New iPhone Photo App: lo-mob
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 11:13PM | Glyn Evans 
Description from the AppStore: Lo-mob brings lo-fi and photographic experimentations to your mobiles pictures.
Have you ever experiment with your old analog cameras? Have you put a 35mm film in a medium format body? Have you ever tried to achieve Through The Viewfinder (TTV) photography by shooting a picture with a camera through the viewfinder of another? Do you just love to stick you eye in the viewfinder of an old medium format body? Have you tried to deconstruct an instant picture, ripping off its frame to keep only the film? Do you prefer sometimes the subtle colors rendering of an outdated film from an old camera than an perfect picture? Are grain, noise, oversaturation, scratches and frames meaningful to you?
Do you just love your iPhone because it's the perfect toy to play with pictures? Do you often take a picture and try to treat it in various iPhone softwares?
If one answer to the questions above is yes, you may just love Lo-mob!
Lo-mob will propose you to chose or take one picture, and will process it for you. You'll be then presented with the preview of the more than 30 Lo-mob effects.
Chose one to preview it, be back to the list in just a click to chose another.
Once your choice made, save the file in high definition back to your iPhone, or share it over Twitter, or Facebook.
- more than 30 effects including vintage , instant and experimentation
- one process per picture for all the effects : means just one time to wait for the application to process before seeing all the effects
- hi-definition export
- application preferences in the iPhone setup area
AppStore Link: lo-mob - Price £1.19/$1.99
Editors comments: Despite this app having 30 effects I found them extremely disappointing and generally of poor quality, and whilst it may not be visible in my sample below, the inner edges of the slide are jagged and look unrealistic. This disappointment continues throughout the range of effects, both in colour and framing. In addition to the issues with the effects, I also found the image loading and processing times to be extremely slow.
On a plus side this app allows you to share your photos via email, Facebook or Twitter, letting you to set output sizes up to 1200x1600.
Overall I found this to be a disappointing app, and one that I regret buying.
lo-mob in New iPhone Photo Apps
Reader Comments (25)
Hi Glyn, Thank you for being a guinea pig for us for these photo apps. I've been wondering what this app is like and waited for your review. I was wondering how this would compare to Retro Camera and here is my answer! I can't wait to get the retrocam app.
I love your work and your site - this is the site I go to when looking for a photo/video app review/opinion! With the amount of app reviews you do, developers should just automatically give you free codes so you can review their apps without forking out some mula! I wonder if you can be totally candid though if you get free codes?
Keep up the great work! :)
I completely disagree with your assessment of this app. While some if it's filters will rarely be used by me, others have already produced amazing results in the short time I've been experimenting with it. Generally I trust your reviews and find you spot on. This time you're off, and there's something not quite ringing true with your tone of regret - it seems it bit bad-tempered and certainly, in my opinion, unfair. Just my two cents.
@Stuart. Following your comments I took a second look at this app, however having re-evaluated it, my opinion still stands. The load and save times of photos is noticeability slow, regardless of out put size, and of the 30 effects, I only liked the 'Emulsions' and some of the 'Instant Matic Photography' effects, and these are the effects that most people seem to be posting. The slide frame and 35mm film sprocket effects were extremely disappointing, and can be achieved much better with other apps like Photogene.
Over all I am still disappointed with this app, and feel it is over priced compared to other photo apps out there. When I first got news on this app I was excited as I am a fan of these retro apps, however as already pointed out this excitement soon turned to disappointment (well for me anyway), and what will be interesting, is to see how long people continue to use this app, or will it be just another one of those app that fades off in to the distance.
Thank you for the review, anyway.
Your absolute right is not to like it :)
Although I'm surprised that you regret having bought it... when I sent you myself a promo code to get it for free.
The fact you have to wait and it is kind of slow is written in the description, plus we feature a screenshot showing the wait process... This is part of the concept.
Anyway, thank you for your review.
I have nothing against wait times if the outcome is desirable. I do like that you get a preview of all the filters up front and can select it to see a larger preview before saving. The effects are gimmicky, but all overlay uses like these are. I happen to like many of them, but others may not. It may not be a "go to" app, but it will be great when I want a certain look.
My only critique would be that it doesn't handle landscape shots very well. I have to rotate them prior to add the effect, then rotate it again when I'm done. The portrait frames don't work very well for a shot that was composed as a landscape on their own.
We have taken notice of every suggestion and criticals. Many of them we knew about already. It's our first app and we fully acknowledge the fact that it's a toy, giving you a certain look, very caracteristic. I mean TTVs presets are almost elitist, and many people don't get the idea of it.
Lo-mob will gain in features and interest as much as we're going to develop our photo engine. We're very small and couldn't wait for the app to be perfect to release a first version. But we will update.
Thank you very much for the feedback.
I am going to play with this today....
I brought this app after reading the review here,and have been playing with it a little. It has some interesting effects which i personally like.so it is added to my collection..Im sure the developer will make it better via the comments here (on this site)..The main reason I brought this app though was because it was reviewed on this site.The review itself was good even though the reviewer did not seem to like It too much.After all one mans trash is another mans gold...price wise .99 would be great but I pesonally did not mind spending 1.99 on this app..
I have a 3GS and the waiting for the preview wasn't too slow, probably for the memory and ram.
Most of the filters are ok and the freedom to choose a lot it's great.
@lomobcom. Thank you for your feedback, and despite my negative comments, I hope your planned improvements will bring us the app that it should have been.
Whilst I thank you for the promo code, which would have saved me some money if I was based in the US, or had a US iTunes account, but has I am from the UK and do not yet have a US iTunes account, I had no choice but to buy the app.
Whilst this may not be one of my favourite apps, this post has generated some discussion, and there are plenty of readers here that like the app.
Thanks for the precisions Glyn. I've read on some blog that there's a way to open a US account without a credit cad, to benefit codes and free apps.
Being a fan of iPhone photography, I follow your site from the beginning and find it very good and accurate. I know the lacks and limitations of my app... so reading hard comments from you about my app was difficult to read, but not to understand. I would have been somewhere disappointed if you haven't made any.
We have efforts to make for the app to be better and sustainable. Comments I get from this thread are precious.
Thanks
Some quick feedback --
Well done for the first version !!
1. Load time: It actually depends on the photos. Load time (to generate preview thumbnails) varies, probably depends on the photo colors etc. The actual process time when you click on one thumbnail could be faster but it's not too bad.
2. I especially like the "Slide" and "Instant" framing effects. Would it be possible to generate random number on the upper left corner of the Slides? It always says "24" ;-)
3. When in the Thumbnail Preview window - you can scroll up and down to view the thumbnail effects. However, you cannot "Cancel" and go back to the "Load photo" / "Take Photo" / "E-mail" page. It forces you to select one effect, then you get the menu on the bottom of screen again.
@lomobcom (Vincent)
Well I bought the app this morning after our email & as a huge fan of TTV's etc I found all of your frames, overlays to be simply awesome... I know TTV & sprocket films & overlays very well myself. So truly you have filled a great void in the photography section in my opinion.
The only complaint I have is the use of this bad blur you seem to have added to almost every filter/frame ???
It ruins almost every photo I would like to save. I have an endless collection of TTV textures etc & non ever produce such a blur let alone one that makes 1/2 the photo look bad. So for me as a fan & huge lover of TTV's & all the included frames you have I absolutely hate this blur. I ruins the app for me!
I am aware & love the dirty, mirky, additional noise etc of a TTV but what you have added is just not right at all. Adding an option to add these blurs, murkiness, dirt etc as an additional after effect is what I highly suggest you do here.
Please if you do anything to this app... Remove this
So as my only complaint I truly & honestly suggest removing the blur effect from every filter & possibly only having a user selected option to add the blur (off by default).
For it ruined this great app for me!
As I mentioned to you... I now to feel yes you DO need me to beta test your app & future updates.
I await hearing back from you in an email.
I personally recommend this app myself but I also agree that it is not for everyone... But is a good start & hopefully will only improve
SCW (Patrick)
I am a monkey in the middle on this app. I like the layout and presentation of it. I love the idea of all the formatting and all the "bordering" options. I love that you can set separate output resolutions for email, etc. A simple and yet brilliant addition. Now here is where the app looses me. I hate the blurring effect on many of the filters. If I wanted it blurry, I would take the picture out of focus. Adjust the effect or please make it user selectable. That is the single most reason I scroll through the previews time and time again and never hit save. Also the filtering is kinda flat, for lack of a better word. The processing just does not pop for me. It might be because I have apps I already use to gain said effects and are jaded toward them. I can't put my finger on it, maybe it's just the blur turning me off. I would love the option to just apply the boarders and not effect the imported photo. I see where this app is wanting to go and it can get there. A few tweaks would boost its usability considerably.
@patrick
Thanks for getting the app. And for the review, it really is helpful.
+ @Catmouth
You can't put a word on it but I think I got what you said. First it's really cool that you like the process and options we've set in the app. It's going to be even better. It's also great that you like the masks (borders).
About the blur, there's a pattern here : not a lot are fond of it, I have to admit. Better let people the choice to have it or not, or removing it almost entirely... alost only because I do think it's a pretty important component of the edges of some TTV's.
Last, and I never really thought about that, it would be quite humble from us to give the user the option not to filter photos at all... after all there are other applications that it would be great to chain with. The idea is in my head now, allthough it could be part of a next app : Lo-mob is meant to be a toy providing immediate, specific looks. We will update it for sure, to fight the main users frustrations, but it's in no way meant to become a "studio" where you can separately tweak & switch filters and frames. That, we have in mind too of course.
This thread's feedback is priceless :)
Best,
Vincent
Like most readers of this site I've got a lot of photo manipulation apps but tend to use just a couple. The apps I do use are the ones that give me control to enhance the image as I see fit. Because of that I've been hesitant to buy any new apps like this one that just provide canned effects.
Even though i probably won't use it much I just bought this app anyway. The main reason for that is the developer is here listening to people's feedback and is engaging in the community. I think that's important, and something that I want to support.
About the app. I've played with it for a few minutes. After changing the settings to save in full resolution I did notice it slow down quite a bit, but its really not any slower than PhotoFX (which can be annoying at times). I tend to agree with the others that the effects are a bit heavy, and I'd rather have some control over them. I do really like the some of the film and TTV masks, but if I could either control the enhancement, or have no enhancement so I could use another program this app might get used more.
As it is, for me, it's just something to play with. VIncent alluded to that being his intention, and in that regard it succeeds. In a market filled with apps that provide canned effects, lo-mob at least stands out for having some unique "photography experiment" options.
I'm glad I purchased lo-mob before reading this review, otherwise I may not have considered it.
I certainly don't regret buying lo-mob and nor do I think it's overpriced. I agree the load time is a little slow but not frustrating.
I happen to like the simplicity of "canned" effects (simplicity is the reason I purchased my iphone to begin with). I do wish the thumbnail preview was a bit larger.
I would recommend this app.
Respectfully,
Terry
Reviving this thread for my own selfishness :) hehe Everyone's opinion still the same after using it for a couple of weeks? Any updates coming lomobcom?
@Catmouth. I have now removed the app from my iPhone, as for me I prefer the effects that FotoMuse produces, which are similar, yet executed in a better way (in my opinion)
update on the way :) two fronts : 1.1 for adressing major reqs and 2.0 hoho