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Halide Mark II

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Re: Halide Mark II

#91

Post by hapticmonkey »

poyu wrote: post #90

I bought Halide when it first came out. As a photography enthusiast, having trying out the app for a bit, I came to the conclusion that phone photography should be kept as simple as possible. While having advance options is great, the reason I carry a phone and not a camera on that certain occasion is because of its simplicity. I don't want to mess with aperture, exposure or focusing, etc. while on the go. If I wante…

The only reason I like Halide is because I loathe Apple's noise reduction in their photo processing. Shooting RAW is the only way to avoid it.

Every other aspect of computational photography is amazing, but when shooting photos I often intend to print, the photos just look so much nicer without noise reduction in my opinion. Everything close up becomes a smudgy mess.

Re: Halide Mark II

#93

Post by cageface »

AnonHP wrote: post #16

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 p…

I had the same problem. An automatic upgrade rendered my previously functional app unusable. After tapping around for a minute in frustration to try to find some way to dismiss the new subscription screen I deleted the app.

I really do sympathize with the plight of indie developers on the app store but this is too much.

Re: Halide Mark II

#94

Post by AnonHP »

sandofsky wrote: post #27
AnonHP wrote: post #16

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 p…

Halide author here. Previously, you would pay-once at the time of download, so this isn't much different than what we had before. That said, we wish the App Store offered a better solution than what we had to settle with; we'd much rather people know up-front the business model than download the app, be surprised, and possibly leave a negative review. As far as replacing the first party camera, it's by far our top us…

> That said, we wish the App Store offered a better solution than what we had to settle with; we'd much rather people know up-front the business model than download the app, be surprised, and possibly leave a negative review.

GP here. I was indeed surprised after downloading the app because the business model was not known (I didn't leave any reviews though). I haven't purchased the previous version and have no experience with the app.

My issue is not about your business model in that comment, but with the App Store description not saying that the application is usable only by an in-app purchase. I wouldn't even have downloaded it if that were clear. You should update the description to make it clear that the app is completely useless without buying an in-app purchase.

Re: Halide Mark II

#95

Post by emdowling »

sandofsky wrote: post #27
AnonHP wrote: post #16

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 p…

Halide author here. Previously, you would pay-once at the time of download, so this isn't much different than what we had before. That said, we wish the App Store offered a better solution than what we had to settle with; we'd much rather people know up-front the business model than download the app, be surprised, and possibly leave a negative review. As far as replacing the first party camera, it's by far our top us…

I agree with other posters - the issue isn't that Apple doesn't better support your business model, it's that you aren't honest about it in the app description.

Also, even in the app you don't have a clear statement saying that you must purchase a subscription to use it. I spent 5 minutes thinking I was missing an "X" in the top corner or some kind of "dismiss" action that would let me use basic functionality before buying.

Re: Halide Mark II

#97

Post by unicornporn »

sandofsky wrote: post #27
AnonHP wrote: post #16

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 p…

Halide author here. Previously, you would pay-once at the time of download, so this isn't much different than what we had before. That said, we wish the App Store offered a better solution than what we had to settle with; we'd much rather people know up-front the business model than download the app, be surprised, and possibly leave a negative review. As far as replacing the first party camera, it's by far our top us…

Great to see you're here.

Just so you know, I tried to open the app for 3 minutes or so before realizing I'm getting nowhere without paying. At that point I was so pissed off I uninstalled the app thinking to myself: scam attempt.

Make it clear you have to pay to even launch your app. I don't believe this dark pattern is the way forward. It's just dirty.

Re: Halide Mark II

#98

Post by inickt »

cageface wrote: post #93
AnonHP wrote: post #16

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 p…

I had the same problem. An automatic upgrade rendered my previously functional app unusable. After tapping around for a minute in frustration to try to find some way to dismiss the new subscription screen I deleted the app. I really do sympathize with the plight of indie developers on the app store but this is too much.

This was fixed in the 2.0.1 update. It came out pretty quick after the initial release, but looks like you hit the unlucky window of having 2.0? If you had Halide previously and download it again it will upgrade you for free.

Re: Halide Mark II

#99

Post by the_lucifer »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #76
AnonHP wrote: post #16

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 p…

I'm so tired of everything becoming a subscription. The worst part is, in-app purchases don't translate to family accounts, so we're back to the Bad Old Days of buying apps multiple times for multiple devices. And that's even worse when it's a subscription.

It’s weird because apple recently added IAP family sharing but I’ve yet to see an app add support for it (I can see why though, it’s easy to get people to double dip when they’re in a family and can’t share it)

Re: Halide Mark II

#100

Post by hemdawgz »

bydo wrote: post #4
ebg13 wrote: post #2

Are there meaningful benefits from using Halide for people who don't want to shoot RAW or manipulate their photos in Lightroom? Articles like e.g. https://fstoppers.com/apps/why-you-shouldnt-waste-money-came... say I shouldn't bother.

It gives full manual control, live histograms, and a nice one-handed interface. I'm not sure what you get for free, and obviously whether the upgrade is worth it is up to you, but I bought the full unlock when it first came out and haven't regretted it.

"Full manual control" is somewhat crippled in Mk II (it switches back to Auto every time I switch back cameras) as well as removing the ability to pin ISO down when making use of tap autoexposure (there is no option but to have both exposure length and ISO adjusted now). Manually adjusting exposure length also sometimes leads to it getting "stuck" on long values like 1/2 or 1/1 far longer than Mk I ever did. I get that they think their new Auto mode is better, but in general this was a bug-infested and unwelcome surprise update for my usage of the app (getting maximum quality raw images out of my phone mounted to a small tripod.) None of this would be an issue if I had any way of opting out of this generous "upgrade" I couldn't refuse. UI fit and finish has also degraded significantly from my subjective POV and the large potential scope of future feature updates make me pessimistically assume that the app will continue to fail to be particularly well tested. If the devs are still listening I'd gladly pay (again) just to have the MkI app back, if money is what they want.
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