New phones offer opportunity to fiddle with time lapse

Remember those timelapse documentaries that showed a seed sprouting, pushing up through the ground with leaves sprouting and sometimes flowers blooming? You can do that.

Our Google Pixel smartphones have time-lapse photography built in, and so do newer iPhones and Samsung, LG and High Tech Computer Corp. smartphones. We did it in four taps. If your phone doesn’t have time-lapse photography, try the Lapse-it app, free from Lapseit.com. A pro version lets you capture video in higher resolution, and adds special effects and other features.

You can see lots of examples of time-lapse photography on YouTube. Go to YouTube.com and search on “time lapse.” We saw flowers unfolding, roots shooting out, stars flashing by and clouds moving quickly across the sky. Some of the best were from timelapse.org. We tried it ourselves, videoing people crossing the street, increasing the speed tenfold. It made everyone look like they were in a Keystone Cops silent movie.

FOLDABLE PHONES

The latest phone trick is one that folds in the middle like a book. Samsung introduced the Galaxy Fold in Korea this month, after a fivemonth delay. The first one cracked and let dirt particles get in when people peeled back what they thought was a screen protector. But hey, what do you want for $2,000?

Foldable phones give users a much bigger display than other smartphones. That’s better for reading books and magazines, playing games, watching movies and video chatting. The phone’s larger batteries mean longer battery life. Swap between the phone’s 16 megapixel ultrawide camera or the 12 megapixel wide-angle and telephoto cameras to broaden or narrow your focus with a tap.

The Galaxy Fold is bulky;