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ClearCam improves iPhone pix with a catch

by Mel Martin Feb 3rd 2009 at 1:30PM

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.

ClearCam images

  • Comparison images
  • Enhanced Mode
  • Save Mode


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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...
 

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Hawkman

When I saw this pop up in Cydia I was suspicious, and didn't really want to lose another space on my Springboard. After seeing the comparison shot, though, I'm sold. Cool.

February 04 2009 at 12:31 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jim Danner

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).

February 03 2009 at 6:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Aaron Davies

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.

February 03 2009 at 6:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Michael Rose

"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.

February 03 2009 at 5:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kai Cherry

Admit it.

You don't like jailbreaking because Apple doesn't.

Admit it.

February 03 2009 at 4:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
colouroflight

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.

February 03 2009 at 4:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mystic

@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.

February 03 2009 at 3:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Amit

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

February 03 2009 at 3:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
eMax

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?

February 03 2009 at 3:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to eMax's comment
colouroflight

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.

February 03 2009 at 4:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kevlar

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.

February 03 2009 at 5:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
oliver hart

Won't install, says size mismatch.

All the PR from tuaw making their servers crash possibly?

February 03 2009 at 3:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to oliver hart's comment
Dave

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.

February 03 2009 at 5:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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