Apple has been building the ability to take panoramic photos into the default iOS camera app — but the company hasn’t officially released the feature yet. But Conrad Kramer discovered that the feature is already baked into iOS 5.0… it’s just not enabled by default.

In order to enable support for panoramic photos you’ll need to jailbreak your device and download a utility called Firebreak from the Cydia Store. Alternately, if you want to make the change manually, you need to change the key “EnableFirebreak” to “yes” in com.apple.mobileslideshow.plist — but I suspect it’s easier for most people just to download the app from Cydia.

iPhone Dev Team member chpwn is responsible for submitting the Firebreak app to the Cydia store.

In order to shoot a panaromic photo, you just choose panorama mode, tap the camera button, and move your camera from left to right until you’re done capturing your image.

via FSM

Apple introduced iOS 5.0 today. An early version is already available for developers, and the company will push out a software update for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users later this fall. The latest operating system will support all apple mobile devices from the iPhone 3GS on up. That includes the iPhone 4, the third and fourth generation iPod touch, and all iPad models.

We’ll also get the full set of iCloud features this fall, including the ability to backup most of the data on your device for free, synchronize photos, music, apps, documents, and iBooks progress across devices, and sto tore music on the web.

So what’s new in iOS 5.0? Apple says there will be 250 changes, but the company outlined some of the biggest updates today. Here’s a quick rundown:

Notifications

Apple has finally improved notifications. Instead of annoying pop-up notices, iOS 5.0 will feature a Notification Center which displays the latest notifications from all your apps. You can access it by swiping down from the top of your screen. This view will also show you weather and stock information. Some folks had been expecting Apple to add support for widgets on the home screen, but it sounds like the closest we’re going to get are notification widgets.

PC Free

You’ll no longer need a PC or Mac to use an iOS device. When you first turn on your new mobile device instead of showing a USB cable on the start screen you’ll just see a message that says “welcome.” That’s because you can activate your device over a wireless connection. And if you do have a PC you’ll be able to synchronize without a USB cable.

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A new camera app for jailbroken iOS devices should be available soon, letting you set a timer for your camera or take a number of photos in rapid succession. It’s called PictureMe and it should be available in the Cydia store soon for $1.99.

The Time Delay feature lets you set a custom time between 0 and 25 seconds. This lets you set up the camera, hit the button, and still have time to set up your photo. It comes in handy for group shots where you want to set your camera on a table or other surface and then walk around to the front to get yourself in the photo. Most digital cameras have this feature, but it’s something the standard iOS photo app can’t do.

The Rapid Shot setting lets you take up to 5 photos in quick succession.

You can’t use timer and rapid shot at the same time.

via FSM

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OfficeDrop has launched an Android app which lets you scan receipts, documents, or other text-based items with your phone and store them online. You can tag items or sort them into folders to make it easy to locate scanned documents later using your phone or using OfficeDrop’s web site. But the really cool thing is that OfficeDrop can also convert scanned documents into searchable PDF files.

The app also lets you upload files from your camera roll or from your SD card. OfficeDrop recognizes 25 different file types, although I wasn’t particularly impressed with the file browser for the upload menu, which appears to sort documents and folders randomly (or if there’s a pattern I didn’t see it).

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Internet voice and video app fring has received an update which lets you use either camera when making video calls using the latest iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad models. That way you can start a call using the front-facing camera for face-to-face communication, but you can switch to the higher quality rear camera if you want to show the person you’re talking to what you’re looking at.

Fring is hardly the first app to offer this feature. Apple’s FaceTime video chat app also lets you flip between cameras, as does Skype. But it’s a nice addition to the latest version of fring.

The update also improves power consumption and lets you purchase fringOut credit for making VoIP calls to telephone lines over a WiFi or mobile broadband connection.

You can download fring 4.1.2 for free from the App Store.

Windows Phone 7 may be the sexiest new mobile operating system Microsoft has released since, well, Pocket PC 2000. But while it has a slick new interface, an excellent new browser, and other compelling features, it lacks some of the features Windows Mobile users have grown used to over the past decade. That includes copy and paste support, multitasking, and easily removable storage. Developers are also discovering that the tools Microsoft offers for writing third party apps have some interesting limitations.

For instance, developers cannot write apps that have full access to the camera on Windows Phone 7 handsets. As a result, Fortune reports that the developers of the popular augmented reality app makers Layer will not be building a version for Windows Phone 7. Likewise, Fring, a company that offers voice and video chat for the iPhone, Android, Symbian, and other platforms won’t be able to make a full featured WP7 version.

It’s possible that Microsoft could issue an update eventually that will add support for third party camera apps. After all, the company has already promised that copy and paste support will arrive next year, so clearly someone at Microsoft is working to fill in the blanks. But this seems like a pretty big omission at a time when camera-based apps are big business on other mobile platforms. Right now, third party apps an take photos with the camera… but that’s about all they can do.

On the other hands, most reviews I’ve read of Windows Phone 7 point out that taking pictures on the platform is easier than on pretty much any other type of smartphone. Microsoft requires manufacturers to include a dedicated camera button on their phones, so all you have to do is click the button to open the camera app and click it again to take a picture. It’s just as easy as using any digital camera.

via WPCentral

There are plenty of apps that take advantage of your phone’s hardware to do obvious things. You can turn your phone into a GPS unit or even a compass by using the accelerometer and GPS receiver. You can use the camera for augmented reality apps. But every now and again a developer comes up with a way to use the hardware that just barely seems possible.

Instant heart rate is one of those apps. It’s a free Android app that measures your heart rate using the camera.

Scan to download

Basically you place your finger over the camera for about 10 seconds and it will start to monitor your blood flow. You have to hold your finger awfully close to the camera for it to work — but you also have to make sure not to press too tight or you’ll cut off blood flow.

Overall I’m not sure how much more practical this pulse rate monitor is than the old fashioned method of placing your fingers on a vein and counting. But that’s beside the point, because it’s incredibly awesome that it works at all.

The last app I saw that surprised me this much was probably Football Real Kick, an iPhone app that uses the speaker to blow enough air to kick a tiny spitball-sized soccer ball across a real table.

Instant heart rate is available as a free download from the Android Market.

via Reddit

Remember the good old days when sending an honest to goodness image over a dial-up internet connection would have taken hours, so people devised ways to arrange text to look like cartoons, landscapes, or you know… people with their clothes off? Now you can relive the fun with AsciiCamera for Android.

Scan to download

This free app uses your phone’s camera to snap a photograph. But instead of just saving a JPG, AsciiCamera converts your photo into ASCII art. The result is an image made up of letters, numbers, and other text-based symbols.

You can adjust the size of your image and choose whether to save it in color or grayscale. The final image can then be saved either as an image file or as a text file. There’s also a share button built in, making it easy to share your creation with the world via email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, or any other sharing services you happen to have installed on your phone.

AsciiCamera also lets you convert any image stored on your phone to text-based art. Just fire up the Android gallery app, find an image, and hit the share button. Choose AsciiCamera and the app will go to work converting your picture.

AsciiCamera is available as a free download from the Android Market.

You can check out a few more screenshots after the break.

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