Martin Perreault and Yanik Chauvin from SayCheezzz Apps talk King Camera 1.03 and 1.1

Martin Perreault and Yanik Chauvin from SayCheezzz Apps have just posted this video where they talk about the improvements and new features found in King Camera 1.03, which hit the App Store yesterday. Towards the end of the video, they tease us with hints of what is to come in King Camera 1.1, with the very last feature they mention sounding to me like a "batch processing" option, but we'll have to wait and see if I'm right.

In the video they talk about the 1.03 update improving the camera taking and photo desk thumbnail rendering speed improvements, however having tested this, I am seeing no improvements at all. Despite rebooting my iPhone 4, and deleting and reinstalling King Camera, in my test, I found there was still a 2 second delay between shots, and the thumbnail rendering still took 5 seconds or more.

Getting these speed improvements right will be critical to the success or failure of this app, and probably explains why King Camera is not even in the top 100 photo apps in the UK App Store.

I will hold out to see what version 1.1 brings, but if the photo taking speed does not match that of King Camera's competitors, then it will have no place on my iPhone.

Comments

[obo78]

Glyn, I don't know about your iPhone but on my iPhone 4 v1.03 performs as Martin and Yanik claim in the video. Camera shots are near instantaneous and the thumbnail rendering is definitely faster than before. The background rendering on thumbnails also works as advertised.

King Camera still has a way to go before it becomes a go-to app for me but this is definitely an improvement.

[David LaSpina]

I really like this app, but I agree, Glyn, I notice no speed increase at all. It is just as slow as before. Why do they seem to think there is a speed incerase but we are noticing none? The only thing I can think of is maybe it has something to do with hard drive space? My iphone has very little free space (maybe about a GB). But I am not going to delete half of my apps in order to test this theory.

[Saycheezzz Team]

Hi Glyn

Thank you for posting our video.

We are surprised that you are not seeing speed increases while taking photos since all of our beta testers tested this and all other features to the extreme (ourselves included). We would never falsely advertise new features or improvement as our reputation is on the line. Could you send us a quick video at info (at) saycheezzz dot com of you taking 4-5 photos in succession? We will talk about this with our programmers and try to pinpoint what could cause this randomness in speed.

Also, you claim that our app is not in the top 100 UK Photo apps.... we've been monitoring ranking closely and right now we are low at 62 in the UK so I'm not sure where you get your information as we get our directly from the app store. More importantly, we are ranked 4th in the US and New Zealand, 3rd in Canada and 2nd in Australia! So this can truly tell you how users enjoy our app.

Our objective is to make King Camera the number 1 go-to photo app in the app store and the only way to achieve this is with our solid reputation and user word of mouth. That's why the quality of our app is so important to us.

If you or any of your users have bugs or suggestions, we personally review all of your comments on our support page: http://www.saycheezzz.com/contact-support/

Thanks

[Glyn Evans]

@Saycheezzz Team. Thanks for reading and providing feedback here. At the time of writing the post, King Camera was number 101 in the UK App Store, but at time of posting this comment, it has leapt to number 65.

With regards to the time lag, I will shoot a video later today and email to you.

I am trying to like this app, as I know you guys are putting your hearts and soul in to it, but at times just find it frustrating.

[Twin Pics]

Glyn,
I wonder why you invest yourself so much in putting King Camera down. If you simply do not like it, why not move on and use what you prefer? Or if you feel you are indeed a real, independent, and objective blogger, then why not actually work with the Saycheezzz team and give them constructive feedback?
Reading your blog makes me think of Fox News... no matter the facts put before the Fox team, their comments are always slanted the same way. So in this case, it seems obvious you are not trying to like King Camera at all, you are simply trying to make it look bad. I can only guess why that may be...
It will be interesting to see if you actually allow this post on your blog...
As for me, I love the app, it simply rocks my iphone, and I see no reason to go somewhere else.
Please bring some objectivity back into your blog to make it worthy of what blogs should be...

[Constance]

I have downloaded the update and I must say, for me the image capture is extremely quick... almost instantaneous. I like the other improvements also, and am looking forward to seeing what the next update brings. Glyn, I hope they can figure out why you don't see a speed improvement. It definitely is quick for me on my iPhone 4.

[Twin Pics]

Ho, wait... I get it. I should have paid more attention to the advertiser lineup on your blog! Now it all seems to come together.
For an iphone photography expert, you sure seem to be one of the few with such a problem. Perhaps you need to look at your hardware before you put down such a solid product publicly. Unless this is your way of luring more ad dollars your way... Gotta make a living for sure, but it's sure nice making it honestly! What would it take, a top ad from KC?

[Jason]

I'm a big iphoneographer fan and been reading this blog almost since the start. But I do wonder what's up with the constant bashing against King Camera. Sure their shutter was a bit slower when it came out, but it was a pretty solid 1.0 release overal. I personnaly experienced speed improvements in the shutter in the past updates and it responds almost instantly and to me 1.03 is more speedy in all aspects and not just the shutter. The constant nagging against a product like King Camera makes me question your integrity Glynn. I would have expected more from a website with such a respected reputation.

[desormeaux]

the updates are wonderfull !!!!!! and the apps works like a charm ...do not hesitate , it is defenitly the best photo app available.
Eric .

[Glyn Evans]

Thanks for the comments, however I am reporting what I find. If you read my 2 part review of King Camera, then you will know that I liked the app overall, but that it was badly let down by the camera delays. If a developer claims an update has vastly improved their app, but those improvement is not being seen by all (including myself), then as an independent blogger it is my place to report as I find. Based on another comment posted here, I am not the only person that is not seeing the speed improvements, and later today I will be emailing video evidence of the lag I am experiencing to the devs, and will work with them to identify the fault, something that I have done with other developers many times before.

With regards to the allegations that I am bashing this app because I am being biased towards my advertisers, then anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time will know, I just don't do that. In fact I was recently asked by a developer not to post my thoughts on their app, as it was not good, and I don't do that either, and I have no intention of changing they way I report on what I find.

[Glyn Evans]

I've just checked, and strangely the above comments bashing me are all from Canadian IP addresses!!!

[Fredrik Nilsson]

That's quite funny... Seems like the updates work better in Canada. I've given the app enough tries to safely say that on my iPhone 4 the speed improvements aren't big enough for the app to stay on my phone.

The app shows potential, there's no doubt about that, but it doesn't bring anything new (or better) to my camera bag.

[Fredrik Nilsson]

I've looked over the notes regarding the previous version of the app. In the notes for version 1.01 it's stated that the app should be optimised, so that you could download it over a 3G network. In the Swedish app store version 1.03 is approx. 30 MB, which is a bit over the 3G limit of 20 MB. Could some kind of mix up between versions be the cause of the perceived slower apps in Europe?

Just to be certain that problems I've done a complete reinstall (again); naturally with the obligatory restart. As always the app behaved as it always have before... BUT with a twist... a weird one.

After closing the app completely (no running in the background), I started Iris Photo Suite and tested the new layer function and then closed Iris Photo Suite (again completely).

After seeing the promotion video for version 1.03 I decided to give King Camera a final chance. This time (for the first time ever) King Camera was as fast as promised. Not QuickPix fast, but definitely a contender for second place.

I wonder if this might be a strange memory bug. My second guess is that it might be language dependent (I normaly set the language to british english, but sometimes I rub with Swedish settings to make it easier for my kids). I don't know how the national settings effect memory handling, but speed is a matter of optimisation so it might be a long shot come true.

[Fredrik Nilsson]

Sorry for the typo. It should be "run with Swedish settings.." (not rub).

[David Wood]

Sadly, I'm not a Canadian ;-P, but I too have to wonder about the negative rap given this app here. Just to make sure that I wasn't a victim of bias myself, I did a quick comparison of the capture and rendering speeds of the 3 main camera apps that I have installed on my iPhone 4: King Camera, Camera+, and CP Pro. King Camera is every bit as fast as the other two in my test. If there's a difference, it's less than a second, and I can't imagine choosing one app over the other because of that.

King Camera still has more and better features for this iphoneographer compared to the other two. So it's my go-to camera app. If it would only allow me to zoom in on my images so that I could put its editing features to better use...

[Glyn Evans]

I have now supplied Saycheezzz with a video showing the lag between shots, which is about 2 seconds, and based on the couple of comments above, I am not the only person seeing this problem.

[JAG]

I hesitated buying KC when it first came out based on some reviews, but bought it when the 1st update came out. I have tried numerous camera and photo editing apps and generally, CameraGenius, Camera+, and PictureShow, are my Camera/Editor go-to apps. My overall assessment of KC was that it was not up to the same quality as these apps in terms of the filters, textures, and borders. The filters just seem flat, and don't really improve the "look" of the pic like the other apps I mentioned. The textures seem somewhat generic and bland, and the borders are just not pleasing when applied to the pics.

I did see the improvements in speed and rendering. I'll keep it in my camera app collection for occasional use and look for updates before making a final decision on whether KC should stay in my collection of camera apps. As of now, it's good, not great, but still promising.

[SayCheezzz Apps]

Thank you Glyn for sending in your test video. You will find in your inbox our complete reply.

Since you maintain publicly (comments, and twitter) that it takes over 2 seconds for the Shutter to react, I find we must post a quick summary of our findings with the test video you sent over email:

From your video, each time a photo was taken, the Camera was ready to take the next photo under 1 second to 1.5 second:
first shot: 25 frames (under 1 sec)
second shot: 31 frames (1 second)
third shot: 44 frames (1.5 second)
fourth shot: roughly 44 frames (I couldn't see well because of the glare on the glass screen)

The frames listed above are video frames counted in the test video sent to us, of the spinning wheel which appears after releasing the Shutter Button, indicating when the Camera is ready to take the next photo. Obviously, tapping on the shutter when the spinning wheel is displayed (indicating the Camera is busy) wont take the photo. The spinning wheel never stays longer than 1.5second, and for two of the four photos it stayed on for only 1 second. This behavior is on par with the camera found in other Photo Apps (they just don't display the spinning wheel).

The test video you sent also demonstrates that thumbnails in Photodesk take 2 seconds to render (except for 1 thumb which took 4 seconds upon entering Photodesk- a behavior we will investigate further and try to reproduce in order to improve on that). This speed is also on par with our claims of King Camera performance, and it is similar to other applications performance.


Anyone interested in seeing a video of our test demonstration of Shutter Speed, Photodesk Thumbnails rendering speed, and the improved Cache for the Quickmatik may check the following youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r31g3urBdmo


Thanks again Glyn for sending in the video. We will study it more in detail with the goal in mind of improving the application even further, as we have done since its release four weeks ago.

Thank you also for your great passion with iphoneography. Yanik and I do share the same iphoneography passion, which is the number 1 reason we chose to create King Camera.

Best wishes,

Martin

[Tomba]

Gave the new version another try yesterday.
For a camera replacement app it is still too slow. i had several moments i wanted a second or third short in a busy railway station but missed it because the app was not ready. ProCamera and Camera+ let me always shoot when i want to.
I also dont like how the UI masks the viewfinder around the shutter buttom. i cant exactly see what i get on the right side shooting in landscape or at the buttom shooting portrait.
For 79 cent it is a good app with a lot of features but cant replace any other app i already have.
Will wait for 1.1 and decide then if i keep it or not.

[Suzé]

Hi Glyn, I read with interest your comments on KC as I recently reviewed this app on a podcast for mymac.com. The major fault I had with this app was the startup launch time. I continue to experience a 5-7 sec launch time which is very frustrating. I do wish they could improve upon that. I have taken many photos since the update and I am experiencing no lag time. The photos save almost instantaneously to the photodesk. I'm running it on a 3GS with very little space left. There are a lot of things I like about this app compared to Camera+. I would use it more often however, if it had a quicker launch time. If it is open already and I launch it, I don't experience the long lag quite as bad. It's launching it cold that it is very slow. Hopefully this will be addressed in a future update.