Halide Mark II

I'm surprised Apple is OK with those "Get it on the App Store" images.

I wonder if Apple is pushing this because subscription models potentially provide more long term value? Apple apps tend to need regular updates to stay valid/relevant over long periods of time and early on Apple had a lot of "abandoned" apps in the app store - subscriptions 1) keep the app developer funded/engaged 2) keep the user hooked / showing explicit value or bailing.

Fwiw, I agree, I am getting tired of the pervasiveness of subscription models, but I assume they are making good sense business wise.

That was confusing. When I saw the app and that it offers in-app purchases, I thought something minimal would be possible without a purchase. But after downloading and launching it, I see the prompt to buy the subscription or the one time purchase, and nothing more. The app description on the store doesn’t make this — that a purchase must be made to use it — clear either.

Edit: An observation I’ve had is that third party camera apps on iOS have a niche audience because they cannot be the default app. If you swipe left on the Lock Screen or tap on the camera icon on the Lock Screen, only Apple’s stock camera will open. I hope Apple adds more app types to have defaults set to third party apps. I know Apple cares about camera launch time and how quickly photos can be taken. There could be a minimum performance threshold set for that. It’s high time!

Halide developer here. Since we're in the middle of a launch, I don't have time to dig super detailed into that article you posted, but from a quick skim it doesn't appear to be particularly well-researched.

All the goodness of the first party camera's deep fusion, etc, is exposed to third-party developers. So if you're using a third party app (that knows what they're doing) then at worst you get the same results as the first party camera.

Here are some things off the top of my head that you don't get with the first party camera, excluding RAW:

Manual focus, Control over ISO vs duration, Manual white balance, Explicit control over which lens is being used (the first party camera switches without telling you), tell what parts are clipping or hitting your noise floor (histogram, waveform, and zebras), focus loupe and focus peaking that tell you exactly what is in focus (rather than tapping and hoping for the best) a reviewer lets you view the component images that make up the image asset in your library (e.g. depth data on portrait photos)…

With MKII, we're now investing in education to help beginning photographers become better.

That said, writing this out are just the checkboxes on a spreadsheet of features. It's harder to quantify the value of design. While we think the first party camera is great, it's also tasked with doing many, many things, from videos to panoramas.

Halide is designed to only shoot photos. Not even video, just photos. We're aiming to be the absolute best tool to do that one thing.

That's the same error we were having, hopefully the update rolls out soon over there