Vintique is a photo editing app for the iPhone that includes 32 vintage filters with the ability to edit and tweak them to your liking. Vintique is much more than a filters apps, though, as it also includes powerful image editing tools including exposure, white balance, vibrance, gamma, and more.

Vintique features 5 main tabs: filters, advanced editing tools, vignetting and textures, frames, and share. The filters tab includes 32 vintage filters that can be edited which allows you to get the exact look you're looking for. The editing option are very simple, yet extremely helpful. To edit a filter, you scroll through its options including saturation, edge, brightness/contrast, black and white gradient, and textures and simply toggle them on or off. It would be great if you could also adjust the overall opacity of the effect, but you can't.

The tab for advanced edits lets you make adjustments to brightness, contrast, saturation, vibrance, temperature, tint, highlights, shadows, exposure, gamma, and hue. The controls a simple and easy to use with sliders.

The vignetting and texture tab is one of my favorite section of Vintique. It features 18 different vignetting styes, including colored ones, and 31 different textures. All of the vignettes and textures can have their opacity edited. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to mask out textures.

If you love frames, Vintique will not disappoint. There are 49 different frames available in Vintique with a wide range of styles. As of right now, the frames are not available for 2448x2448 resolution, but they should be coming soon.

Speaking of resolutions, Vintique is a free app, but only comes with support for exporting 612x612 photos. For 1224x1224 and 2448x2448 resolutions, including frames for these resolutions, you're looking at a $0.99 in-app purchase.

The good

• 32 vintage filters, 18 vignettes, and 31 textures
• Edit individual filters by turning off effects and textures
• Make adjustments to the photo including brightness/contrast/saturation, vibrance, temperature/tint, highlight/shadow, exposure, gamma, and hue
• 19 various vignetting & 26 textures with the ability to adjust opacity
• 49 frames
• Share to Instagram, Camera Roll, Facebook Twitter, Mail, or Open In other apps
• Previews of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
• Three resolution sizes: 612x612, 1224x1224, 2448x2448
• Two large resolution sizes and more frames available as in app purchase

The bad

• Must crop as a square
• Can't adjust opacity of filters
• Can't mask out textures
• No frames for 2448x2448 , yet. They are coming soon, though.

The bottom line

If you love editing your photos with vintage filters yet like the control of customizing them to your liking, then Vintique is an excellent iPhone photography app. Vintique also makes is really easy to open your photos in Instagram which means Vintique may be a great app to pick up for this week's Instagram photography contest!

Free - Download Now

It's time to announce this week's photo contest -- Instagram! Instagram is one of the most popular photo sharing networks so it's time we have a contest focused around Instagram! There is no theme requirement for this week's entry, all we ask is that you post your photo to instagram, tag it with #imorecontest, then share it in our forums!

Congrats to ToddFSU for winning last week's avatar photo contest!

Speaking of Instagram, the network has recently made some changes that translates @mentions to Twitter. For example, let's say your friend is @bob on Instagram and @sexy_bob on Twitter. If you mention Bob in your Instagram post as @bob and choose to share to Twitter, Instagram will automatically change the mention to @sexy_bob before posting to Twitter. Pretty cool! For all the details, check out Instagram's blog post on the matter.

The prize: $30 iTunes gift certificate

In addition to a thumbs up from the iMore crew and all of us yelling about how great of a photo star you are, the winner of this week's photography contest will receive a $30 iTunes gift card allowing you to stock up on some of those photography apps you've been dying to buy!

The rules

The rules of entry are very simple. The photo must have been taken with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch (we'll check the EXIF data of the original file to verify) and any edits must have been done with an iPhone or iPad app. No Photoshop CS6! If you have external lens accessories you are more than welcome to use them. You can submit as many photos as you'd like, but remember, this is a contest, so make sure you submit your best work!

In addition to the normal rules stated above, you must also post your photo to instagram and tag it with #imorecontest.

Resources

Now, before you run off to take your photo, remember that it's not technical skill alone that will claim this prize. Even if you're not the best photographer (yet!), a great eye and a great subject can still get you the win.

However, a little help can never hurt, so make sure you check out our iPhone photography series for some tips.

How to submit

Submitting your photos is easy. just head over to the iMore Photography Forum and post your photos to the official contest thread. Don't forget to state which apps, if any, you used to edit your photo!

That's it! Now go out and shoot!

ENTER NOW

While a lot is suspected about the new, smaller iPad Apple is likely to debut on October 23, questions remain about just how low Apple's willing to push the price, what kind display density device size and price constraints will allow, and what exactly Apple will call it. John Gruber from Daring Fireball has drilled deeply into those three items in particular.

You know what other Apple product's primary attributes are thinness, weight, and price? The MacBook Air. And, no coincidence, the latest revisions to the Air lineup debuted on stage at WWDC without retina displays. We're a couple of years away from Apple going retina across the board.

I posted my iPad mini preview (redux) yesterday, but for me, right now, Gruber's take on the name is the most interesting. Go read the whole thing.

Source: Daring Fireball

Apple's new iPod touch 5 makes the already nearly 2-dimensional iPhone 5 look thick by comparison, but we knew that already. Now that they've finally hit stores in all their multi-colored, looped up glory, we can finally get a good look at everything else.

In addition to Darth Vader black and Storm Trooper White, I picked up an Imperial Guard red and Leanna got a Max Rebo blue. (I'm still waiting on my Yoda green nano!) They all look great, at least fresh out of the package. The loop is the only slight let down. It's leathery, which is nice, but thin and, at least to my eyes, not very Apple-like. Something like the old iPod lanyard might have been a better choice.

We'll be back soon with a full review, but in the meantime, here's the unboxing and the hardware tour.

Apple has started the first phase of construction of its new data center in Prineville, Oregon. The construction of the first of two buildings will cost Apple $68 million, and the building will be 338,000 square feet and contain two "data halls". Future plans include a second building identical to the first, along with fourteen more data halls. Apple originally purchased the 160-acre plot of land in February, as OregonLive reports:

Apple paid $5.6 million in February to buy 160 acres from Crook County, and promptly set up a small, 10,000 square foot modular data center on the site.

Only the modular facility is visible from the street. Apple, always secretive, restricts access to its main construction site.

In addition to the two massive buildings already planned, there is enough land for additional development, should Apple decide to expand the facility. Apple has committed to power the data center using only renewable energy sources, including hydroelectric, geothermal, and wind power. While they haven't announced when it will open, Apple has said that the facility will employ "dozens" of people when it is finally constructed.

When complete, the Prineville complex will be the second massive data center that Apple has built for iCloud in the United States, after opening their North Carolina facility in late 2010. With iCloud playing a central role in both iOS and OS X, investments like these are important for Apple to make in order to build a robust and stable infrastructure for their services, and the North Carolina and Prineville facilities are surely the first of many such facilities to come.

Source: OregonLive

If you don't like the default Calendar app that comes with your iPhone, the App Store is filled with alternatives. Whether you want something more simple and elegant, more powerful and robust, or just something that works more the way you work, you have options to consider. Agenda, CalenGoo, and Calendars by Readdle all give you even more control over your calendars, events, and notifications than the default Calendar app does, and all organize things in a different way. But which one is best, and more importantly, which one is best for you?

Agenda vs. CalenGoo vs. Calendars: User interface

Agenda for iPhone is simple and clean. The interface is minimal but still manages to be powerful at the same time. If you enjoy the way the default Calendar app looks but don't think it offers enough functionality, Agenda is a happy medium between the two. You can turn on an option that allows event creation to look just like it does in the default calendar app. This is something users of the default iPhone Calendars app will like and will most likely help make for a smooth transition.

When initially launching Agenda it'll ask you if you'd like to migrate calendars and what services you'd like to set up. Once that's done you'll be brought to a screen that shows a list view of everything in your calendar. You can flick through it or tap into certain days to get a better idea of what you have going on for that day. From here you can tap into a single event and view it, edit it, share it via e-mail or text, and more.

The menu bar in Agenda is easy enough to navigate as well. Along the bottom of the main screen you'll see arrows that allow you to toggle between month, week, and year view. Next to those you'll see a calendar ticker that allows you to jump to any given month and year. To the right you have a "+" icon which is used to add events to your calendar. Next to that is a gear icon which gives access to your settings. This icon remains static throughout any screen you may be on so you can easily jump into settings from wherever you are.

CalenGoo syncs natively with Google Calendars. After the initial sync you'll be brought to a main screen that shows a month by default. Your main navigation items will be located along the bottom while settings and adding events are handled from the top navigation bar. CalenGoo allows you to view day, week, month, and list views. There is also a quick button that's located in the bottom left that lets you easily jump to events for the current day. To the far right you've got a search option that lets you search for calendar events.

Adding an event to CalenGoo is easy enough and can be done by tapping the "+" symbol in the upper right hand corner. You'll be prompted to enter a title for the event and then enter the details. Once you're done and hit save it'll be added to your calendar. CalenGoo will use the default calendar colors that you already have set up through Google Calendars.

The settings section of CalenGoo gives you access to all kinds of options that can help you customize the app to your liking. While CalenGoo does allow you to customize pretty much everything imaginable, the settings panel is pretty complicated and the amount of options may be overwhelming to non-advanced users. If you aren't an advanced user, it doesn't mean the app won't serve your purposes, just leave everything at default and only change things you need to and you should still be good to go. I found CalenGoo's defaults to be more than sufficient for my needs.

Calendars by Readdle is quite similar to CalenGoo when it comes to user interface at first appearance but the controls are actually quite different. Along the top menu of Calendars you'll have a calendar button that allows you to show or hide calendars from view followed by a menu that lets you toggle between list, day, week, month, and tasks view. The far right top corner has a "+" sign that you'll use to add events.

The menu running along the bottom allows you to access Calendar's settings or quickly slide through months with the date changer. In the bottom right corner you will see today's date. Tapping on it instantly brings you back to the current day.

Adding an event in Calendars is easy. Just tap the "+" symbol in the upper right hand corner and you'll be brought to the event creation screen. Here you can choose your event title, what calendar you want to add it to, and more. Once you're done just tap Save and it'll be added to your calendar. There's nothing tricky or confusing.

The settings panel in Calendars allows you to change quite a few options including what view you'd like to be set as your default. If you always want the app to load the way you left it you can choose the Last Used View option to do so.

Agenda and Calendars both have better interfaces than CalenGoo. If you want something clean and simple and don't need a ton of extra customization options, Agenda is a great choice. Calendars by Readdle's settings are easy to navigate but give you more powerful control than Agenda and for that, it's a tie between the two when it comes to interface and design.

Agenda vs. CalenGoo vs. Calendars: Organizing, sorting, and sharing

Agenda is not only a beautiful app but makes it easy to see what you want, when you want to see it. Agenda will automatically pull the calendar colors you already have configured on whatever service you're using to make it easy to pick out what event or reminder belongs to what calendar or list.

When it comes to sorting, you can tap into the settings panel of Agenda at any time and then into calendars and turn on or off any calendars you do or don't want to view at a given time. If you're on vacation you can easily tick off work reminders, alerts, and events from appearing. Even though you're hiding them it won't disable alerts for those calendars which is good if you want to still receive alerts but bad if you don't want them.

After choosing the "+" sign to add an event, you can toggle along the top to choose between event and reminder creation. Just as a side note, if you've got the iOS Event Creation option chosen in Settings, you won't have the option to create reminders in Agenda. You'll have to make sure this feature is turned off if you want Agenda to handle your reminders as well. Once you've created an event or reminder, it'll instantly be added to your calendar and will sync with whatever service you're using.

If you'd like to share an event or reminder with someone else you can easily do so in Agenda by tapping on the arrow next to the event name. You can e-mail the entry or copy it. If you want to inform someone you're running late, on time, or any other message of your choice you can choose the message or text icon towards the bottom. You can then customize the message or send an update to whoever you'd like from the default templates available. This is an extremely nice feature and something a lot of calendar and event apps lack.

CalenGoo also will use the default calendar colors from Google Calendars. If you'd like to hide certain calendars, you can do so within the settings panel. You can also choose to create calendars and tasks that don't show up in Google Calendar if you choose to do so. While the settings panel may be overwhelming to some users, advanced users will greatly appreciate the flexibility and control they have over their content with CalenGoo.

When it comes to sharing events, you can easily do so in CalenGoo by choosing the Send button by any event. You'll then have the option to e-mail or send the event as an SMS to any contact or e-mail address. You can also choose to save the event as a template by choosing the envelope with a down arrow icon next to the send button. It's a nice feature for things you may need to set up later but aren't quite sure on dates now.

While CalenGoo is extremely powerful, the menu setup is a little strange. Whenever you click on a view, that button will change to accommodate the view that isn't shown. It's a little weird and none of the buttons ever remain static. This would confuse me when trying to get to certain views.

Calendars by Readdle has a nice menu system within it that lets you quickly sift through and sort calendars as you wish. Just slide the date slider to the left or right to quickly page through months, days, or weeks. If you have a lot of calendar entries and need to find something in a certain calendar, just tap the calendar icon in the upper left hand corner and hide other calendars to make it easier to find things. This is a feature that both Agenda and CalenGoo hide in the settings panel. Calendars makes things easy to find and the app more practical to use.

Single tapping on any event will show you a preview of that event. Unfortunately there is no way to expand it. Tapping edit will, however, allow you to add attendees and view additional information or change anything you need to. Again, Calendars just like both Agenda and CalenGoo will use the same colors for your calendars that you already use.

Along the top you'll be able to toggle views and if you have tasks enabled in settings, you'll see the addition of a tasks tab. Tapping on it gives you a list of the tasks you have for any list you've got configured in Google. To create a new task you'll need to be in task view before clicking the "+" sign. If you're on any other screen it'll default to event entry which for most, isn't a problem and probably a preferred method anyways.

Agenda offers the best solution when it comes to sorting, organizing, viewing, and actually interacting with your events and tasks. It's simple and clean but yet still more powerful than the default iPhone Calendars app.

Agenda vs. CalenGoo vs. Calendars: Alerts, notifications, and recurring entries

Agenda allows you to customize alerts and notifications under the settings panel. You can choose to use either the default or one of 8 other notification tones. You can also choose the time for which you want Agenda to alert you of an event or task. You can choose between several options including at the time of event, minutes before, hours before, or days before. You change the all day event alert time the exact same way as you would for regular events.

Recurring events in Agenda are better than the default iPhone calendar app. You can choose between day, week, month, or year which is the same as the default app but you can choose not only a start and end date which is an ability the default Calendar app doesn't give you but also intervals at which you'd like them to repeat. For example, you can have an event repeat every 3 weeks or every first Friday of the month if you'd like.

CalenGoo does alerts a little differently. You can set different alert tones for different calendars and tasks through the settings panel as well as customize what kind of pop ups you want or choose no pop ups. It's a little bit of a hassle to configure at first but once you've got alerts set up how you want them, you're good to go.

Recurring events inside CalenGoo are a lot like Agenda and allow you to choose specific increments as well. Which means you can have an event set to recur every 2 days if you'd like just like you can in Agenda. You can also change the events from recurring endlessly or limited to a certain date. These are nice for times when you have conference series or events that may repeat every few days or weeks but have a definitive end time.

Calendars by Readdle has a total of 15 alarm and alert tones to choose from and you can change them at any time through the settings panel. The same panel in settings also allows you to choose what time you want all day events to start, which is when they'll populate in your calendar.

Recurring events in Calendars is the most robust of all three options. You can choose from the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly presets or choose the custom option. With this option you can customize reminders virtually whatever way you'd like. You can have events repeating endlessly any days of the week you'd like.

When it comes to alerts and customization, all three apps handle alerts very well but when it comes to recurring events, Calendars by Readdle wins that battle but only by a slight margin since Agenda can do the same intervals and types of recurrences. The only reason I give the edge to Readdle is the fact that they're easier to configure and understand.

Agenda vs. CalenGoo vs. Calendars: Supported services

Agenda supports sync with iCloud, Google Calendar, and Exchange natively. If you've got any of these services, you'll be good to go. The first time you start up the app it can import all your events into Agenda from the default iPhone calendar app for you. You can also choose to keep them in sync and any changes you make in Agenda will appear in your iPhone calendar and vice versa. Google Calendar and Exchange support will work in the exact same way.

CalenGoo only currently provides support for Google Calendar, as its name implies. If you only use Google Calendar, it's just as good of an option as the other two.

Calendars by Readdle supports both Google Calendar services and the built-in iPhone calendars app so if you've got events saved in either one it'll be able to pull them effortlessly.

Even though Agenda and Calendars by Readdle carry the same support, Agenda syncs much more seamlessly and with very little effort. For users that have shared events in iCloud, CalenGoo and Calendars by Readdle don't always seem to sync to the default app very well or without some effort on your part. So if you're looking for a solution that makes your life easier and less complicated, Agenda is the best option for you.

Agenda vs. CalenGoo vs. Calendars: Cross-platform support

Agenda, CalenGoo, and Calendars by Readdle are all universal downloads for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Once you purchase any one of them, you instantly own the app for all your other iOS devices as well.

If you're looking for Mac support, none of the three currently have Mac counterparts. Most likely due to the syncing support the apps already carry.

Tie between Agenda, CalenGoo, and Calendars.

Agenda vs. CalenGoo vs. Calendars: Pricing

Agenda is currently priced at $0.99 which will get you the app for any iOS device you own. CalenGoo and Calendars by Readdle are both priced at $6.99 and just like Agenda, it'll get you the universal version that's optimized for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

If price is an important factor to you, Agenda is a great app and at $0.99, you really can't beat it.

Agenda vs. Calengoo vs. Calendars: The bottom line

There's no doubt that Agenda, CalenGoo, and Calendars by Readdle all give you a lot more functionality than the default Calendar app on the iPhone, yet they're also very different when it comes to how they work and how well they work.

CalenGoo is a good option, but sync times to sometimes take longer than they should. The settings panel is also too jam packed with options. While it makes the app very customizable, some of the options aren't necessary and will only serve to confuse a lot of people.

If you need a better calendar app than the default one, we recommend either Agenda or Calendars by Readdle.

Calendars by Readdle is an excellent app and syncs seamlessly. If you have a lot of recurring events at odd intervals and need the ability to manually set them up and customize them, get Calendars by Readdle.

Agenda us also excellent and also syncs seamlessly. If you want something that looks as good as it works, that can be simple but also functional, and with a price that can't be beat, get Agenda.

Agenda - $0.99 - Download Now

CalenGoo - $6.99 - Download Now

Calendars - $6.99 - Download Now

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If there's one thing iMore loves even more than iPhones and iPads, it's giving cool iPhone and iPad accessories and apps to our awesome readers. This week we have...

iPhone 5 Carbon Fibre Vinyl Skin (UK only)
dpscott
EssexBantam
h2shin
inskipm
Jamess9046
kevin.rook
lhunt316
M_Stephens
mo_alkaff
OllieBoyne
serwan
TheMaccaUK

Weekly photo contest - Avatars!

Grand prize winner - ToddFSU!

Runner-up - cwieka23pl

Congratulations everyone! Winners will be contacted in the next few days with information on claiming their prizes. Be sure to check out all the entries in the Avatar Contest over in the forums as there were a lot of awesome photos.

Looking for another chance to win? We always have a contest underway for something cool, so keep your eyes on the blogs for those announcements. Right now you can enter to win a free iPod! Details below.

Enter to win a free iPod touch or iPod nano

We are receiving reports from Verizon iPhone 5 users that their iPhones are randomly displaying the incorrect date and time causing iMessage to fail, and even worse, alarms not going off in time to wake up for work. There is a thread in the Apple Support Community with many users, including a few Sprint users, reporting the same issue.

Woke up yesterday and was very confused because my phone thought it was 8/26/12 and 30 minutes later than the actual time. I reset network settings and it self resolved...until this morning. I woke up and looked at my phone and had a melt down because my alarm never went off. I hurriedly got ready and looked at the microwave as I ran out, and it was 30 minutes earlier than my iPhone said.

The temporary fix seems to disable automatic date and time by going to Settings > General > Date & Time > Set Automatically > OFF.

Are any other Verizon or Sprint users experiencing this issue? If so, please head to our forums and tell us all about it!

Rene and Jim Dalrymple of The Loop talk the October iPad event, the iPad mini, Microsoft Surface, and the difference between the two types of compromises and companies.

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Guests

• Jim Dalrymple - @jdalrymple of The Loop

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie - @reneritchie

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter @iMore or ADN @iMore, or you can email us at podcast@imore.com or just leave us a comment below.

For all our podcasts -- audio and video -- including the iMore show, ZEN and TECH, Iterate, and more, see MobileNations.com/shows

Thanks to the iMore Accessory Store for sponsoring this week's show. Your one-stop-shop for everything iPhone and iPad, including cables, cases, chargers, Bluetooth and much more, check out store.imore.com.