Open letter from Brad Malcolm, President, Athentech Imaging
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 10:13AM | Glyn Evans 
Thank you for your continued interest in Perfectly Clear and thanks for your feedback on version 2.0. It has been brought to our attention that our app is crashing for many of you when saving photos.
We did actually perform extensive testing on iPhones 3, 3G, and one iPhone 4 (we were only able to acquire one in Canada 4 days ago!) and also iPod touches with various operating systems, all with good results. Unfortunately testing devices aren’t always representative of real life devices, and the Apple process of testing adhoc builds is certainly not perfect. In addition Apple is continually releasing new OS versions and stopping support and simulation for developers of older Operating Systems, which further complicates matters. This is why our testing, and also that of other Companies that you’ve mentioned, aren’t always able to catch all the bugs before releasing live.
Perfectly Clear delivers a very powerful result, which is of course why you purchased it. We are able to produce such a powerful result because of our patented and unique science. The flip side of this equation is that Perfectly Clear is very memory intensive, and the Apple OS forces apps to shut-down when a memory spike occurs. This happens when you are saving full resolution images. This problem is compounded on older devices (iPhone 3 for example) that have less memory, especially if they are running the latest OS (version 4.x) which utilizes more memory.
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused, and we are working hard on trying to fix this. It is our goal for your Perfectly Clear app to perform Perfectly once again while delivering the high quality that you expect and deserve.
Some of you also asked why we don’t support the higher resolution graphics on iPhone 4. We actually do include specical graphics for the iPhone 4 – this is why our build is now double the size as it was before.
With respect to our noise removal, we have partnered with Stoik Imaging. Both our testing and independent testing by several of our large licensing customers confirmed that the Stoik noise removal is the most powerful and effective noise removal in the market today. We have also worked with many professional photographers for our Photoshop Plug-in and they love what this noise removal does for their photos and how it is superior to what they can do in both Photoshop and Lightroom. As a result and after reviewing the other offerings available for the iPhone, we decided to offer this as an optional feature to you. We are charging for it because we want our partner Stoik to make some money from it so they can continue to advance it to ensure your pictures can look their best. We are not charging the same price as our app itself ($2.99 USD) – but rather less then a cup of coffee at $1.99. I am surprised that a few of you mentioned you are not seeing any difference with it on – please feel free to contact me or send me the example photos at support@athentech.com and I’ll be happy to be of assistance.
Lastly, there seems to be some confusion on the new features of version 2.0. We are NOT charging for the smarter sharpening, the sharing abilities (Facebook, Twitter, email), custom preset, or the auto save of your original photo. These are free upgrades to all current customers and were ideas from you. The only extra, and optional, charge, is for noise removal.
Thanks for your patience and understanding, and as always, I welcome your feedback.
Brad Malcolm, President, Athentech Imaging
Editors comments: I am currently working with Athentech Imaging testing their betas on both my iPhone 3G running the latest version of iOS 3 and my iPhone 4, also running the latest version of iOS 4, so rest assured we will get there in the end.
Perfectly Clear in Press Release
Reader Comments (14)
temporary solution: do not try to save full res processed image, just email it to address of your choice. Although app keeps crashing still, it usually crashes right after image is sent.
iPhone 3G - iOS 4
@iphonesnapshot
Not here :/
The app crashes and not send anything!
Sorry: iPhone 3G - iOS 4.0.2
looks like one device differs from another... try to reboot your iphone first.
I was able to send 10 full res pics using that hint.
iPhone 3? This makes me question whether he's fully aware of the differences between the 3G and the 3GS.
@JonnyGerman. I think Brad was generalising.
Even after rebooting it crashes upon saving. I feel better that Glyn will be doing the beta testing, I only wish they had asked him before they came out with ver 2.0.
So, are any iPhone 4 users having significant problems with this app? Or do most of the crashing issues seem to be occurring with 3G & 3GS iPhones?
@Charlie. The main problem seems to be with any iDevice running iOS 4.0.1 or less.
I haven't as yet seen any impact with the in app purchase of noise reduction. Also. As I've already purchased the addition may I please not be continually directed to it's advertisement page? Thank you.
I agree with Charles!!!
Just upgraded my 3G to 4.1. Perfectly Clear is still not perfect but at least usable.
i have actually informed them of the same issue on their website... good thing it is being looked into it now... hope it will not take them as long as their upgrade to v2.0...
+1 with charles on the ad removal after purchase...
Is the Noise Reduction in app purchase worth getting? I see that some people seem to think that it makes very little difference to pics it has been applied to.