Slideshow Builder - Great App for iPad - Must Have

I wasn't entirely pleased with the slideshow on the iPad.  The first time I synced my iPad with iTunes, I failed to select albums and had all my photos in one folder.  When I got ready to test the 'slideshow' feature on the ipad, I soon realized that all the photos in that folder were displayed and that I did not have a means to selectively view just the few photos I wished to display.  I then realized that if you have a group of photos that you wish to have displayed using the 'slideshow' feature on the iPad, that you need to make sure all those photos are in one album that you can choose to view.

Today I happened across the app called 'Slideshow Builder Lite' that was in the app store and decided to check out what features were available in this free version.  It has quite a few transitions.  In fact it has a face detection mode which uses a Ken Burns effect to pan between faces in one photo.  This is a cool feature and is customizable in the full version as well.  The lite or free version, gives the user the ability to create a few slideshows and a maximum of 20 photos across these slideshows.  But most importantly, the slides for the slideshows can be selected from different albums on your device.  This was the one feature that I was looking to implement.  After playing with the lite version for several minutes, I went straight to the app store and found that the full version was on sale for 99 cents (75% off), so I immediately purchased it and continued my testing on the full version.

The steps to creating a slideshow and interface for doing so are pretty easy and intuitive. First select the plus icon to bring up the options for the slideshow you wish to add.  Type in a name for your slideshow and click on the options that appear to the screens below:

After selecting the transitions, options and duration for the slideshow, click on the done button and then select the plus icon to add slides.  The various albums that you have stored on your device will be given and you can select photos from multiple album sources as illustrated below:

Once you have selected the slides for your slideshow, click on done and then test out the show.  You can always access the slideshow to change options (using the wrench icon to accessing the options you wish to change).  You can delete the slideshow, add more slideshows, play the slideshows.

While you are playing the slideshow you can pause the slideshow and jump to any slide within the show by selecting the grid icon which brings up a display of all the slides in the slideshow as illustrated below:  Tap on the slide you wish to jump to and tap the play button to see the slide.

You can also delete individuals slides, edit an individual  slide by adding a caption, changing the default settings and customize the number of faces show on a slide.

There is a simple means to upload mp3 music files from your computer to your device using wifi.  It worked the first time I tried it and I was able to immediately select the track and play the slideshow with my selection.

I highly recommend this app, especially for those who have an iPad and want a more versatile slideshow options.   Especially nice is the ability to save a variety of slideshows you can just select with all the options you want, when you wish to play the show. Tweet