Last month we launched Spectre, our first foray into computational photography.
We’re incredibly humbled by the response and amazed by your images. Here are a few favorites we found tagged with #SpectreShot on Twitter and Instagram.
Now that that things have settled, we’d like to recap how things went, what we’ve been up to, and highlight the big updates in Spectre 1.1.
The Launch
To say our launch was a success would be an understatement. On day 1, Spectre instantly rose to the first place in the App Store. We had features on The Verge, The Daily Mail, Lonely Planet, Macstories, CNet, Macrumors, 9to5Mac, Uncrate and more.
It was a bit too much success: We rose up the charts so fast that one of Apple’s fraud detection systems kicked in. For a half a day, we were missing from the charts. Yikes! We were panicking and got in touch with Apple.
Fortunately, after Apple’s fine people verified we weren’t gaming the system, we were back at #1, where we stuck it out for almost a whole week.
In our first day, we went from less than a hundred beta testers to tens of thousands of paying customers. Overall, things went great. But the reviews were polarizing.
Note: We’re focusing on US and UK ratings, since we’re still localizing the app. We look at “Average of new ratings,” since the average visible in the App Store won’t immediately reflect changes.
The day of our launch, we averaged 3.55, which is no good. After a few bug fixes, new ratings increased to 4.04. With the obvious issues out of the way, we dug deeper into negative reviews and support requests. We found many were disappointed by the lack of stabilization support for their iPhone model.
With Spectre 1.0, we only supported stabilization on iPhone 8 and later. Stabilization pushes your phone to its limit, and if it can’t keep up, it creates a noticeable drop in quality. We hoped to someday bring it to older devices, but wanted to under-promise and over-deliver.
Well, based on you feedback, we worked around the clock to solve this problem.
Spectre 1.1
Spectre is two weeks old as of today. We weren’t kidding when we said Spectre was only the beginning — here’s what’s new in our two-week anniversary update:
Stabilization is now available on iPhone 7, 6S and SE.
AI Stabilization will still be slightly better on iPhone 8 and later, but it’s amazing on older devices. Compare this three second exposure, shot handheld after my fourth cup of coffee:
All three are based on the exact same image sequence. The leftmost image has no stabilization. The middle image uses our iPhone 7 algorithm. The right image iPhone X. At first glance you may not notice any difference between the 7 and X, but look closely at the face.
More Stabilization in Light Trails Mode
With the improved performance, we’re also increasing stabilization in light-trails mode on all devices. Previously we were very conservative to avoid dropped frames, which cause gaps in light trails. We’re now confident enough to turn up stabilization in this mode.
And Tons Of Your Feedback
Spectre 1.1 is jam packed with small enhancements.
Quality: We’ve increased the resolution of the videos we save as part of your live photo. This will give better results when you go back to pick a different frame of your long exposure. You’ll also get higher quality videos when you share to Instagram.
Reliability: A fix for a crash that could occasionally occur when you viewed the last photo. We now also save your preference for Live Photo output better, in case you were turning that off.
Accessibility: Voice Over support.
Polish: Prevented flicker and glitches in a few areas of the app, including on iPhone 6S, 6 and SE.
Nederlands: Our first localization has landed: Dutch! Nu kan je de app gewoon lekker in het Nederlands gebruiken om mooie kiekjes te maken.
As usual, it goes without saying that this update includes bug fixes and other improvements.
The Results
We silently released Spectre 1.1 on Sunday, and we’re delighted to see our ratings steadily climb. The average rating of new reviews is now 4.37. For context, Halide was at 4.2 through much of its first year.
With what we have in store, we bet Spectre will catch up to Halide’s 4.6 star average over 2500+ reviews. That all being said said, there’s the saying, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
We think that if we deliver an amazing product, the ratings will follow. And that’s really our only goal when it comes to building our apps.
If you had any issues with Spectre, we hope this update can entice you into giving it another shot — and if you do run into any problems, please contact us. We love to hear feedback, comments, or work with you to sort out any issues you might have! If you love it, a review always helps.
All three are based on the exact same image sequence. The leftmost image has no stabilization. The middle image uses our iPhone 7 algorithm. The right image iPhone X. At first glance you may not notice any difference between the 7 and X, but look closely at the face.
More Stabilization in Light Trails Mode
With the improved performance, we’re also increasing stabilization in light-trails mode on all devices. Previously we were very conservative to avoid dropped frames, which cause gaps in light trails. We’re now confident enough to turn up stabilization in this mode.
And Tons Of Your Feedback
Spectre 1.1 is jam packed with small enhancements.
Quality: We’ve increased the resolution of the videos we save as part of your live photo. This will give better results when you go back to pick a different frame of your long exposure. You’ll also get higher quality videos when you share to Instagram.
Reliability: A fix for a crash that could occasionally occur when you viewed the last photo. We now also save your preference for Live Photo output better, in case you were turning that off.
Accessibility: Voice Over support.
Polish: Prevented flicker and glitches in a few areas of the app, including on iPhone 6S, 6 and SE.
Nederlands: Our first localization has landed: Dutch! Nu kan je de app gewoon lekker in het Nederlands gebruiken om mooie kiekjes te maken.
As usual, it goes without saying that this update includes bug fixes and other improvements.
The Results
We silently released Spectre 1.1 on Sunday, and we’re delighted to see our ratings steadily climb. The average rating of new reviews is now 4.37. For context, Halide was at 4.2 through much of its first year.
With what we have in store, we bet Spectre will catch up to Halide’s 4.6 star average over 2500+ reviews. That all being said said, there’s the saying, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
We think that if we deliver an amazing product, the ratings will follow. And that’s really our only goal when it comes to building our apps.
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If you had any issues with Spectre, we hope this update can entice you into giving it another shot — and if you do run into any problems, please contact us. We love to hear feedback, comments, or work with you to sort out any issues you might have! If you love it, a review always helps.
