App Update: InstantCam
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 12:29PM | Glyn Evans 
InstantCam is a Polaroid app produced under license by the Pente Group, which when released back at the end of August got a slating from myself and other bloggers, due to the apps inability to do its most basic of functions, and that was to produce a useable photo.
The Pente Group recognized the app had some problems and promised to release an update that would address all the problems, and today that update hit the App Store.
So what's new?
- Advanced cropping functionality
- Optimized Polaroid Studio
- Other bug fixes
So what do I think of this app now it's been updated, and what haven't they told us?
Well there are things that have been fixed, stuff left untouched, and features taken away, and here is the rundown.
- Gone is the ability to use the front facing camera, making the app completely useless for taking self portraits!!
- Gone is the ability to use the iPhone 4's flash, in all except the digital mode!!
- The app seems to need a network connection to work!!
- The crop is not really a crop. It allows you to move a portrait orientated photo up or down, or a landscape one left or right; this is not cropping. Cropping does work, although it failed during my initial test. Cropping is a pinch to zoom affair.
- And last but not least, the images are now correctly framed, however they are saved at a pathetic 284 x 289 pixels.
On the whole, this has to be one of the worst fake Polaroid apps currently in the App Store, making it look like this developer is more interested in recovering the licensing costs than producing an app that can proudly carry the Polaroid trademark!!
The bottom line with this app, is, avoid!!
App Store Link: InstantCam; Price: £0.59/$0.99/€0.79
Reader Comments (7)
I just want to know how they sleep at night.
Seems like they heard the negative reviews, but didn't really know how to update it properly. This is an example of developers really not knowing how to create a good app. Apple Store should have rejected this based on the tidbits of revealed App Policies that was released earlier this week.
LOL Cody.
Bought it when it came out, although I knew it was crap. I was thinking the next update would fix stuff..
Guess ShakeIrPhoto stays King then.. !
I disagree , Shakeit may take some nice pictures and does have good resolution but thats all it really does have , do you seriously think a brand like Polaroid will not fix this in the short term ? In terms of functionality , this application has more to offer than shakeit .
@Spike_DADAWG. First let me say that Polaroid is not the developer of this app as the post indicates, it is being developed by a company the Pente Group under license from the license holder of the Polaroid brand. If this app had been released by Polaroid itself, do you think they would have released and app that didn't work from the start and functioned no better than an alpha release (not even beta)? An app has to be useable, and this one really is not!!
ShakeItPhoto is great. No need for another basic Polaroid app. If they want to impress me with a Polaroid app, make one that accurately reproduces emulsion transfers or one that will let you move the emulsion around on SX70 film.
Actually Polarize is the best Polaroid app. It just simply needs an update to fix bugs under iOS4.