tartan is that one needs a means of inputting an image of the desired tartan to be identified.

much like the song identifying apps where you can hold your phone up in a packed nightclub to capture the song being played by the dj and then get the title and artist of the song, one needs to be able to send an image of a tartan and be able to get back an id of that tartan. not sure if that will ever be possible...

When I read you two discussing this app. I assumed that because the Iphone has a camera that it was used to photograph the tartan and the camera and app. worked together to come up with the I.D. Like the music app only with photos instead of sound.

Is it just a hand held tartan library then?

Brooke

[ScotClans.com]

I have it on my phone - it's quite useful if you quickly need to show someone what a specific tartan looks like and the designer is fun to play with.