Insta Camera for iPhone prints photos as you take 'em
It is interesting to see all the different ideas developers are having by using the iPhone's built in camera, lomography to night-time photography, and now the developer of the latter is trying to relive the days of the Polaroid with Insta Camera ($0.99, App Store).
The now sadly defunct Polaroid was known for its ability to instantly print out a photo once it had been taken. Insta Camera aims to do the same by allowing you to take photos with the iPhone, and then have them wirelessly sent to a printer, meaning that more photos end up in your physical hands then trapped on a hard drive.
Like so many other apps, Insta Camera requires a piece of server software to be installed on your computer (either Mac OS X Leopard or Windows XP/Vista) before it can be used.
The developer claims that instead of having to take the photo, sync it to your computer, make sure the print settings are correct and then print it, you can instead eliminate all the fuss and just snap and print instantly, with the Air Photo server taking care of all the layout issues for you.
However this means that your photography is limited to the area that your Wifi network covers, which sort of constrains your artistic choices. If the Air Photo software could communicate with an iPhone anywhere - so that your photos would be waiting for you once you got home - that would be a massive improvement. The app could also make big strides by cleaning up the design of the app or making it a little more 'Polaroidy'. After all, with iPhone Apps, so much of the app is in the experience that it delivers.
The now sadly defunct Polaroid was known for its ability to instantly print out a photo once it had been taken. Insta Camera aims to do the same by allowing you to take photos with the iPhone, and then have them wirelessly sent to a printer, meaning that more photos end up in your physical hands then trapped on a hard drive.
Like so many other apps, Insta Camera requires a piece of server software to be installed on your computer (either Mac OS X Leopard or Windows XP/Vista) before it can be used.
The developer claims that instead of having to take the photo, sync it to your computer, make sure the print settings are correct and then print it, you can instead eliminate all the fuss and just snap and print instantly, with the Air Photo server taking care of all the layout issues for you.
However this means that your photography is limited to the area that your Wifi network covers, which sort of constrains your artistic choices. If the Air Photo software could communicate with an iPhone anywhere - so that your photos would be waiting for you once you got home - that would be a massive improvement. The app could also make big strides by cleaning up the design of the app or making it a little more 'Polaroidy'. After all, with iPhone Apps, so much of the app is in the experience that it delivers.
Comments
I reckon it's possible for the built-in camera to improve without a hardware upgrade. But I wish they would do something, their lack of upgrades are getting very tiresome now. Months go by and we get 2.2.1 that doesn't fix hardly anything people are complaining about.
The now sadly defunct Polaroid
It's preparing for a comeback digital style:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...gE5ZwD95IOKGG0