A gripe with some iPhone app developers
Regular readers will no doubt know that I enjoy taking photographs with my iPhone. I've reviewed and recommended a few apps that I use on a regular basis, and will continue to do so as I find new ones. You could even call it a bit of an obsession. I'm sure I've spent more money on photography apps than on any other, and I'm perfectly happy about that. The iPhone is a great toy, and as others that are also into iPhone photography say, it could very well be your best camera as it's the one that's always with you. Many of the apps are great and truly enhance what you can do with the little camera.
However, I have a major complaint. Since the iPhone 3GS was released with a whooping 3 Megapixels, very few apps have been updated to save back edited photographs at full resolution. This, to me, is unacceptable. Yes, I know that extra megapixel doesn't mean much and more megapixels doesn't equal better quality, but still. Maybe it's just me, but I find it really frustrating to take a photograph at 2048x1536 (3GS full resolution) and then get it saved at 1600x1200 or lower once I apply an effect. I know editing photographs is memory intensive and can cause apps to crash, but if some developers have done it successfully there's no excuse. Developers need to keep up with technology and since it's been over 2 months since the iPhone 3GS was launched, I find myself no longer using apps that don't save at full resolution. I've been thinking of just deleting them from my iPhone as I have way too many anyway as it is.
Let this post serve as a call to all developers of photography iPhone apps. Update your apps to take advantage of the full capabilities of the current iPhone or risk falling into oblivion.
As I was writing this I just checked if there were any updates and I'm very happy to say that Photogene (one of my favourites) was updated yesterday to support the 3GS full resolution. So credit to the developers.
UPDATE: Photo FX by Tiffen also saves at full iPhone 3GS resolution.
UPDATE 2: Finally, after a very, very long time, CameraBag now saves at full res. I'm using it again quite often.
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Reader Comments (1)
Yes, I find this really annoying also. I wish shakeitphoto and camerabag were full resolution. Lately I only use the Tiffen ones because of that. I'll give Photogene a try.