Most Annoying iPhone Problems

1. Low Battery Life

Problem: One of the most common bugbears of the iPhone is that it’s battery runs out so quickly; browse Facebook, listen to a few tunes and send an email or two and suddenly you are in the red!

Solution: The best way to preserve your battery life is to switch off all of the apps and notifications that you don’t need, such as GPS, Wi-Fi and push notifications on useless apps until you need them. For more tips on how to improve your iPhone’s battery life, check out 5 Top Tips On How To Increase Your iPhone’s Battery Life.

2. Screen Is Easily Broken

Problem: I have lost count of the amount of times that I have dropped my iPhone and watched the flimsy screen splinter into a thousand pieces, knowing that I’m going to have yet another premium tacked on to my insurance bill. The price of having a wonderfully responsive touch screen is that it is very easily broken.

Solution: Get yourself a case. You need to protect your iPhone from the world’s elements, so invest in a tough one with a screen protector. Check out 5 Incredibly Stylish iPhone 4 Cases for inspiration!

3. Music Sounds Tinny On Loudspeaker

Problem: I really value the quality of sound production, so when my favourite tracks come blaring out of my iPhone with a tinny whine, it makes me want to scream! The inbuilt speakers are OK for playing basic app game sound effects but for pumping out the tunes, they’re just not good enough.

Solution: Invest in a decent set of iPhone speakers that will allow you to play your music as loud as you like with decent quality sound production. Try our 5 Great iPhone Accessories for Music if you are a music lover!

4. The Dictionary Won’t Learn New Words

Problem: Autocorrect is a fantastic setting if you are a sloppy texter like me, however if you want to use slang or ‘naughty’ words, the iPhone can often correct them to the wrong word!

Solution: There are many ways to try and trick your iPhone into learning new words, but if you want these words to stick, you’ve got to Google it. If you search for new words with Google in Safari it forces your iPhone’s dictionary to remember your ‘new’ words and will retain them forever. For more iPhone tips, go to iPhone Tips!

5. The Stock Ringtones Are Terrible

Problem: I have had the same ringtone for as long as I have had my iPhone and when it goes off in a shop, at least three other people go to answer their phones. This is quite funny, however the stock iPhone ringtones are so boring!

Solution: Check out TonePad, which allows you to create unique music ringtones for your iPhone in seconds.

6. Mail Archives Emails Instead Of Deleting Them When You Go To Edit

Problem: Ever since the 4.0 update to Mail where they got rid of the ‘Trash’ button, when I go to ‘Edit’, I archive emails instead of deleting them. Frustrating!

Solution: You can change the function of the ‘Edit’ button by going to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > “preferred mail account”. There you can toggle the Archive Messages to ‘On’ or ‘Off’. For more tips on your iPhone, go to iPhone Tips.

7. Google Maps Is Not Accurate Close To Your Destination

Problem: Google Maps is superb and it has helped me find my way home so many times that I literally don’t know how I coped without it. However, when I near my destination, the accuracy seems to fall to zero!

Solution: Use the Compass feature on Maps for a more accurate guide. Launch Google Maps and tap on the crosshair icon at the bottom left of the screen. This will make the blue dot display your current location on the map; then click the icon again and a triangle will appear next to the dot: this shows the direction on the map that the iPhone is facing, making it easier to navigate around!

8. Some Paid Apps Are Terrible

Problem: As part of my job, I have to test a lot of apps and what really irritates me is when I pay for an app that is complete crap and can’t get a refund.

Solution: Many apps have a ‘lite’ version that allows you to test them for free before you buy the ‘Pro’ version; this is a great way of ensuring that you don’t waste your money!

9. iPhone Operates Very Slowly

Problem: The first time that I used my iPhone I was amazed at how quickly it worked, sliding from screen to screen at my lightest touch. However, as I loaded more apps and music on to it, the response time for loading and calling became much slower, which is really annoying!

Solution: If you free up space on your iPhone, you will find that it operates much quicker. Upload all of your photos, music and rarely used apps on to your computer and allow your iPhone some room to breathe.

Best 2011 ipone apps

1. Instagram – By Burbn Inc, Updated 27th January 2011, FREE

Photo-altering app that has effectively become an image-based social network

Spearheading the recent social networking trend of sharing images rather than words is Instagram. This app allows you to take photos, enhance them with a series of effects, and seamlessly share them on social networking sites.
What makes Instagram stand out from other photo-sharing apps is that it has effectively become a social network unto itself. You can build up a network of friends and contacts whose photos you appreciate within the app itself, making it a pure image-based social network.
Instagram is great for those wanting to (literally) share their visions with the world and track down people with similar outlooks. Instagram is certain to continue growing throughout 2011 as the relative anonymity of photo-sharing is proving to be a popular digital pastime.

2. Star Walk – By Vito Technology, Updated 4th January 2011, £1.79

A deep but accessible astronomy iphone app

Ok, so not everyone is interested in astronomy, but for those who are then this is a beautiful app to get lost in. Whether you just want to do some star-gazing, travel through time, or look at Meteor showers in deep space, Star Walk has it all.
The great thing about this app is that it is accessible to astronomy beginners while also being useful for those specialised in the field. The Telrad feature allows you to measure angular distances between stars (not that I understand astronomy enough to know the purpose of this), and there is a considerable catalogue detailing objects in both deep and shallow space. All of this presented through an intuitive and sleek interface that never distances you too much from the wonders of space.
Star Walk received design awards in both 2009 and 2010. Its regular updates should ensure that it remains the most comprehensive, visually pleasing and enjoyable astronomy app to indulge in throughout 2011.

3. Schedulicity – By Schedulicity Inc

For the uninitiated, Schedulicity is a web-based service that allows individuals and small businesses to manage their appointments and schedules online.
Now, the popular service has found its way to smartphones and tablet devices, allowing appointments to be managed from the palm of your hand. Edit client accounts, receive appointment reminders and organise you calendar whenever you like! Of course, this could spawn a generation of workaholics who, having their business in the palms of their hands, obsess over their schedules every waking moment of the day, but it certainly makes businesses more manageable. Everything you do in the mobile version will, of course, be streamlined with your web-based account.
Already recognised as an important trend in streamlining business operations and customer services, Schedulicity looks likely to catch on as an integral aspect of managing small businesses.

4. Blackstar – By Spacetime Studios,Release Date: Q2 2011, Price TBC

From the makers of Pocket Legends, Blackstar is likely to be the next big thing for iPhone MMOs

While a Massively Multiplayer Online game a.k.a. MMO is certainly not a must-have App for everyone, there certainly is a niche crowd of geeks who’ll be drooling over this one.
Blackstar is the successor to the popular iPhone MMO Pocket Legends. However, while that was based on a world of elves and pixies, Blackstar takes place in a conflict-filled 41st Century.
Few details have been disclosed so far, except that the developers are promising that it will not be ‘content-light’ and that it will support just about every relevant technology out there (EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi, 4G). It’s safe to assume that this will address the various issues raised with its fantasy predecessor, and reel in the sci-fi-geek masses.

5. Kindle – By Amazon, Updated 14th February 2011, FREE

Will Kindle succeed on the iPhone?

So the Amazon’s digital-book-reading App has been around for a while, but 2011 will be a crucial year in finding out whether it will catch on on Apple’s devices. Its case will not be helped by the recent revelation that Apple have forbidden Amazon from providing web links for purchasing their books.

Politics aside, the Kindle App is probably the best book-reader App out there. It allows you to synchronise all your e-books between devices, meaning that as long as you have a device, you always have access to your books; stick in the mud that I am, I don’t see how carrying an actual book around is such a burden, but then this whole e-book craze seems to be catching on quite nicely so I’m obviously just wrong in my cynicism.
Among the neat features on the Kindle App is the option to look up words on Google and Wikipedia and also tap words into an in-built dictionary. While 2011 seems destined to be a good year for the Kindle device, whether it will catch on with Apple’s devices is not so certain due to the recent changes to Apple’s terms of use. Either way, it will be an interesting year for the Kindle App!

6. Dead Space – By EA Mobile, Released 25th January 2011, £3.99

One of the most intense horror games has arrived on the iPhone

Most gaming enthusiasts will know that Dead Space is probably the most terrifying game to play on the big consoles. Naturally, this fear is hard to translate to the small iPhone screen, but that doesn’t stop it from being EA’s best mobile offering to date.

Dead Space looks and plays brilliantly, utilising the minimal interface of its big console counterparts. There is a plethora of brutal weapons, varied scenery, and the gameplay utilises the touch-screen very smoothly.
At £3.99, Dead Space can be considered one of the more pricey iPhone games, but with a 5-hour storyline and some intense action sequences its price tag (which, let’s be honest, isn’t that high anyway) is perfectly justified.

7. CoPilot Live 9 Release date: Q2 2011, Price TBC

The social-network-friendly GPS App

A relatively unexpensive Sat Nav App for the Facebook generation. The latest version of CoPilot is set to feature an overhauled interface and provides multiple routes to your selected destinations.
Aside from these functional upgrades, CoPilot 9 will also feature an integrated Bing search engine made for tracking local businesses and services. And for those hopelessly addicted to the trivial activity of letting the whole world know where you are through Facebook Places, this App will feed your habit by letting you post updates to Places in real-time; after all, everyone wants to know when you’re stuck in rush-hour traffic in London, don’t they?
Other unique features include the option to save the exact location of your car, driving directions to ‘geotagged’ pictures taken by your smartphone, and a walking mode which helps you navigate cities on foot. Yes, CoPilot is making our dependency on our own sense of navigation a thing of the past.

8. Bear Grylls – Bear Essentials – By Chillingo, Updated 6th January 2011, £3.99

Bear Essentials is a functional and substantial app for those interested in their own survival

People often say that their iPhone is a ‘lifesaving’ device, helping you find your way from A to B, work out train times and general assistance with other such urban activities. But with Bear Grylls’ heavily branded ‘Bear Essentials’, your iPhone can save your life more literally.
In the admittedly unlikely case that you find yourself in a Bear Grylls-like scenario of being stranded up a mountain or in a jungle, or shipwrecked on a desert island, this App gives essential advice in surviving these situations.
As well as offering videos and interactive diagrams, there is a whole wealth of extremely useful survival information for you to refer to. At the end of each section you look through, there is also a quiz to test your survival knowledge; granted, you won’t be quizzing yourself while hunting for snakes and making camp-fires using flints and sticks, but it’s good to be prepared. Essential for the more adventurous iPhone owner.

9. Hipstamatic – By Synthetic Corp Updated 10th February 2011, £1.19

Hipstamatic allows you to choose from plenty of vintage looks for your photos

Retro is always ‘in’, so it seems natural that an App would come along that lets you take photos with a distinctly retro make-over. Hipstamatic is an extremely fun App that allows you to take photos using various lens, flash and film types to give your photos that Analog feel.
Such is the popularity of this App that it even has its own ‘Hipstamart’, where you can purchase further flashes, films and lenses for your omnipotent analog camera. There is even a monthly competition where the community votes on the best ‘HipstaPrints’, giving you the chance to win ‘fabulous’ prizes.
The fact that Hipstamatic has managed to create a community around itself and even have its own store for additional content suggests that the ball has only just got rolling on this one, and it will be interesting to see how it develops throughout 2011.

10. The Shadow Sun – By Ossian, Release Date: Q2 2011

The Shadow Sun looks tear-jerkingly beautiful

While the iPhone has slowly established itself as a worthy gaming platform, it still lacks an immersive, epic RPG experience. Initially, it was thought that this was due to the technical limitations of the iphone, but The Shadow Sun looks should put that theory to bed.
The Shadow Sun promises in-depth character development, a varied game world and, as you can see, beautiful graphics of the sort rarely seen on the iPhone. Your choices affect the story, the gameplay is fast-paced, and you can even take on party members. In other words, this isn’t the ‘Lite’ RPG experience iPhone users have come to accept, but the full-on thing.
Ossian have delayed The Shadow Sun until Spring 2011, suggesting that they are striving for perfection with this ambitious project. Could this be the RPG that iPhone gamers have long been waiting for?

The Silent House

          Based on a true events occuring in the late 40's in a small village in Uruguay, The Silent House - La Casa Muda is groundbreaking horror filmed in one single continuous shot of seventy eight minutes. The film centers on Laura, who, second by second, intends to leave a house which hides an obscure secret, unharmed. Laura and her father Wilson settle down in a cottage they have to renew since its owner will soon put the house up for sale. They will spend the night there and repair the following morning. Everything seems to go smoothly until Laura hears a sound that comes from outside and gets louder and louder on the upper floor of the house.
                                   

SHOGUN 2: TOTAL WAR

When the first Shogun: Total War came out, its real-time battles made you feel like you were playing through the epic battle scenes from one of Akira Kurosawa's samurai films. Shogun 2 is like playing through a new, remastered edition of that game, complete with both the character dramas and the enormous battles. Merging beautiful graphics, scheming generals, improved multiplayer options, and deep strategic gameplay with countless small details that imbue it with historical flavor and drama, Shogun 2 is one of the most captivating strategy games ever made.

SJM seeks SJF. Interests must include poetry, strategy, and the wedge formation.

Like the previous Total War games, Shogun 2 combines a turn-based strategy mode with tactical, real-time battles. The turn-based portion of the game takes place on a gorgeous strategic map that, although limited to the country of Japan (minus Hokkaido), feels every bit as epic as the continent-spanning maps of previous iterations in the series. It is on this magnificent 60-province map of Japan that you make all of your strategic decisions, manage your dynasty, research technologies, build improvements like roads and farms, and direct your armies. When an army engages in combat, you can either use the auto-resolve feature or fight things out in fantastic real-time battles. The goal during real-time battles is to route the enemy army as an attacker and hold out as a defender. Either way, you have to make intelligent use of terrain and unit abilities, keep your flank adequately protected, and do your best to sap the enemy units' morale before they can get the upper hand.
Shogun 2's turn-based single-player campaign stands on its own merits as an excellent strategy game. You play as an ambitious daimyo, or leader, of one of the 10 most powerful clans in Japan. Each clan has unique strengths that you have to master if you plan to capture Kyoto, the nation's capital city, and unify Japan as its new shogun. For instance, the Chosokabe have superior bow infantry, while the Mori are master shipwrights, and the Hojo get building construction bonuses. The choice of clan is an easy one compared to the many difficult decisions you have to make during the campaign. One example is the allocation of your research efforts, which must be carefully divided between the chi and Bushido arts (the civilian and military tech trees, respectively). A strong economy based on chi is needed to pay for a powerful army's upkeep, but a narrowly focused autocrat, however enlightened, may be overrun by a militaristic brute. Furthermore, sound economic planning is necessary for success. Your economic potential and buildable units are limited by the types of buildings in your provinces. The size of a province's castle determines the number of possible buildings that may be constructed there. Since larger castles consume more food, you have to carefully plan your upgrades lest you inadvertently cause mass starvation. Temporary prosperity is possible through honorable trade relations with other clans, but these arrangements rarely last.

By law, all Japanese generals must be exceptional orators.

Such concerns coupled with the constant barrage of special events and natural disasters are problematic enough, but the tricky issue of religion is added to this explosive mix. Allowing Nanban, or European, merchants into your cities lets you field units with powerful matchlock firearms, but it also opens up your homogeneous Buddhist society to Christian influences. The growing Christian population has to be either appeased or subdued in some manner. One solution is for the clan to convert to Christianity to unlock powerful European cannons or carracks, but this would outrage the Buddhist population and bring dishonor to the daimyo. The best course of action is to ensure that the majority of the populace follows the daimyo's faith whether through conversion or isolationism. Angry religious minorities are an Achilles' heel for any daimyo, so religious and secular grievances must be kept to a minimum lest bloody rebellions ruin your chances of becoming shogun.
In Shogun 2, generals add another level of strategy, as well as some much-appreciated drama. Generals have always been important for maintaining troop morale in the Total War series, but they've never had as much character as in Shogun 2. For starters, generals now have a loyalty rating, and one could conceivably turn on you, especially if his overambitious wife is feeding him poisonous ideas. As a result, you need to find some way to keep them loyal. You might give them important positions in the clan, or bring them into your family through marriage or adoption (which works even if the general is only slightly younger than the daimyo). For example, a general's loyalty improves immensely once he has been entrusted with the clan's finances. It is vitally important to keep generals around for as long as possible because their combat experience can be used to gain a variety of new skills and followers for the clan's benefit. For instance, you could increase a general's poetry skill, giving your clan a research bonus and opening up the path for your general to become a "living treasure" capable of bringing unrestrained jubilation to any province he passes through. Alternatively, you may mold a general into a feared tyrant, an expert at siege warfare, or a near invincible legendary warrior. The general's retinue, which is increased every few levels, is equally diverse.

Keep an eye on the weather because adverse conditions can cost lives.

His retainers can be people, like a samurai master who gives a melee bonus to all units; animals, such as a lovable monkey; or even inanimate objects, like a Go board, which increases the general's command ability. These are all in addition to random traits that generals pick up during battles or through marriage. The "fecund wife" trait, which ensures that a general sires many children, is particularly useful for daimyos since they need heirs to carry on their legacy after death. The daimyo's male children will grow up to become fairly loyal generals, so you want to be blessed with a large brood. In addition to the generals, all special characters, such as the metsuke (inspectors), monks, ninjas, and geisha, gain experience points, skill traits, and a retinue. A Christian missionary, for example, can learn to become a scholar and aid his clan's chi research, or he can focus his efforts toward proselytizing for Christian faith with the help of his retinue of church notaries and Japanese converts.
Another important consideration is weather. On the campaign map, armies suffer significant attrition when outside of your territory during winter, so you must plan your campaigns with the seasons in mind, or risk losing samurai to frostbite. Likewise, fleets suffer heavy losses from attrition while outside of placid coastal waters. Weather also plays a major role during real-time battles. For instance, matchlock firearms and fire arrows are useless when it rains, and heavy fog can change the face of battle, enabling dramatic conflicts where diversionary assaults further obfuscate the true threat that bides its time in the dark mist.

The major addition to Shogun 2's multiplayer options is Avatar Conquest mode. In this mode, you create a persistent avatar who gains levels of experience as you play online skirmish battles. After creating your avatar, you gain access to the conquest map that divides Japan into numerous provinces, each of which grants a bonus of some kind, such as new unit types or improved reload speeds for bowmen. Once you've picked a province for your avatar to attack, you can join or host a multiplayer skirmish game. If you win the match, then your avatar conquers the province and receives the corresponding bonuses. Regardless of who wins, each player gains experience during these battles, which is then used to buy improvements for your avatar's leadership, bow mastery, physical, and melee-combat skills.

The 'boss battle' of Shogun 2's campaign takes place in the giant capital city of Kyoto.

Avatars also receive new retainers and additional retinue slots as they level up. Similarly, individual units can achieve veteran status, becoming permanent and even gaining skills of their own. These veterans don't replenish their numbers after combat unless you let them rest for a few battles. The improved skills and experienced units don't feel unbalanced because each match has a gold limit that determines the maximum value of each fielded army. Since better generals and experienced units cost more to bring into a battle than ordinary units do, a new leader could overwhelm a heavily experienced army through sheer force of numbers. There is also a clan mechanic where clan-wide victories grant bonuses to each individual clan member. All of this makes Avatar Conquest mode more interesting than more traditional unranked skirmish battles (which are still available).
Multiplayer campaigns, which were first added to the series in Napoleon: Total War, are back in Shogun 2, which boasts both cooperative and versus multiplayer campaigns. Your ultimate goal in a versus campaign is to destroy the other player, and to further this goal, you can control any AI troops that your enemy fights on the battlefield. Cooperative campaigns won't let you play as the AI during your allies' battles, but it won't force you to passively watch during allied battles either. Now you have the ability to gift control of some units to your ally during battles. While Napoleon would auto-resolve conflicts where both players' armies were fighting as allies, Shogun 2 now lets you battle it out alongside each other. Assaulting the vast fortress of Kyoto with a friend is an amazingly entertaining experience. Not so entertaining are the stability problems that crop up during some multiplayer campaigns. On one of the three computers used for this review, Shogun 2's multiplayer campaign modes caused numerous inexplicable crashes. Crashes were much rarer for the other computers, making it possible to play a cooperative multiplayer campaign all the way through to the successful invasion of Kyoto without any issues.
Shogun 2 has improved upon Napoleon in several additional ways. First, Shogun 2 offers more options during skirmish battles. Skirmish mode now boasts 37 maps, three map types (land battle, naval battle, and siege), and various options regarding weather, seasons, and time of day. One additional new option is the ability to add "key buildings" to the map. These buildings grant bonuses to whichever side captures them, giving both sides good reason to eschew turtle tactics and sally forth. Furthermore, the artificial intelligence has been improved for both campaign and skirmish games. On the campaign map it can cleverly conceal its units, waiting within the woods and striking once your army leaves a keep underdefended. It also attempts amphibious invasions. During real-time battles, the AI is more capable than before and makes commendable attempts to smash your weakest flank. AI-controlled armies can be surprisingly effective during castle sieges and often attempt to divert your attention between multiple castle sections, obfuscating your opponent's true intentions. Unfortunately, on occasion the AI mysteriously "forgets" its plan and just marches troops around your castle walls aimlessly until your archers' persistence routes them from the battlefield. There doesn't appear to be a way to separate the campaign difficulty from the battle AI difficulty, so you are out of luck if you want to face hard AI on the battlefield while playing at normal campaign difficulty.

Its work here complete, the Chosokabe clan sallies forth toward new adventures.

Stylistically, Shogun 2 is a visionary, coherent, and beautiful game. The rotatable campaign map is gorgeous and full of details, like tiny peasants moving their wares between provinces and cherry blossoms falling from the trees during autumn. Every unit or character is represented by an image card that looks like it came straight from a historical Japanese painting or woodcut, and the user interface is adorned with beautiful Japanese calligraphy. The graphics during battles are equally impressive, and even warriors in the same unit often have unique faces and armor. Shogun 2 is incredibly detailed: arrows stick in castle walls or boat hulls; corpses of men and horses cover the battlefield in silent testament to the price of your lust for power; and fire arrows, lanterns, and rockets light up the night sky. Complementing all of this are excellent sound effects and an effective score.
The captivating character of Shogun 2 doesn't end with its visuals. In cutscenes before each battle, generals give inspirational speeches to the troops, often focusing on themes like fealty or remaining fearless in the face of death. Subordinates bow when new orders are issued, an advisor laments the "shameful" behavior of retreating units, and unit formations have names like "reclining dragon" and "barking pine tree." All of this combines to give Shogun 2 a unique feel that is highly evocative of its historical setting. Shogun 2's delightful and all-encompassing world, coupled with its excellent production values, artful interface, deep strategic campaign, and thrilling real-time battles, makes it more impressive than its predecessor was a decade ago. Its only real flaw is the stability issue that occurred almost exclusively during multiplayer campaigns. Overall, Shogun 2 is just about everything you could want from a strategy game and is easily the apex of the Total War series up to this point.

Last Night

Set in New York City, Last Night is the story of a married couple that while apart for one night, is confronted by temptation that may decide the fate of their marriage. Joanna (Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley) and Michael Reed (Sam Worthington) are 7 years into a successful and happy relationship. They are moving along in their lives together until Joanna meets Laura (Eva Mendes), the stunningly beautiful work colleague whom Michael never mentioned. While Michael is away with Laura on a business trip, Joanna runs into an old but never quite forgotten love, Alex (Guillaume Canet) and agrees to have drinks with him. As the night progresses and temptation increases for the couple, each must confront who they are inside and outside of their relationship. Last Night is ultimately a film about choices - the choice you make to be with someone, to give yourself physically and emotionally, and how to survive all three.                       

Expanding iStockphoto makes high-end video play

iStockphoto COO Kelly Thompson

(Credit: iStockphoto)

LONDON--iStockphoto, a leader in the market for photos and other stock art, is expanding into premium-quality video under its Vetta brand.
The company announced the move at its weeklong iStockalypse event here, at which contributors take photos to sell, meet with peers, and learn tricks of the trade.
But this is not the only high-end video move under way at iStock. The company also expects to eventually offer high-end "2K" and "4K" video, which has roughly quadruple the resolution of mainstream 1080p video, iStock Chief Operating Officer Kelly Thompson said in an interview.
The video expansion is a significant one for iStock, a pioneering member of the "microstock" industry that has helped disrupt the professional photography business. Microstock companies, which are Internet-based middlemen that let customers license royalty-free images, introduced legions of amateurs eager to make some money if not necessarily a living.
iStock has been working to distinguish itself from rivals such as Shutterstock, Dreamstime, and Fotolia by also offering higher-quality, higher-priced content. To that end, iStock began offering top-shelf photos when it launched its Vetta collection in 2009, edging closer to the core business of its parent company, Getty Images.
Starting today, iStock is making the shift with Vetta video, too.
Although stock photos account for the bulk of iStock's business, video has actually been its fastest-growing category and last year surpassed 10 percent of revenue, Thompson said. The video is used anywhere from in independent films to background imagery on ABC News or "American Idol."
Expansion is important for iStock--and for parent Getty Images, which has suffered through the transformation of the stock-art business even as it embraced the change through its iStock subsidiary. Since going private in 2008, Getty no longer reveals financial details, but Thompson said iStock has "excellent growth considering its maturity."
The subsidiary employs 170 people, with 150 more contractors inspecting content to see whether the contributions are acceptable. And that's a big job. "About 65,000 files per week are uploaded, and we are working on mechanisms that will allow our contributors to upload more," Thompson said. On the customer purchase side, "A file is downloaded every second of the day."
International expansion is also crucial to the company. Getty's $50 million acquisition of iStock in 2006 gave the latter access to the all-important keyword translation technology so those with non-English languages could search for its imagery.
More recently came search results tailored for different countries, which has increased the rate at which searches yield sales, Thompson said. In 2010, revenue outside North America surpassed 50 percent, he said.

Expansion has been tough for the company, though, because of a contributor payment system that the company judged financially unsustainable. A switch last year to a performance-based compensation scheme was painful, but in the end, only about 0.1 percent of the more than 100,000 contributors were dramatically affected, Thompson said.
"It didn't really affect most people," Thompson said. "Everyone sort of settled down."
Video demands
Video can be much more technically demanding than still photography. Photographers can pick the best of a dozen or a hundred photos of the same subject, but video is less forgiving when there are problems with technique, equipment, or interruptions. Editing video also is more complicated and time-consuming, especially given audio integration matters.
What's it take to get your video into Vetta? iStock has a list of Vetta video guidelines: rarity, believable performances, environments with a strong visual impact, thought-provoking ideas, effective storytelling, technical excellence, live action, and imaginative animations or composites.
A Vetta collection will help contributors justify higher-end work, iStock believes.
"Our videographers have been excited about the price point," Thompson said. "They're investing a lot more money into their shoots. They're looking at something where they could get a lot more return back."
A new generation of cameras, led by Canon's 5D Mark II SLR, is transforming digital video. High-end videocameras still are important, but video-capable SLRs have introduced video to photographers who often have an arsenal of lenses and other equipment.
"Some of our photographers make exceptional video," Thompson said. "The Canon 5D Mark II is sort of the perfect camera. We're looking for short bursts of intense greatness, and cameras like that are perfect for those sorts of clips."
Other camera makers are taking it further, though. Red cameras, which are all the rage among feature-film producers, can produce 2K and 4K video--2048x1536 and 4096x3072 pixels, compared with 1920x1080 for 1080p video.
Right now, though, iStock downsamples such video to mere 1080p. But 2K and 4K eventually will arrive, though.
"It's a ways into the future--probably next year at the earliest," Thompson said.
One reason for the caution: 4K video takes up a lot of space--especially because iStock offers video in a variety of resolutions, and each must be stored separately. 4K videos would drastically increase computing needs.
"It boggles the mind what would be required," Thompson said. "We can barely keep up putting new servers into rotation now."
Other expansion under way
Vetta video isn't the only video expansion in the works. iStock recently launched editorial photos, which are for use by the news media and unlike its commercial art don't require models to sign releases permitting usage of their image. Editorial videos will come too, though Thompson wouldn't say when.
And this is not the only Vetta expansion, either. iStock also is launching Vetta for illustrations--imagery created with vector graphics software commonly used for logos and other line art. With Web browsers now supporting the SVG format for vector graphics, expect this category to gain in importance.
Today's illustration category of Vetta is actually a relaunch. iStock tried earlier but had to pull back when it judged it didn't have the right criteria for assessing price and complexity.
And one more new category coming for iStock: the PNG, (portable network graphics) format. Its big advantage compared with JPEG: it supports an "alpha" channel that lets designers mark parts of the overall image as transparent. That means objects work with colored or complex backgrounds without arduous image editing.
A key factor in the decision to support PNG is the fact that Microsoft Office now properly supports it, Thompson said. Because of that, objects with transparent backgrounds can easily be dropped into PowerPoint presentations, for example, he said.
Expansion notwithstanding, iStock has no plans to support raw image formats that offer higher quality than JPEG. Raw photos, the uncompressed, unprocessed data from higher-end digital cameras, offer greater flexibility for editing.
iStock has held many discussions with its customers about the possibility, but they've resoundingly expressed a preference for a finished product, not something they have to work on, Thompson said. "Customers are not interested," he said.
Infrastructure demands
All this expansion--now and in the future--has a big consequence for a data-intensive, international business. Infrastructure is a major matter for iStock.
Right now, the company's archive of content is 1.4 petabytes, growing at a rate of 22 terabytes per month, the company said.
The company today has two data centers in Calgary, Canada, where iStock is headquartered, and relies on Akamai to distribute the data internationally. That works well--until there's an Akamai hiccup from something like a configuration change.
"Man, do our servers start smoking if they have a glitch," Thompson said. "You see the load go [up] whoosh!"
At some point, the company plans to launch new data centers, likely in Europe and Japan, Thompson said.
Through a project called C9, the company is switching from lower-end storage systems to EMC's Atmos technology.
Another IT project at iStock is the move to a new Getty system that's more flexible. Today, each new category requires a new infrastructure, but the new technology will let iStock offer new categories as just a new module.
Given how fast the company is adding new content, that sounds like a good idea.

Thor

The epic adventure Thor spans the Marvel Universe from present day Earth to the mystical realm of Asgard. At the center of the story is The Mighty Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. As a result, Thor is banished to Earth where he is forced to live among humans. When the most dangerous villain of his world sends its darkest forces to invade Earth, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero.