Camera Genius Version 4 released!

We just released version 4.0 of Camera Genius.  This updates includes three great new features!

First we have volume shot…  This is the same new feature as the default apple camera app.  Now you can control Camera Genius with a tap on the +volume button.  Makes taking photos a snap and more like a dedicated camera.

Next we have focus snap…  This is great when you want to custom focus your shot.  Simply tap the screen where you would like to focus and Camera Genius focuses on that area and snaps the shot after focusing.  There is no need to go through two or three steps to get a custom focused shot.  It also helps prevent blurring as you are not tapping the camera as the shot is taken so there is minimum camera movement.

Finally we have a new Postcard feature…  Now send real completely custom postcards from directly within Camera Genius.  Its great for vacations as you don’t need to track down a postcard, find a stamp and stick it in a mailbox.  Plus each postcard is completely unique based on a photo you took.

Camera Genius is available through the App Store.  It’s a free update to all current users! 

Camera Genius makes the 108 Best iPhone Apps list.

We are honored to make the list of “108 Best iPhone Apps” on MakeUseOf.  A lot of great apps in that list. 

The Last Tweet Contest (Win an iPad 2)

We just started our last tweet contest at geniustweet.com.

Tweet about “The Last Tweet Contest”. The last person to tweet wins the iPad 2 when no more tweets occur for three days.

More information and official rules at: http://geniustweet.com

Camera Genius makes the “All-Time Top Paid iPhone Apps” list!

Apple just updated their “All-Time Top Paid iPhone Apps” list on iTunes.  We hit the #87 spot on this list.  Pretty cool stuff! 

What’s involved in building an iPhone app?

People are often surprised when I explain the process of building an iPhone app and how much work is involved for something that seems so small and simple.  People seem to think it’s a few weeks worth of work.  Surely since most apps hover between free and $2 it can’t be much, right?

Well I thought I would give a little insight into what really goes into making an app.

The newest version of Camera Genius is a complete rebuild from our earlier version.  The latest version contains 39,924 lines of code.  To put that in perspective, the average novel is about 120,000 words.  Assuming about 10 words per line, that’s 12,000 lines.  So the instructions which tell Camera Genius how to operate are over three novels long.  This number only includes finalized code.  Generally we build out each major new feature in one or more separate projects before incorporating them into the main code base, which means that we create significantly more code than the 3 novel figure suggests. 

We aren’t done yet though.  We still have to make the interface for our application.  There are 624 images that make up the design of Camera Genius.  Each one of these images is designed from scratch.  Most of the images go through numerous revisions before we get the version that is included in the final program.

So who worked on it? We had 4 people within the company working on this project over the last 8 months. We also had work done by 6 artists for various parts of Camera Genius outside of our company.  Two of those artists had artwork making it into the final version.

So how much did it cost?  To date we have invested $36,560 in the update of Camera Genius.  This number does not include any payments to the two of us who own the company.  We get paid only if the app is successful.  This number also does not include any marketing dollars spent on promoting the application.  This is strictly development money.  Over 90% of the money went towards paying the two other developers working on Camera Genius and paying for the artwork created by the various artists involved. The final 10% goes towards misc costs of running the business, office costs, misc hardware, and other fees. I want to make one thing very clear, our costs are pretty low compared to what they could be.  You could very easily spend at least 3-10 times as much if you were to contract all of the work out that needs to be done.

If you like Camera Genius, please spread the word to your friends and family. It allows us to keep the updates coming.

How to fix your Album photos not displaying.

First let me give the simple way to fix the problem with photos not showing in Album view.  Go to the settings icon on your iPhone.  Select General > Location Services and make sure the “Genius” icon switch is turned on.  

This allows for two things.  We can display photos in Camera Genius you have taken and it records the location information to your photos that you take like the default apple camera.

So you might ask: Why does Camera Genius need to know my location to show my photos?  Let me explain.

With the introduction of iOS 4, Apple provided developers with some new programming features which allowed for two important improvements.  First we could begin writing EXIF (geolocation) data to photos just like Apple’s default camera. Second we were given direct access to photos, so we could make our own user interface for reviewing photos, while still keeping them in the iPhone camera roll. As far as I know we are the first photography app to make use of these new API calls for having a custom photo interface that still keeps your photos in the camera roll. Keeping photos in the camera roll is nice because it provides access to any photos taken with camera genius to other applications on your iPhone and it allows them to be downloaded to your computer whenever you sync.

With these new options came a new security feature from Apple.  Any apps making use of raw photo data had to be allowed to also have access to location data.  There is location information stored in the photos themselves and so Apple wanted to make sure a user knew that the app could potentially have access to that.

We felt that the benefits of saving photos to the camera roll AND having a custom interface to review your photos outweighed the potential issue of allowing access to location information.  

Camera Genius takes privacy seriously and does not collect or keep location information about you in any way.  Location data is stored in the photos themselves though, so however you decide to use your photos is the only place that this information exists.

I wish we could pay for speedy reviews.

I have heard this idea before and it makes a lot of sense to me.  I wish we could buy speedy reviews like we can buy tech support requests.  So for $50 we could get a review within 1 business day that includes 1 fast re-review if the app failed for some reason.

It seems like a win-win-win.  Apple covers the reviewer costs and probably makes a little profit at $50 a pop.  We get apps approved fast so our latest and greatest is out there and users get bug fixes and new features faster.

Camera Genius 1.8 submitted to Apple.

Well Camera Genius 1.8 has been submitted to Apple.  This update doesn’t include any new features.  However it does fix a crashing problem that some 3g iphone users were experiencing.

It turned out this bug involved several issues and was therefore very hard to track down and fix.  It required rewriting the most complicated parts of the code.  The good news is I believe the crashing problem should be fixed for all users.  The code is also faster and more robust.  You can now take three pictures in burst mode on the 3g and 1st gen iPhones.  You should also notice its speedier.

We have already been working on Camera Genius 2.0 and we have some big changes in store.  It is too early to go into detail on what we have planned.   I think the wait will be worth it.

Camera Genius 1.7 has been submitted for review to Apple.

Well 1.7 is now under review with apple.  Let’s hope for a smooth review and approval process.

The new version has a couple of new features as well as a few minor bug fixes.

Probably the biggest new feature is you can now use the volume buttons as a camera button.  So you now can use a physical button on the iPhone to take pictures. This feature was removed from this version at the request of Apple as it did not comply with the user interface guidelines we need to follow.  We have been working on improving the thumbnail rendering speed and were able to speed up the thumbnail routine a little when we resubmitted correcting the volume button problem.  So I guess that is a plus at least.

Also when you have the location timestamp selected you can now tap on the text and change it to whatever you want.  Great for adding captions to photos or when you want to identify a landmark rather than just the area.

You can also see videos in the review interface.

We do have some bad news.  One feature we really wanted to implement in this version was the ability to capture video.  Unfortunately we don’t have the necessary methods in the developer SDK to add this yet.  We submitted a request to apple for them to add the routine that will allow us to capture videos.  Hopefully at some point we can add it if the methods are added to the SDK.

Now we are off to work on version 1.8.