Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, Jailbreak/pwnage
ClearCam improves iPhone pix with a catch
Occipital's ClearCam is another in a long line of photo enhancing apps for the iPhone. ClearCam is going live today on Cydia, so at this point it is only available for jailbroken iPhones. The developer says he hopes a version for all iPhones will make it to the App Store soon.ClearCam has a couple of interesting modes. Enhanced mode will give you a 4MP image rather than the standard 2 MP image you get now on the iPhone. The magic is done by having the camera take 6 pictures in rapid succession. The software then aligns and enhances the photo and saves it to your camera roll. When you compare the image to a normal one, they look the same, but you can enlarge the image more than a 2MP image, and the noise is noticeably lower. You should be able to see the difference in the gallery image below. That function may not be to Apple's liking, because it breaks the SDK rules of how software can interact with the camera.
In ClearCam's other mode, called QuickShot, it fires off 4 images, figures out which image is best, and throws the bad ones away. I tried using this mode, and it worked as advertised. The results weren't dramatic, but were easy to see. You can contrast this approach with Sudobility's Night Camera app, which uses the accelerometer to determine when your hands have stopped shaking so it can snap a stable longer exposure.
If ClearCam is going to be released through the App Store, it will likely shed the Enhanced mode unless they can get Apple to allow the variance with SDK rules. Occipital is not yet sure about pricing. They say if they have to throw away features, the price will be nominal or free. The feature complete version released through Cydia is free for 15 days, then it's US $9.99.
Click through the gallery below for a look at how ClearCam works.
Gallery: ClearCam images
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Gazoobee said 1:47PM on 2-03-2009
Wow. Yet another "pro-jailbreaking" article from TUAW.
Hardly surprising at this point but there are hundreds of legal apps that are more interesting than this little camera trick
Reply
Christopher Wilson said 2:03PM on 2-03-2009
There is nothing 'illegal' about this app.
puhsitch said 2:23PM on 2-03-2009
It doesn't seem "pro-jailbreaking" to me...if anything, it's simply "jailbreaking-neutral." Why should this blog ignore things that are relevant to a pretty significantly portion of the iPhone-owning population?
brian said 3:41PM on 2-03-2009
All the shitty gimmicks in software will not help, if the camera (which is the hardware) is already screwed up...2 MP absolutely sucks!
http://www.livbit.com
Mystic said 3:57PM on 2-03-2009
@brian: It has nothing to do with MP. You could have 12 MP and they would still look the same. It's the lens that matters.
colouroflight said 4:00PM on 2-03-2009
If it weren't for jailbreaking, we'd all still be stuck on web apps.
You sound like a bitter developer who made a program that was heavily pirated because it wasn't good enough to buy.
Aaron Davies said 9:16AM on 2-05-2009
You're on crack, you know that, right? If there's a legitimate complaint to be made, it's that TUAW are shills for high-priced useless App Store junk. It's refreshing to see them talking about a Cydia release that actually solves a real problem.
Tom said 2:33PM on 2-03-2009
Ahh, this will show up in the App Store with Qik and Flixwagon: never. Apple really doesn't like apps directly accessing the camera, that's not allowed, and so it won't happen.
Of course, people get this stupid idea that only "illegal" apps run on jailbroken phones. Really? Twinkle was for jailbroken phones. Tap Tap Revolution (now called revenge) was for jailbroken phones. Don't give me that crap.
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Tulse said 2:44PM on 2-03-2009
If the SDK doesn't allow apps to access the camera, why are there so many apps in the Photography section of the App Store that do just that?
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ryan said 3:07PM on 2-03-2009
The apps in the app store are not directly accessing the camera, they are handing off to the built-in camera.app. This app (along with cycorder) skips the builtin camera.app and uses a private API to more directly talk to the camera HW.
Mike said 3:09PM on 2-03-2009
Official third-party apps use the iPhone SDK's camera API, which simply allows them to take a single snapshot, using Apple's build-in snapshot system, which is what directly interacts with the camera.
Jailbroken apps, on the other hand, actually interact directly with the camera hardware itself, so they can do things like change the exposure times and levels, and record, say video.
Gazoobee said 3:01PM on 2-03-2009
@ puhsitch:
It's "pro jailbreaking" in the sense that this is a review or a spotlight on an application that breaks the SDK and thus requires the user to jailbreak to use it.
My point was that TUAW spends an inordinate amount of time on these apps that require jailbreaking, but much less time on the "legal" apps in the app store. The fact that this site, and others like Ars Technica spend so much time talking about jailbroken apps, how to jailbreak, and reporting on all manner of underground activity in effect "promotes" jailbreaking.
People can disagree about whether jailbreaking is cool or stupid, but the idea that talking about it all the time in an uncritical manner (while simultaneously ignoring the other side of the argument) actually *promotes* jailbreaking is hardly a wild theory. It's just common sense.
Reply
Kai Cherry said 4:20PM on 2-03-2009
Admit it.
You don't like jailbreaking because Apple doesn't.
Admit it.
Michael Rose said 5:44PM on 2-03-2009
"My point was that TUAW spends an inordinate amount of time on these apps that require jailbreaking..."
By my mental count this is about the fourth post in the last 30 days that specifically highlights a jailbreak-only app (not counting the Craculous post, which if anything is an indictment of jailbreaking for piracy's sake), compared to hundreds of posts about App Store apps. I don't know if that qualifies as inordinate; in fact, we often get very strongly worded feedback that we aren't dedicating enough coverage to jailbreak apps.
Different strokes, different folks.
Jim Danner said 6:53PM on 2-03-2009
Gazoobee, you sound like jailbreaking is akin to drunk driving, heavy smoking or unprotected sex with strangers. "talking about it in an uncritical manner" (as if criticizing it is "doing the right thing"). "all manner of underground activity" (as if jailbreakers are an underground mob of criminals).
Chill out man, jailbreaking is completely legal and harmless. There's nothing wrong with "promoting" it (and that's hardly what TUAW is doing anyway).
oliver hart said 3:09PM on 2-03-2009
Won't install, says size mismatch.
All the PR from tuaw making their servers crash possibly?
Reply
DistortedLoop said 5:02PM on 2-03-2009
That would be the likely situation. You can't even get to the BigBoss normal webpage right now (can't connect to database errors).
Try again in a few hours.
emax said 3:30PM on 2-03-2009
I dont understand how anyone can charge , or at least intelligently charge for an application for a "jail broken" platform......It's like SELLING games that only work on mod chipped consoles.
I could understand developing an application outside of Apple's TOS or ADA and DEMO it to show Apple what they are missing, but who the hell is going to buy this?
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colouroflight said 4:02PM on 2-03-2009
If there's one thing that's annoyed me since I made the switch to Mac a couple years ago, it's that many Apple people are more than happy to pay for anything, especially things that would (and should) be free on other platforms.
Kevlar said 5:46PM on 2-03-2009
Actually, I've found that a lot of downright terrible shareware apps for Windows are free or open-source for Mac OS X... better still, they're built-in as part of the OS.
The apps that people are willing to pay for are usually more full-featured, and better presented than the free/oss apps.