New iPhone Photo App: InstantCam, the official Polaroid® Instant Camera app!
Friday, August 27, 2010 at 9:25PM | Glyn Evans 
App Store Description: Polaroid Instant Camera Application for iPhone is offering you the same features as the classic Polaroid instant camera. All you need to do is click then shake and/or blow your iOS device and your photo appears just like the classic Polaroid instant camera. Apply custom special effects to your pictures and give them a special look. Add the Polaroid Classic Border to all your favourite pictures from the past, add text, and easily share with your friends and family.
Key Features and Benefits
- Choice of four custom cameras
- Recreates all the classical and recent camera settings and effects including vintage color and colorized.
- Support for both camera and library modes
- Take a picture directly from the app or select any picture from your iPhone picture library.
- Shake and blow to see your pictures
- Get interactive with the camera development process, just like the authentic Polaroid Instant Camera.
- Add text / notes
- Easily annotate your pictures with a built-in text editor, adding handwriting styled notes to the bottom white border.
- Integration with Polaroid Studio
- Create or login to your custom account that is synced online with Polaroid Studio (www.polaroidstudio.com).
- Manage your photos
- Organize your pictures and create unlimited number of albums with custom names and descriptions.
**** Penté Group is an authorized licensee of the Polaroid, Polaroid Studio and Polaroid Classic Border trademarks, owned by PLR IP Holdings, LLC. ****
App Store Link: InstantCam; Price: £0.59/$0.99/€0.79
Editors comments: This app has the backing of licensee of the Polaroid brand, and is a classic example of a holding company cashing in on a name.
This app whilst initially looking promising is completely useless!!
The apps interface looks pretty good, but as my self portrait right shows, it makes a complete pigs ear at framing the shot, and as for the resolution, what was this developer thinking of producing an app that saves at a pathetic 302 x 307 pixels!!
This app is more about the Polaroid name and advertising, than it is about the app, so my advise is, avoid this app like the plague.
Reader Comments (26)
That's actually an interesting crop for a self-portrait of you, Glyn! Too bad it was wasted on this app.
This is one of few apps -- even bad ones -- where I feel like I got totally ripped off. Really, if I were Polaroid, I'd be embarrassed to have my name on this app.
=M=
If the app is pathetic enough. Are you guys a little late to the game?
@ Darrin,
Please explain how we were late to the game. Both Glyn and I had some sort of review/warning posted within one hour of this app being released in the App Store.
=M=
Haha, no guys. Sorry, it's been a long day at work and it's the end of the day on Friday. Let me do a rewrite.
This app looks pathetic and the authors of it are a bit late to the game.
Sorry Guys
Darrin
What a huge rip off; I would be ashamed if I was Polaroid, putting their brand name on that. Hey Glyn, do you mind if I post a link to this article in my blog?
@Darrin,
No worries. Sorry for the misunderstanding!
=M=
@Tania. Not a problem, please feel free to link back to the post.
Good review. I won't buy this.
immediately bought this, the feel is really cool, snap, crop, process, develop, tag. the low resolution will be fixed with an update (hopefully), anyway this app for just 99c offers more than "shake it" or other polaroid clone apps. 4stars
@ale, I have to ask what app you think you are writing about, as this current release could never muster even 1 star, let alone 4.
what's wrong with it?the captions are pretty small ok, but cmon it's a polaroid app, you don't need it to print wallposters..and maybe they will fix this with an update
@ale. OK taking aside the poor resolution, are you telling me your version correctly frames the subject, because if it does, then you must have a different version to the rest of us!!
yes you are right, the frame on the "film" is not really the same that you see on the preview (when you resize) ..hmm ok, let's say they have a bunch of things to fix..but i think it's a nice concept, then avery app has had its youth problems. let's see what happens :)
@ale. So do you still think it's a 4 star app, or do you now think like the rest of us, a zero star app?
ahahah ok i give you credit, i give 2 stars but i believe it has some potential..i noticed now that the pics in the film roll have a white background around the film, that looks cheeeesy!i'll increase the stars when they will add twitter sharing and higher res
Well, if the major issue is framing, Hipstamatic doesn't do an accurate job of providing you of a view of what the finished photo will look like, either.
Doesn't look very impressive. 302 x 307 pixels ???????????????????
I have a similar app. The low resolution offers a faster time to develop the image with speed using the filters. I am sure a better resolution will be coming out in the next version with a fast develop speed.
You can get Polarize for free, and the res is higher.
the developers tweeted me about an upcoming update, let's see where they get