{"id":342281,"date":"2017-05-31T01:00:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T17:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1497043"},"modified":"2017-05-31T01:00:57","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T17:00:57","slug":"ex-apple-designer-former-twitter-engineer-launch-halide-a-premium-iphone-camera-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/ex-apple-designer-former-twitter-engineer-launch-halide-a-premium-iphone-camera-app\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Apple designer & former Twitter engineer launch Halide, a premium iPhone camera app"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

An ex-Apple designer and former Twitter engineer have teamed up for\u00a0a new take on iPhone photography, with today\u2019s launch of their\u00a0iOS camera app called Halide<\/a>. The idea is to offer a variety of high-end tools for taking quality photographs, but packaged in a way where accessing those controls via gestures becomes like muscle memory \u2013 similar to using the dials on a camera.<\/p>\n

Explains the app\u2019s website<\/a>, the new app\u2019s gesture-based control scheme is meant to feel \u201cas\u00a0intuitive and tactile as a great film camera, like an old Leica or Pentax.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there are a number of alternative camera applications for iOS today \u2013 like Camera+ or Camera Awesome, for example \u2013 these tend to be\u00a0marketed towards mainstream users who want to \u201cshoot like a pro.\u201d Halide, on the other hand, is designed more with the power user in mind first. That is, it will largely appeal to those who have some understanding of photography, and want to do things like quickly change the exposure or\u00a0manually focus with a swipe.<\/p>\n

However, there is a built-in automatic mode like the stock iOS app. This makes the app usable even by novice iPhone photographers, who sometimes need help when trying to take tricky shots.<\/p>\n

But this automatic mode is designed to\u00a0be turned off by tapping the \u201cA\u201d button in order to tweak specific values like ISO, white balance and shutter speed, however. The app also includes professional tools like focus peaking (which highlights the areas in focus, allowing users to manually pull focus), a detailed histogram, an adaptive level grid and support for both JPG and RAW capture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Halide was developed by Ben Sandofsky and Sebastiaan de With, both of whom have experience with high-end photography.\u00a0Sandofsky previously worked on Periscope\u2019s video processing stack, was an advisor to both HBO\u2019s \u201cSilicon Valley\u201d and Shyp, and worked as the tech lead on Twitter\u2019s\u00a0iPhone, iPad and Mac applications.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, de With is an ex-Apple designer who has done client work for Sony, T-Mobile, Mozilla and others, and runs the San Francisco design agency Pictogram<\/a>, which designed the Nylas Mail app, Doubletwist, and others. He\u2019s also a photographer, often taking\u00a0photos<\/a> as he take trips\u00a0by motorcycle.<\/p>\n

Beyond the app\u2019s feature set, something that differentiates the app is its gesture-based interface. But its controls also work with a tap so you don\u2019t have to learn all the gestures immediately. This\u00a0makes the overall experience more consistent, and doesn\u2019t leave newcomers hunting around to\u00a0access the app\u2019s\u00a0features.<\/p>\n

The team sees the gesture-based interface as part of what makes Halide usable \u2013 even for less experienced photographers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t really need to understand concepts like Exposure Compensation, EVs, or manual focus to enjoy the features in Halide,\u201d says de With. \u201cSo we hope to see many people pick it up, not just the die-hard photographers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another feature in the app is \u201cinstant review,\u201d which lets you swipe left or right on the photos you just took to either trash them or mark them as favorites. You can also use 3D Touch to preview the last photo you took in Halide.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The team was inspired to build Halide after seeing how the iPhone\u2019s\u00a0sensors improved over the years, even as the\u00a0shooting experience remained stagnant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to Hawaii with friends, and I was that guy lugging around a giant camera,\u201d explains Sandofsky, of how he came up with the initial idea. \u201cAt the bottom of a waterfall, the humidity made the camera sensor condensate, so I had to keep it off for a day while the camera internals dried out,\u201d he says. \u201cFor the next day, I shot everything with an iPhone. At the time, iOS lacked important features, and all the camera apps had issues. But I was blown away by the quality of that tiny camera, and remembered how much more I enjoyed the trip by going light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandofsky says he built the first prototype on his\u00a0flight home from that trip, and later showed it to de With, who had further\u00a0ideas around the user experience. Development officially started around WWDC last year, when the new camera APIs were announced.<\/p>\n

A year later, the app was ready to launch.<\/p>\n

The team doesn\u2019t\u00a0expect their new app to fully replace the default camera app, but instead exist alongside it \u2013 ready for those times you want to take a great photo, not just a quick snap.<\/p>\n

The app\u2019s co-creators tell TechCrunch they\u2019re self-funding Halide, which they consider a \u201cpassionate side project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halide is available for $2.99 at launch<\/a>, and will increase to $4.99 next week. If it does well, the team may consider a new pricing structure in the future, but didn\u2019t go into details.<\/p>\n

The app is available in English, with plans for localizations in Spanish, Dutch, German, and French.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" An ex-Apple designer and former Twitter engineer have teamed up for\u00a0a new take on iPhone photography, with today’s launch of their\u00a0iOS camera app called Halide. The idea is to offer a variety of high-end tools for taking quality photographs, but packaged in a way where accessing those controls via gestures becomes like muscle memory – similar to using the dials on a camera.… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-342281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}