iOS 5 for photographers, my initial thoughts

"For photographers, iOS 5 promised so much, yet has delivered so little"

Well after last nights nightmare upgrade from iOS 4.x to iOS 5, here are my initial thoughts on what this update has added for us iPhoneographers.

First I'm going to say, "this update isn't great", "Apple promised so much, yet, for me, has delivered so little."

Quick access from the Lock Screen

This sounded like it was going to be a great new feature, and it kind of is. Double tapping the home button whilst the screen is locked adds a camera icon along side the swipe to unlock, which when tapped takes to straight to the default camera app. The not so good bit about this feature, is it is not permanent, as the double tap process has to be done each and every time you want to add the camera icon to the lock screen!! [Come on Apple, this is a great feature that we should be able to make permanent if we want.]

The Real Shutter Button

This works as described. Launch the default camera app, press the + volume key, and snap!

The Camera App

The update to the default camera app for me is very disappointing. Whilst we knew the update was going to bring focus and exposure lock to the iPhones default camera, what wasn't clear, is that this new feature only offers spot focus/exposure, and not separate focus and exposure points, as apps like Camera+ do.

in addition, the camera app also now has a new "Options" menu, which allows you to enable/disable HDR mode, and/or turn on/off the cameras new grid view.

Photo Editing

When you view a photo in the new Photos App, you will now see an option in the top right hand corner, that says "Edit". Tapping this now give you some very basic editing options, Rotate, Auto-Enhance [ON/OFF}, Red-Eye Removal and Crop. Of these new features, for me, the crop tool looks to be the most useful, whilst the Auto-Enhance looks to be the most useless.

When using the Auto-Enhance, what you will discover, is the enhancements are very subtle, and when you save the resulting image, it does not save an enhanced copy, it updates the original!! You can however un-enhance the photo should you want to revert it back.

Custom Albums

For me, this is the best feature of all, as you can now, quickly and easily create custom photo albums on the fly, right on your iPhone.

To create a custom photo album, simply open the "Camera Roll", tap the arrow in the top right, select all the photos you want to add to the new album, tap "Add To", name your album, and your done. If you then want to add additional photos to any of your custom albums, simply follow the process above, and you will see an option that asks you if you want to "Add to Existing Album" or "Add to New Album".

Camera Roll Quick Access

Do you want quick access to your camera roll from with in the camera app? Then simply swipe your finger or thumb across the screen from let to right, and hay presto!

Despite only having a few hours to play with the new photo related updates in iOS 5, combined with all the hassles experienced with slow downloads and server authentication issues during the update process, I am left feeling somewhat underwhelmed, but what do the rest of you think?

Comments

[Jim Moore]

I suppose the best new functionality for me are the improved Notifications which allows me to see Instagram updates, Twitter replies and so on more easily as well as deep integration of Twitter which allows for direct posting of images withou the need for TwitPic etc

[Angus MacFrankenstein]

Keeping in mind that you haven't run iOS 5 for very long on your iPhone (I'm assuming it's still an iPhone 4), are you seeing any significant slowdown running in running the phone?

[Jim Moore]

I've ran iOS5 since July and had no problems with speed on my iPhone 4.

[monica]

if you double click the home button from a completely turned off screen, it will also take you to the lock screen with camera option. so you don't have to turn it on to double click.

[Chris/Interealtime]

The biggest changes for photography are very much at the API level I reckon. There are some BIG improvements down there for us devs, that make things a LOT faster. So much faster that a lot of new stuff is possible with iOS 5. Give it a month or two :)

Also, on the camera app - tap to set exposure/focus as before. Hold your finger down to lock it.

[Tom]

Can you assign another camera app to the button on the lock screen ?

[James Moore]

At an API level I was fairly disappointed with Core Image.

I benchmarked it against the code I currently use for image processing. While Core Image promises single context, chained image effects, I find that the existing code I am using is still quicker when processing full res images.

CI Memory usage may be lighter, and it'll be no doubt better for multi-threading or making use of the acceleration hardware. Probably something I'll look at more closely again in the coming months but for now the existing code I use does the same job.

[Fran White]

Don't feel bad, I don't even have a camera button on the lock screen after double tapping.

[Iphone Application Development]

Cool app.. Will hit the market with a storm..

[MarcelW]

Don't look at the new features with the eyes of an iPhoneographer, but as a casual user. Then you will love it. ;-)

[Chris/Interealtime]

@James Moore CI should be much faster that pure software in most cases, but some things do run slower in a shader. There's a lot to learn about optimising shaders too which will apply to CI - check imagination's SGX performance guidelines. Also be aware that the GPU has a max texture size, and it's a lot lower than a full res photo - no idea what happens if you pass it something too big, but it might drop back to software mode. Also check how you're passing the data to it - if it has to do a copy and twiddle, that has a huge performance impact.

Of course if you want best results, you still have to go with pure openGL/GLSL, but it's nowhere near as convenient.

[Anne]

What is the most photos you can have in your album? I recall something about there being a maximum with this upgrade. I have over 3000 pics in my album now and I'd like to make sure they're still there when I'm done.

[Reed]

I agree with your initial impressions. I also did not have much time as the update process took all day.

[Tyrannosaurs]

Re. the camera button always being visible on the lock screen.

"If we want" isn't the way Apple thinks. Options settings are, in Apple's mind, an indication of indecision.

But more than that, the people who would want this are in a very very small minority and the overhead of pressing the button twice (remember, you probably already have your finger on it to activate the screen anyway) is absolutely tiny.

Do you seriously think that this will be something that remotely bothers you in two weeks once you're used to it?

[Chris/Interealtime]

On the lock screen/pressing twice thing: Consider how many photos you'd get of the inside of your pocket, from something accidentally pressing the button then your leg rubbing the screen. There's a reason why you have to double-press it!

Another thing about the lock screen camera: You can't access your photo album from there. You'll get an album with any photos you've just taken, but no more. This is good, it protects your privacy when you leave your phone around, but if you open the camera and all your photos are gone, *don't panic*! (I did :D)

[Aryo Moerdo Setioputro]

hey guys...
despite all of bad things on iOS 5, the update is much much much better than iOS 4.3.5...
just enjoy it.
the most important thing is, the man behind the iphone to produce great photographs!

[Desfolio]

Look like I will continue to use Camera+ as my camera. I welcome the native crop and the create album feature. I see myself using those features heavily.

[doughnut hole]

Hey Glyn....There's a jailbreak tweak called SuperSlider that allows you to pick any app including camera apps and have it sit next to the Slide to Unlock. You do not need to press the Home button to bring it up either as what ever app you put there sits there "permanently" just like you want. It has been updated to support IOS 5 also.

You must be jailbroken but I thought I'd let you know what you want is available. :)

[Lost Archives]

Glyn, thanks for your thoughts on IOS5. It took me five times to download it yesterday with there servers so busy. I had to check several forums to see what the error message really meant. Once loaded, I set up iCloud, but with so many apps etc., the 5g of free space was not enough for an iCloud backup. If I waned to "cut the cord" I had to buy extra cloud space starting at $20. Since I was still running Snow Leopard, I also had to upgrade to Lion to have that feature work. iPhoto was now acting bugging and continually crashing. After looking on the web, I see i'm not alone with this Lion problem. The solution offered is to delete iPhoto and then resinstall. Wow,that's a lot of heavy lifting to have things work properly.

[Jerry]

Of the new features, the lock screen access is great for catching shots you'd otherwise miss while waiting for any of the photo apps to open. The crop/rotate is good for quick adjustments to shots taken with this app or in the Camera Roll in general. I'm underwhelmed with the enhancer, and the screen is too small to use the red-eye adjuster. That said, I'm not giving up Camera+ or Pro HDR for shooting, and am glad I have SnapSeed, Photogene, PhotoForge, Autostitch and Filterstorm for adjustments. Many times, I move the original images to the iPad (using PhotoSync) and use these apps there for adjustment. No iPhoneographer should be without SnapSeed!