Today we're excited to announce our plans around Halide 3.0, or as we like to call it, Mark III. We're also inviting you to participate in its development through our new community Discord, where you'll be able to share feedback, early builds, and more!
This approach is a break from how we've built things in the past, where we'd play coy when users ask us about new features. It's fun to surprise drop a new app or major update. Why change?
We're a small team of one developer and one designer, so it can take months to launch big features. It's risky to invest months of our time on features without any feedback from users. Even worse, months of radio-silence can leave customers (that is you!) feeling ignored.
We experimented with some more transparency a little over a year ago, when we announced we were building Kino. The reception to our announcement was overwhelmingly positive, and made us felt comfortable investing six months into a brand new app.
Our openness around product plans also made it easier to solicit ideas and feedback. Kino arrived to enormous success, with Apple just awarding it the incredible App Store Award for 2024 iPhone App of the Year. I guess a little transparency doesn't hurt anyone!
So, what’s next? We'd like to dig into three features coming to Mark III, and how Halide subscribers can try them early.
Feature 1: Color Grades
In the beginning, Halide was about offering advanced control, while leaving the actual image processing algorithms up to the system. Over the years, we felt ourselves pulled toward our own image processing.
For example, with our big Macro Photography update, we added super-resolution algorithms to get sharper macro shots. Still, these sharper images were ultimately based on the default iPhone "look."
Process Zero was our experiment in developing a signature look for Halide. Little did we know it would completely changed how our customers used the app.
And now the top request we've gotten is support for one-tap color grades, like what we launched this past year in Kino.
We are way ahead of you. We envision an app that not only bundled gorgeous film looks within the app, but also let you import looks built by other people. In fact, we built Kino as an experiment in the future of Halide!
There's just one feature that didn't make it into Kino, due to time constraints and technologies that weren't ready for prime time a year ago…
Feature 2: Our Take on High Dynamic Range Photos
If you've scrolled through social media in the last few years, perhaps you've noticed images "pop" a bit more. That's because current iPhones can display brighter peak-brightness, which lets images contain more details, even in high-contrast scenes. This is called HDR.
Now if you took photos with Apple's default algorithms, HDR is included. Halide's bespoke process, Process Zero, does not support HDR— for a few good reasons. From a product perspective, there's an issue of taste, with a lot of cameras producing obnoxious HDR images. We want to take our time and come up with a thoughtful and nuanced HDR look.
Another issue was compatibility. Most websites, including our own blog hosted by Ghost, cannot display HDR images. I embedded that Instagram example because it seems major social networks are finally on-board. We think compatibility will improve thanks to iOS 18, which introduces, "Adaptive HDR," a technology that allows old file formats such as JPEG to support HDR. This should make it easier for every platform to hop on the HDR bandwagon.
We think HDR is about to hit a tipping point, which is why we want to sort out support as we invest in our color grading machinery.
Feature 3: The Redesign
Next year, Halide Mark II turns 5. iPhone photography has changed a lot in five years, and we've learned a lot more about our users and our products. It's a perfect time to make some big changes.
Halide is getting a redesign. We think Halide's refreshed camera design will follow HDR and Grade support, because form should follow function. We can’t quite reveal it — but we can tell you it will be gorgeous in both form and function. For example, if Halide's version of Instant Grade goes as smooth as we think it will, we'll make grade-picking central to the UI, just like Kino.
When will Mark III ship?
While it's comforting to list out features and say, "That's all there is to Mark III," it's notoriously difficult to estimate large software projects. We've never worked on an app without coming across surprises like iOS bugs and edge cases. That's why they're called surprises.
We also have to budget our fall release schedule and any surprises. Whenever Apple launches new hardware alongside an iOS update, we drop everything to integrate the new hotness in our apps. Sometimes it takes days, sometimes it takes months.
And for those wondering: Yes, if you are a current subscriber of Halide Mark II, you get Mark III as well. The same goes for Halide Mark II one time purchases.
Finally, while we've focused on Halide in this post, it goes without saying that we have lots of exciting plans around Kino. We'll be working hard to fit those in between Halide updates.
We want to ship Mark III as soon as we can. We'd love to ship it in 2025. That sounds doable at this moment, but we'll keep you posted as things progress.
How do you try it early?
Just like in the past, when we were getting ready to launch major updates, we are opening up "Early Access" to Halide subscribers. It's really helpful at bringing features across the finish line, but we'd like to try gathering feedback even earlier.
We've noticed a lot of indie game devs do this through community Discords, and so we're stealing that idea (hey, we’re indies, too!). We're launching an official Halide+Kino Discord!
We'll try using this Discord to engage bounce ideas off our users, post sample photos, and even share early TestFlight builds.
We’ll go one step further, though. We thought, "Wouldn't it be cool to form a community about more our products?"
If you're just a passionate photographer who wants to make friends and hone their craft, check out our new Challenge: the 2025 Halide and Kino 52-week challenges!
Every week you'll get a photography challenge on our Discord. We'll also include resources to help with the challenge — like app-specific tips. The challenge will be shared there and on our social media. Once you've got your shot, you can share your shots and see what the rest of the community came up with.
We'll come up with real rewards for community members who complete the entire, year-long challenge - including some limited edition Halide and Kino swag!
You're also welcome to just join that Discord to connect with other Halide and Kino users, get tips from the best, share your shots and learn from each other.
That's it from us for 2024. We have never had such an incredible adventure in one year. From Ben having a baby, to shipping Kino, and being in a keynote and winning App of the Year— it was truly a wild ride.
It was an incredible year for us — made possible entirely by you supporting our tiny team to do what we love most: making nice apps to take great shots. We loved seeing all your photos and videos this year, thoroughly enjoyed all your kind messages, comments and feedback and we are so proud of what we have shipped.
2025 is proving to be another incredible year, and we’re very excited to bring you along for the ride. We’re wishing you very happy holidays and a great new year!