Tag: Halide

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  • Halide
May 30, 2018

Halide: One Year Later

Leading up to Halide’s launch one year ago, Sebastiaan and I had no idea what to expect. We’d spent ten months of nights and weekends on this thing, and you still couldn’t take a photo with the volume buttons— table stakes for a camera app. But we’d set a deadline for ourselves. It was time to ship and test our theories. Eek. We set out to build Halide after trying every major camera app and being left unsatisfied. We wanted an app for thoughtful, deliberate photography, not selfies. We wanted a tactile experience that felt like a high-end physical camera. We wanted the professional tools you’d find on a DSLR. We hoped others shared our experience. We hoped critics understood what we were going for, and would forgive a few missing features. We hoped the app economy wasn’t dead, and you could still make a few bucks. At the same time, we were launching another camera app in a crowded market. We were asking for an up-front payment when freemium is the norm. This wasn’t the App Store of 2008, so we were prepared for the worst. One year later we can say Halide has exceeded our wildest expectations. Let’s dive into what we..
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  • Halide
March 6, 2018

Halide 1.7: In Depth

Between the iPhone 7 Plus, 8 Plus, and X, over half of all iPhones sold come with dual cameras. With two cameras, killer apps like Portrait Mode become possible. At this rate, depth capture might one day be as standard of a feature to us as the camera flash. We built Halide as the very best camera for iPhones — heck, for any smartphone — and we always want Halide to be ahead of the curve. So today we’re launching Halide 1.7, a huge update that packs tons of new features and enhancements to make it the very best camera for depth. Here’s five new features that make Halide 1.7 the best camera for Depth Capture: I. Built-In Portrait Mode We now include Portrait Mode directly within Halide. We didn’t rush this one out: we spent a lot of time perfecting a great Portrait Mode experience and ensuring the results are spectacular. What makes Portrait Mode in Halide special? For one, zero waiting: you’ll notice Halide doesn’t ask you to change your composition or move around to get the effect to appear. We do this with a carefully considered portrait logic that balances control, speed and simplicity. If you pick a point-of-interest, we keep..
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  • Halide
December 15, 2017

Halide 1.6: The Speed Update

Today’s Halide update focuses on speed. We now snap photos 2–4× faster, added shortcuts, and taken the guesswork out of files and formats to make you more efficient. For iPhone X users, we’ve also made some minor ergonomics improvements, now that we’ve had the device in our hands for a month. Lock Screen and 3D Shortcuts By popular demand, we’ve added a lock screen widget to launch Halide with one tap. We’ve also added 3D shortcuts to launch the app in either Manual or Auto mode. Even snappier snapping! Faster Capture Halide now captures your shot between two to four times faster. You read that right: up to four times faster. Everything feels a lot more responsive, as we’ve cut down the time between hitting the capture button and the new photo appearing. Now you immediately know when you’ve captured the perfect shot. RAW Without Compromise When you open a RAW image in an app that can’t read RAW, the image looks blurry. We can’t fix those apps, but we’re improving the situation. Apps that aren’t compatible will now fall-back to a processed image we save alongside your RAW. A few editing apps won’t find the RAW photo when saving a..
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  • Halide
November 2, 2017

Halide 1.5: A camera app made for iPhone X

With the launch of the iPhone X, we’re proud to announce the release of Halide 1.5. Halide 1.5 is a huge update which features a new camera UI, designed from scratch for iPhone X. It was clear to us that the iPhone X is a huge step in the evolution of the iPhone. We could simply adapt our previous Halide interface to scale correctly to the new, bigger screen, but we wanted to create a camera experience that was not only unique to this new device, but also took advantage of its strengths. It presented unique challenges for ergonomics (it’s a very tall screen!) and layout. For Halide for iPhone X, all of the camera controls now sit within thumb’s reach, letting you easily shoot with just one hand. Beyond your hand’s reach, we are still using every pixel of the new edge-to-edge screen, including the upper corners. With the extra vertical space on iPhone X, we were also able to design the camera UI so that nothing obstructs the viewfinder, giving you a uniquely clear look at your subject. Of course, it goes beyond just the camera: every other screen in Halide was designed from scratch for the iPhone X..