53 replies
1d2h
"one simple principle: make good products and charge money for them."
Thank you for the one-time purchase option. It's a win already on today's software world.
33 replies
1d3h
As a long time amateur photographer (using physical cameras and lenses), I have Halide (by the same company) on my iOS home screen for when I need to take a real phono on my iPhone. I use it all the time without issue. And would recommend it to any photographer.
So I paid for Kino without hesitation. Just fired it up, set BNW grade, pressed record, and it immediately crashed. Tried again and it crashed again. Tried AGAIN and it worked... (iPhone 13 mini, iOS 17.4.1).
I have faith this will be worked out soon.
15 replies
23h42m
I paid for Halide and almost immediately afterward, they announced a policy of locking new features made after whatever version you had bought unless you bought it a second time.
It's the only app I've ever bought whose developer has done that bullshit.
I won't make that mistake again.
5 replies
23h37m
why would buying an old version entitle you to a new version?
2 replies
23h10m
"Entitled" seems like an inappropriate word here. OP isn't entitled to the software, and the publisher isn't entitled to repeat customers or the perception of being a good value.
0 replies
18h51m
What word seems more appropriate to you? "Entitled" is an unfortunately loaded word, but it seems to be the verb most appropriate to me.
0 replies
17h22m
I dunno. I understand "entitle" has connotations - like the word "privilege" these days - but I thought this was used in the straight sense of the word.
1 replies
23h18m
For every couple year major versions (with decently advanced notice it's coming and/or a recency allowance) I think it's fair to charge anew but for minor improvements over the lifecycle of a major version I think it's fair to want to buy everything that will come in the major version up front if you're making a one time purchase. Tons of software is this way from Sublime to Windows to ZBrush to an absolute crapload of games. In this model a one time purchase is seen more as an alternative to holding a subscription over the lifetime rather than the intent to forego any future features or enhancements out of interest of the exact current feature set being all you'll ever want. There is also the "in-between model" e.g. IntelliJ where you get the current version + a period of updates and you can either stay with where it ends at that period or pay a smaller amount for more updates.
I'm not sure which group the Halide changes mentioned above fell into but just on the general topic I think it's a fair expectation.
0 replies
17h37m
They do something which is "common" in Apple-land (Dash for MacOS does this, a Twitter client did this as well, over and over): They get the same app, add some features, call it v2, launch as a new app and remove v1 from the store.
They don't "give" you the new version. They take away the app you paid "once", and provide you with a version with an expire date. So you have no choice. You either pay them, again, or lose access to the v2 (subscription based) app.
I don't mind paying for good software, I even think Hallide is worth $60. But I won't make the same mistake again. So best of luck Lux! I really wish you all the success. If you treat your customers right this time.
4 replies
19h29m
That's how literally every application I ever purchased prior to 2008 worked...
3 replies
11h50m
Can you please give an example please as I never heard of this bs in my whole life
0 replies
10h12m
Without any malice or snide intent, I assume you must be under 25? Quickest example that comes to mind is every OS update to both Apple and Microsoft platforms until the former went free. Hell, iPhone OS 2 was a paid upgrade for iPod touch users.
0 replies
5h20m
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop#Version_histor...
New version every 2-3 years which required a purchase. It was a few hundred dollars every time you wanted to upgrade (people may not remember this, but PS was the "value" product when it launched; professional software was often low 4 figures).
0 replies
2h51m
30+ years in the software industry. Everyone did this back in the day - then it changed for 3 reasons (1) completely unsustainable (2) people didn't upgrade, or being forced to upgrade and pay large prices got grumpy about it. (3) the money people figured out subscriptions were more profitable.
There's tonnes of companies that have legacy 'pay upfront' models, that hit the wall as they'd saturated their markets, then their revenue stream dropped off and all of a sudden saw the wall of transitioning to web/mobile needing to happen and didn't have the funds to pull it off.
I'd almost completely forgotten about it until I was challenged by a prospect in a meeting monday 'is this one of these new lease software systems, I want to own it!" had to educate him on the way the world worked now...
3 replies
23h14m
It sounds like you bought Halide 1. At the time, we had supported Halide 1 for three years of huge feature updates when we launched Halide Mark II. Rather than just drop Halide 1, we gave everyone Mark II and a year of additional updates.
The alternative would have been to just release a separate app called Halide 2 and stop updating Halide 1. In that case, version 1 would probably fall apart pretty quickly due to OS and camera changes year to year.
I’m genuinely curious if you’d have preferred we stopped updating Halide 1, because we’re always trying to find the best way to support users while keeping the light on.
2 replies
21h35m
How do you guys manage new versions?
Updates have always been a PITA on iOS. There’s no way to charge for them.
1 replies
13h12m
they really don't. the last feature they released was support for the action button on the new iPhones, seven months ago
0 replies
10h48m
Following the action button release, we added deferred processing support. It involved rewriting a bit of the capture pipeline, but significantly speeds up 48MP captures.
Following that, we had a series of bug fix updates while we worked out the next major update. It’s maybe 2/3 done, but we had to shelf it until after the Kino launch for external reasons.
8 replies
1d2h
Sorry you ran into that. I distinctly remember testing the 13 mini, due to notch layout issues, so this is unexpected. As soon as the crash reports come in, we’ll dig into that.
Unfortunately, while we had a QA person on this, and nearly 100 beta testers, the iPhone camera APIs are a mine field. We’ll get a fix out as soon as we have details.
3 replies
11h10m
This looks really promising, hope all goes great! My only concern is reading that you do collect crash reports despite being privacy-focused. How much information is there to identify the picture/video taken or the device/person?
2 replies
5h35m
There's two possibilities.
1. They're using the crash reports provided through App Store Connect. These are stack traces with no personally identifying information. You can enable/disable these under Settings > Privacy & Security > Share With App Developers.
2. They're using a third-party crash reporter. Under the covers these are often based on PLCrashReporter or KSCrash. A few such as Firebase (previously Crashlytics) implement their own exception handlers/stack unwinders. These are typically anonymized, but at this point it's the app (or the crash reporting SDK it includes) to decide exactly what to report. Most apps will try hard to avoid PII because that's easier than dealing with GDPR, CCPA, ATT disclosures, etc.
As soon as the crash reports come in
This leads me to believe it's (1) since third-party crash reporters usually send in the crash reports as soon as the app has restarted, while Apple delays crash reports in App Store Connect. In which case the app itself isn't collecting anything: it's iOS and you choose to opt-in when you first setup the device.
0 replies
5h18m
Their privacy manifest shows that they do not collect any data. So they are either not using Firebase or similar for crash analytics, or their privacy manifest is inaccurate and should be reported.
We must specify that we're collecting diagnostics (apart from the ones Apple collects on our behalf for opt-in users) even if they aren't attached to PII or user identifiers. So if they're doing this honestly, it indicates they are relying on Apple's opt-in crash analytics exclusively.
In my experience at least 80-90% of users are NOT opted in to sharing usage analytics with Apple, so they won't receive most crash reports unless they're collecting them through an undisclosed backdoor.
0 replies
2h3m
Yup. We just use Apple’s crash reporting system.
2 replies
14h11m
I heard that the iPhone landscape was not fragmented though.
0 replies
11h53m
Definitely fragmented, even within the same generation and software version there are clearly meaningful hardware differences, but more like "dry mud" cracked apart than "grand canyon" cracked apart in comparison to other options. Still something you have to deal with though, no getting around that.
0 replies
5h48m
If you stick to the high level "Hey, take a photo for me" APIs, it isn't a problem. If you want to take advantage of hardware specific features, the iPhone camera system varies from generation to generation, and sometimes within a single generation. On top of this, the AV frameworks have a mountain of undefined behavior which easily breaks with iOS updates. There are tons of iOS and model specific code branches that have cropped up in Halide over the years.
That said, it doesn't hold a candle to Android fragmentation. It's a major reason we will not touch the platform.
0 replies
15h25m
Same issue on my iPhone 13 mini 17.5.1, tried with Sando. Crashed immediately after beginning filming
2 replies
1d2h
Same phone and same OS version down to the patch number. I’ve noticed UI hangs and stutter when changing the grades, and BNW in particular seems to cause the biggest issues. Not yet experienced a crash even if I flick between grades in quick succession.
I did also find manual focus produced odd green visual artefacts in the live view as you move the focus control.
With that said, it’s a nice UI, hopefully the bugs can be ironed out!
1 replies
1d1h
The green is focus peaking. In a future update, we plan to make that opt-in in the UI.
0 replies
13h10m
Ah, my lack of knowledge rather than a bug then, my bad! Thanks for explanation!
0 replies
10h7m
Crashed on an SE
0 replies
14h33m
Just to add - same issue iPhone 12 - iOS 17.4.1
0 replies
21h42m
FWIW, no issues on first run on my iPhone 13 Pro Max :-)
Could be related to the 13 mini cameras specifically.
0 replies
23h5m
One time fee + good software = instant purchase from me as well. Subscription usually means no deal. I don’t lease my tools.
0 replies
1d2h
Same issue with iPhone 12 mini, iOS 17.4.1
28 replies
23h4m
I really appreciate that the app is just an up front price! I probably don't really need it but at that price and straightforwardness it's not really a big loss if I don't use it much so I grabbed it. I looked at the other apps and realized they had made Halide as well which I tried out for a bit, for some reason thought it was subscription only & decided I didn't want it that much while clearing out subscriptions, and just (re)noticed they say you can buy it outright too. Initially I probably saw a high price tag and wanted to see how long I'd really like it for but going back into the app I can't seem to find the straightforward purchase option (perhaps because my initial year subscription hasn't expired?) which means I can't find how much it is without searching the net.
Perhaps I'm just uneducated and there is a place to still see it in the app with an active subscription or see the IAP price on the app store but even if there were it'd all just be a pain compared to "It's $9.99, wanna buy?" in your face at the app store and anywhere you read about it.
The only other (very minor) thing that gave me a startle was the onboarding process asks if you want to go "starter" or some other more advanced category. I thought I missed that it would try to upsell you until I reread and saw it meant I could select either layout type out of the box. Not sure that's really the apps fault as much as my paranoia after having just checked through all the above and being left thinking I missed something.
12 replies
18h31m
Unfortunately the freemium + subscription model usually works so much better money-wise that it's difficult to justify publishing a simple paid app with upfront cost.
9 replies
15h31m
I'm totally fine with subscription apps, but the price has to be reasonable.
I'm not a video editor so I can't speak to that but here's one example:
Most calorie counting apps want ~16AUD a month from me. That's what Disney+ costs and they spend billions of dollars making content. It's 3$ more than Spotify charges and they have almost every song ever made. It doesn't have to be free, or even a one-off cost, but it has to be reasonable. I'd pay 4$ for calorie counting features. 16? No.
2 replies
9h22m
I'm totally fine with subscription apps, but the price has to be reasonable.
I'm fine with it if includes some monthly re-occurring service, like cloud storage/sync.
I purchased YNAB4 and I ran it just fine on my desktop. But YNAB5 went to subscription, and it included things like syncing multiple devices (which of course needs servers, which cost), but I have no need for that, and so I did not move to it. I'd much prefer I pay some one-time fee, and if I want syncing I can subscribe to just that.
I also understand that if I pay $x for Version Y, then if I want Version Z there may be an upgrade fee.
1 replies
9h9m
I'm fine with it if includes some monthly re-occurring service, like cloud storage/sync.
What sucks is when the developer adds some recurring service to their software that I don't want, purely as an excuse to justify moving to subscription, and then no longer offers the software without the "service" for a one-time price.
For most of the software I use, I specifically don't want to be tethered to some kind of online service, have to have a network connection to run it, and so on. And I'll actively look for the competing software that's a one-time cost and isn't Cloud-ified.
0 replies
5h7m
This is a widespread and recurring problem when a software tool that should be a product gets artificially turned into a service.
1 replies
12h33m
Yeah, thanks for reminding me - cancelling MyFitnessPal trial - it's 130 AUD for a year, way more on a monthly basis.
There are some apps in this genre that are absolutely insane - $300 or so for an AI image analyser, which you have no way to try unless you sign up for a trial where you are committed to that amount unless you remember to cancel.
0 replies
9h6m
I have an app and I'm trying to figure out the pricing.
I’m offering a one-time in app purchase of life-time subscription. Currently it costs 6x the monthly subscription cost.
I'm worried that makes it too expensive for a simple app, at the same time lowering it would make the monthly subscription less sensible.
I'm curious if anyone has indie experience and thoughts regarding this.
1 replies
8h48m
One of my most-used apps is $2/yr and I’m very happy about it
0 replies
7h25m
One of mine is for $10/yr and is not too much but still... And do not have another choice
0 replies
5h29m
I recently discovered Lose It. The pricing is much more reasonable compared to other calorie counting apps - $10USD/year. There's also an option for lifetime purchase but I haven't used it long enough to justify locking in for that much time.
The only annoying thing is you have to get the free app, wait a day or two and then it will offer you the discounted premium subscription.
0 replies
7h30m
And price is often do not come up with this criteria
0 replies
4h29m
It does not work as well anymore as it once did, and it will continue to flatten out.
People can only afford a limited number of subscriptions at a time, and with an ever-increasing number of companies putting their hand into that pocket, there is less to go around.
0 replies
7h6m
I use way too many applications. IF I was subscribing it would be nightmare for me. So I only buy from companies that offer perpetual licenses and upgrade whenever I feel the need.
10 replies
18h0m
They did the same thing with Hallide.
Give enough time (1-2y) and they will charge a subscription from you and lock you away from the app you've purchased.
6 replies
13h8m
That's a rather cynical take. Halide has been around for 7 years and they haven't gone to subscriptions.
5 replies
12h43m
Halide is 2.99 a month, or 12.49 a year, and has been a subscription model since 2020. Sure, you have a one-time purchase option, but it is $70. I believe people who bought before the subscription got one year free, but things like widgets aren't supported. So unfortunately, that is likely the same fate for Kino.
This post introduces the subscriptions: https://medium.com/halide/introducing-halide-mkii-30f9f2bcea...
3 replies
11h57m
I'm fine if I can get a reasonable number of years out of it. I'm not expecting infinite updates forever for $9.99. 1-2y for this would be disappointing but not even a bad deal. On Halide it seems the problem is more "pricing in general" - a 1 year subscription costs more than the one time purchase in this app so naturally expecting get and keep the app plus years of updates is a bit eyewatering for a camera app (but not necessarily because of the pricing model/that it switches major versions in long cycles).
0 replies
4h46m
I'm fine if I can get a reasonable number of years out of it. I'm not expecting infinite updates forever for $9.99.
"Reasonable number" implies that you're fine with it. But where is that threshold? I bet it's different for everyone.
Companies need to be up front with what they are charging for. "Let's say $9.99 because we're not even sure if we'll be around in 5 years" is not a good model.
0 replies
6h46m
There's "I expect to get three years of value for $9.99", and then there's the "Halide isn't a subscription product, what are you talking about" people in this thread.
The unpredictability of the pricing model itself is an important point.
0 replies
5h12m
Speaking of infinite updates forever, I am frustrated that software publishers and users have come to expect that all software should either be free, subscription-based, or a one-time purchase with permanently free updates. Each of these models can make sense for different kinds of software-based products and services, but they are problematic in the case of standalone tools (such as cameras, multimedia editors, productivity software, etc.) Some of the problems:
a) Free: Due to lack of revenue, the company that makes your favorite tool may stop developing new features, add intrusive ads, sell your personal data, and/or sell itself to a nasty buyer that will end up killing your tool’s future in one of various ways.
b) Subscription-based: Many software tools are naturally products, not services, yet this model can artificially and unnecessarily turn them into services. Users may end up paying too much over the long run, the software publisher is not necessarily motivated to keep improving the tool, and if the company or a future owner decides to kill off the product, you won’t be able to keep using it (regardless of how much more you’d be willing to pay to do so.)
c) One-time purchase with permanently free updates: Though it provides the software publisher with revenue and users may appreciate the ability to keep using the tool they bought forever, the product may experience market saturation at some point, and the publisher may stop receiving revenue from new users. The publisher will not be motivated and/or financially able to improve the program and may be tempted to switch to the subscription-based model.
I really wish more companies would go back to the old-style model where users can buy the current version of a software tool but would need to pay a discounted price to upgrade to a newer version of that tool (a major-version upgrade.) Along with this, customers would get free upgrades for a limited time (such as year) or all minor upgrades during the current major version. I believe this model creates a healthy incentive for a software publisher to keep improving its products while receiving revenue from both new and existing customers (reducing the market-saturation problem.) Unfortunately, both publishers and especially users may have grown unaccustomed to this model and may not appreciate its benefits.
0 replies
3h48m
you have a one-time purchase option, but it is $70
That is a perfectly reasonable amount of money for consumer software to cost.
1 replies
9h57m
We have never, ever locked away Halide from people who already purchased it. If you bought Halide 1.0 in 2017, you can still use it today, with all the features you bought, without paying another penny.
0 replies
8h44m
Personally, for the tiny amount I paid back in 2017 for the app, $59.99 one time now is cheap to me. That’s under $1/month over that time which is well worth it to me. If I got “locked out” if I stopped paying, then I’d feel different, but that isn’t the case so keep up the good work!
0 replies
8h51m
I’ve been a Halide customer since the first week it was released. I’ve gotten numerous updates since and not been locked out of anything available when I purchased (and including many new things since too) without having to pay another dime. In fact, the app has never even mentioned the option to subscribe, I only learned of that option via this thread and found it buried deep in settings. I value their work, so I’ll now pay as I heavily use the app (among other of their products), but to say I’ve been forced to and/or “locked out” is dare I say grossly inaccurate at best.
3 replies
22h37m
Halide has a lifetime IAP for $60 in there.
2 replies
12h13m
Which was an about 10x increase from the original price. Sure, it was definitely underpriced back then, but it was still a... let's say bold move.
0 replies
9h4m
I think I've read that the current price for Kino is "launch price" and will be higher in a few days
0 replies
2h32m
$70 is incredibly cheap for photography software. It's cheaper than Capture NX was twenty years ago, without accounting for inflation. I'm sad that they undervalued it at first, but at least they corrected course later on.
28 replies
1d2h
Looks very cool - but will be curious to see how the results from this end up comparing to Blackmagic's excellent (and free) pro iOS video app (https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagiccamera)
19 replies
1d2h
I don't see a way to grade the footage from within the BMD app. Their app seems more designed to take advantage of the ProRes/log captures intended to be used in Resolve Studio. This app allows you to do the grading on your device. So that's a pretty obvious difference. If you're someone using Resolve, you'll probably be enticed by the BMD app as it fits your existing workflow. If you're someone looking to stay on device or just don't have a computer, this gets you to a similar ability right there
18 replies
1d2h
You can apply a LUT to the capture. They also have a good Davinci Resolve iPad app; maybe they'll make an iPhone version in the future.
17 replies
1d1h
Applying a LUT is not the same thing as color grading. It's simply applying a LUT. The app that was specifically linked to is not Resolve. It is an app tapping into the new features introduced with the newest model device. If you use the linked app to acquire footage with your phone, you would still need to make that data available to the iPad version of Resolve. Again, this app does not require that at all.
15 replies
1d
How is color grading applied if not with LUTs? You know that when you do color grading with apps like Resolve, it is stored in memory as a LUT, right?
14 replies
23h38m
How is color grading applied if not with LUTs?
No absolutely not. In Resolve specifically, you have nodes that you apply to the video where each node allows for specific settings to be applied as part of the grade. In a true grading session, you dial in the settings for black levels, white levels, contrast, saturation as primaries. Then there's secondaries which start finessing. You can then draw windows/mattes to isolate a specific area or specific color range (think color image where everything is B&W except the red rose/red car/red dress style) to apply the grading. There's also tracking of those windows. There's so much more going into color grading than "apply LUT here". Just look at the control surfaces for Resolve and the number of knobs/buttons/rollers. Would something that just applied LUTs need all of that?
You know that when you do color grading with apps like Resolve, it is stored in memory as a LUT, right?
Source? That's a very gross oversimplification of what a color session is like. LUTs don't do tracking. LUTs don't do keys. LUTs don't do mattes.
You are doing colorists a disservice if you think grading is just LUTs.
7 replies
22h43m
This is all I ever hear though. It isn't (just) LUTs, a bunch of posturing, and then "but it is magic that I can't share or you wouldn't understand."
6 replies
21h40m
Not understanding might not be far from the fact, but it is probably just posturing. I doubt most of the Tubers understand it themselves which is the real reason they can't share. They saw it on some other YT video, and then made it like it was their own idea.
I've tried to explain how to use waveforms/vectorscopes and why they are important. Those things are rarely used any more, and people just don't realize how much more difficult they make it on themselves by not using them. Just because you can push that knob to an 11 doesn't mean you should. Pushing that knob while looking at the scopes will tell you when to stop. This was life or death when making content for broadcast.
Also, I've seen all sorts of weird things that blindly applying a LUT wouldn't solve. There was a specific Red camera in town that had a very strange issue where the green color channel was not recording correctly. One shoot we had footage on was of an ice cream type place that had lots of whipped cream on the desserts. However, as you pushed the levels up, the green lagged behind so as the red and blue channels were maxing out the color on the screen went magenta. Applying a LUT would have looked terrible, but the colorist was able to go in to adjust the levels of the green channel separately so that the cream went back to white. It saved the shoot because a camera was not working properly.
There's also interesting tricks to do like when shooting through windows of a high rise will give a green tint to things. So lowering just the green channel will bring things back which could be a specific LUT, but the thing with LUTs is they tend to get used for the wrong reasons. Shooting underwater without a filter can also be dialed back, but it's specific to camera/depth type of situations.
Another common ask was to "open up the eyes". Well lit faces are notoriously hard as the sunken eye sockets just naturally shadow. So you add a window to the eyes and push the exposure up to achieve the effect that no LUT will ever achieve. If the camera moves for a tracking shot, the windows can track along with it. No LUT will ever accomplish that either. The eye is naturally attracted to the brightest area of the screen, so there's ways of grading something so that it suddenly receives some attention that a LUT would not get there, again using windows. Some of the internationalization of releases have small forensic tells in them to indicate which locale it might have been leaked from. One specific example was a stack of towels in the background of various colors. Through color correction, they changed the colors of the towels to be different for each region.
So so so many things that well graded footage can have done to it that "you wouldn't understand" but would never come close to achieving with a LUT. Wouldn't understand is very harsh though, and is a total cop out from someone that sounds very pompous. I would say "wouldn't consider" as something that could be done let alone needed to be done.
5 replies
17h38m
Tracking eyes and reducing shadows within a mask is ... Beyond what I would call grading. It all feels like some serious gatekeeping. Thanks for your reply heh but there sure is a lot of FUD out there in the mastering and grading world.
4 replies
6h43m
Beyond color grading? Gate keeping? (whatever in the world you mean by that).
Might I ask how much experience you have with the world of professional color sessions? I have been in film/video post pretty much since graduating high school, so I have been a part of prepping content/materials for a color session for decades, but have also spent several years working at a post house that only did color correction. I'm guessing that it is you that has the incorrect understanding of what goes on in a color grading session. If you want to go around thinking that applying a LUT is all that happens in a grading session, then you might as well think that anyone that uses Wix or Squarespace is a web designer, or anyone that assembles Ikea furniture is a craftsman. Your definition would be very skewed.
3 replies
6h10m
Lol back to "it's not just luts lamer" heh ... In the computer world in my experience people who just like to say people are wrong never go anywhere, but it sure does feel a requirement of the entertainment industry.
Just to be clear, I don't believe that it's just look up tables ... But I'm starting to believe that that's all you know to gripe about.
2 replies
4h42m
Wow, that's just so far off basis, it's flabbergasting.
I've gone into so much detail on what goes on during a color grading session, yet you keep coming back to "but it's all LUTs" in the end. You're totally ignoring all of the work and effort that went into generating those LUTS. You're coming across like you could just download a LUT called TheMatrix.lut and any footage it is applied to will look just like The Matrix. That's not going to happen.
Somebody else came at me that they build AAA video games and that's their background with grading with LUTS. That's not even the same realm of grading camera originated footage. Being unable to recognize and admit that is just not worth arguing and that's where I left that one. Clearly, you are absolutely right in your mind and unwilling to acknowledge anything other than what you hold true.
1 replies
2h36m
I know it's not just lookup tables. I'm waiting for you to talk about something other than that lol
I think the real reason why everyone including all of your cohorts behave like this is because when you press people they realize that they don't have a good way to explain it. It's a very fickle and varied thing per project and if you dig into any one example, it seems really silly and that brings out artists insecurities about how everything that they do is actually pretty silly. Whereas you know, say an experienced computer professional knows that everything is BS and they don't get so hung up on feeling called out by dumb things.
So yeah, I guess I'm used to the computer world where information sharing and how you share that information is so descriptive about where you're coming from. I guess I'm trying to figure out where you're coming from and it seems to be mostly that you have to deal with a bunch of idiots.
I do believe that there is a whole world of people out there that just think it's a lookup table. I'm sorry that that's all you deal with and that you can't explain it more than just to complain about those kind of people.
0 replies
1m
What more could you possibly need me to explain? I've provided much more detail than a lot of the YT tutorials of saying download my LUT. I've described recognizing that as the signal was pushed to the max the color changed from white to magenta and the actual cause coming from a bad sensor in a camera not delivering enough data in the green channel which required using the grading software to isolate and push the green channel harder so that it went back to the desired white. I've briefly talked about the basics of primary and secondary grading. I've talked about using the scopes to see how the adjustments you are making are actually affecting the signal. I have provided much detail on how a grading session is not just applying a LUT. I have never in a serious conversation said that's proprietary knowledge and you're not worthy. I have openly shared. You have not actually asked any direct question other that taking offense and my offense.
I really don't know how you think me and my cohorts are behaving. Is it that we (extrapolated from conversations I've heard) get offended because someone calls themself a colorist because they can apply a LUT? You think this is pompous that we do not agree that the ability to apply a LUT is the same thing as running a full color session? At this point, I'm really not sure what high horse you are on or that you think I am on.
2 replies
23h9m
I also thought grading was just LUTs. Does kino let you do all of the things you mentioned directly in the app?
1 replies
22h57m
Might I ask why this is all you thought a grading session involved? Clearly, this is a touchy subject for me as I spent a few years as an assistant to a very talented colorist. The plethora of YouTube videos saying color correct using my amazing LUTs available when you join my Patreon blah blah nonsense is really sad.
There are some truly amazing colorists, and then there are people that claim they are colorists when they just applied a LUT. I would be embarassed to call myself a colorist that way. With my experience, I still do not call myself a colorist. I also don't go around calling myself a DP because I own a camera and make pretty pictures, yet people go around with no real training calling themselves that because it's cool.
0 replies
8h8m
You are on a tech forum. People are going to talk about the technologies that make possible color grading.
Without LUTs, Look Up Tables, a computer would not be able to do color grading.
2 replies
21h51m
You seem to misunderstand the role of LUTs in color grading. LUTs (Look-Up Tables — a simple multi-dimensional array data structure) describe how one color is transformed into another, and they are used for efficient color transformations. In Resolve, the tools you described help build a LUT in memory, which is then applied to each pixel in each frame, often using SIMD instructions for efficiency. This avoids the need to procedurally apply each setting to each pixel individually, which is way slow.
Drawing windows, mattes, tracking, and other masking tools determine where and how the LUT is applied within the rendering pipeline.
Source? That's a very gross oversimplification of what a color session is like. LUTs don't do tracking. LUTs don't do keys. LUTs don't do mattes.
I work in AAA games and have written code for tonemapping and color grading. We often use a gbuffer (graphics buffer that could be seen as a 2D screen-shaped image that is never shown) to mask different objects in the scene and apply different LUTs accordingly. So, it is not only LUTs that are applied in a similar screen-space way, but also masking is similar.
There's so much more going into color grading than "apply LUT here". Just look at the control surfaces for Resolve and the number of knobs/buttons/rollers. Would something that just applied LUTs need all of that?
On a low level, it essentially is about applying LUTs. How you create these LUTs and how you mask their application are crucial aspects of the process. But ultimately, a LUT is applied to pixels. You are talking about the artistry techniques involved in making a LUT and masking where it is applied, which is not debated.
LUTs are not just files you can import and export to grade the whole image or frame. They are a fundamental compact data structure that makes SIMD operations easy, which is why they are used in grading. If you set up a color grading pipeline with nodes in Resolve, it is very likely compiled into one or more LUTs, which are then applied to the frames.
1 replies
21h32m
My contention isn't how a LUT works in the background technically, but the fact that people consider applying a LUT all of what a colorist does. If you want to simplify it to that level, then it's really not even a conversation worth having as that's not the answer to the question.
0 replies
21h30m
If you want to simplify it to that level, then it's really not even a conversation worth having
Hehe, you are not wrong.
0 replies
13h11m
The Kino introductory blog post makes quite clear that all they do is apply one of a set of LUTs that ship with their app. Personally I'd be interested in one that tried to apply colouring more "intelligently", e.g. detecting faces etc and applying appropriate settings.
7 replies
1d2h
The app is obviously targeting a different audience, but having bought it and recorded some test footage on it now, it has considerably fewer features than Blackmagic Cam for videography/cinematography pros - no zebras, focus peaking, stabilisation settings, anamorphic de-squeeze, etc - even commonly-expected framerates like 23.98fps / 29.97fps and settable aspect-ratios like 2.39:1 aren't available as far as I can see.
Would hope to see them address these missing features in future updates, but at the moment there's nothing here to make me move away from Blackmagic for "serious" iPhone videography.
6 replies
1d
I for one would love to see us drop the fractional frame rates (29.97, etc). They're an archaic technical relic that cause trouble when working with timecode. At Sphere we debated standardizing on 30/60/120fps but ultimately decided it was a battle we didn't want to fight in an already complicated building.
5 replies
22h54m
FWIW, I truly hope 24fps never goes away entirely. Something about it is the key to making movie stars look like legends and regular people look like a stars, imo.
1 replies
21h28m
Yeah, agree on 24fps, and I don't think poster above you meant to remove 24, just those annoying NTSC/PAL rates that are close to integers, but aren't and are stupid as hell in an all-digital 2024.
0 replies
11h46m
NTSC and PAL used as actual region locks back in the ps1-2 days.
1 replies
20h27m
Yeah, what qingcharles says. I personally can't say I've seen what's special about 24fps artistically, but it doesn't bother me from a technical perspective (as much).
0 replies
17h37m
As someone who lives more on the artistic side than the technical, but appreciates both, that’s honestly reassuring to hear.
And for what it’s worth: I think 24fps is partially why people of frankly similar talent and beauty look untouchable on film, but just like some dude on social media. My personal back-filled theory is that it’s something to do with the fact that 24fps creates more gaps for your imagination to fill in with whatever burns inside your personal subconscious — those “missing” frames let you “see” in Russell Crowe or whomever just a little bit more of yourself than is possible in gapless, real-time reality. Sort of like how old photos with lower resolution feel comforting and organic, because they’re cloudy like dreams, unlike the stark reality that can be achieved by modern lenses.
It would also somewhat explain why high FPS works better for things like sports (where most of the awe is that you’re watching real people do these amazing things) and video games (where the awe comes from actually embodying the figure on screen and existing in their full framerate surroundings).
0 replies
2h4m
I too have a similar subjective sense from being in and around film and video production over the last couple decades about that "cinematic something" look we associate with film. However, I'm not sure we're being accurate in thinking it's entirely the frame rate. Certainly that's part of it but I think it's entirely possible we'd view 30fps as every bit as good - if all other things were equal.
I think very few people (including myself) have ever seen a true side-by-side test where everything other than 24fps vs 30fps is perfectly identical. This is because correctly engineering such a head-to-head test is surprisingly difficult. In addition to having identical (or nearly identical) content shot in cinematic style, there are several other variables which each have to be technically correct. These include having the same signal chain from camera shutter speed, capture, compression, edit and grading to distribution format, playback device and display.
One thing that's especially tricky is whether the 24fps content ever goes through a 3:2 pulldown conversion (or similar). A significant amount of high-quality big-screen-film-sourced content originally made in 24fps goes through this sort of pulldown when viewed at home - even when the source is 24fps (whether Blu-ray, Netflix, Amazon or Apple). This pulldown process definitely imparts a look many associate with being "cinematic". Yet what we see in an actual theater is native 24fps so that's what we need to match for an accurate comparison.
Having recently upgraded my dedicated high-end home theater I was surprised that every device from playback source (streaming box or Blu-ray), AVR and 4k HDR projector - while being native 24f capable - defaulted to having the native 24f turned off in settings (thus silently applying a real-time 3:2 pulldown to the native 24f source). This was only discovered during detailed calibration using test signals. This means many people's impressions of 24fps may actually have been formed watching 24fps content automatically converted to 30fps with 3:2 pulldown by their source, AVR or display.
I suspect associating my subjective sense about "cinematic" with the label "24fps" may not only be erroneous but unfair to 30fps. Technically, 30fps has advantages in reducing motion judder on fast-moving objects and camera pans. A good example of this is the Hollywood-produced pre-digital 24fps Oliver Stone football movie "Any Given Sunday" which was shot entirely on film. They did the best they could with 24fps but some of the fast, ball-tracking camera pans are extremely distracting - something 30fps would have definitely helped if it had been an option back then. Nowadays, for the first time, the industry has some freedom to choose frame rates and I wonder if, done properly, 30fps might be a better option in which us film-look purists would lose nothing of what we love but gain in reducing some unavoidable artifacts from 24 frame's limitations.
11 replies
1d3h
I’m glad the page does a call out to the Invisible CG series.
I know it’s a quick aside but it’s important for people in the trade to stand by each other.
On a different note, I am curious though how the page manages to use so much copyright content though. I always think that’s a risky move.
6 replies
1d3h
use so much copyright content though
It's called fair use. They are static shots and not even close to the magical "8 seconds" rule. They are providing dramatic examples that many people are familiar with. Showing the before/after of something your mom shot means nothing to people. Showing extremely famous examples immediately lets people know what is possible and to what extent.
I see nothing wrong with any of what was used or how it was used but especially why it was used.
5 replies
1d2h
Fair use gets tricky when you intermix it like this. Though I must first call out that there’s no actual 8 second rule.
Even with fair use, it’s still good form to attribute it. But more importantly , those images are intermixed among product clips/videos which can fall on the other side of fair use because it may give the impression that they are associated with the product.
That can be a tight line to walk and so it’s again usually best to specifically call out that they are there for illustrative purposes.
4 replies
1d2h
Notice the quotes around the "8 seconds" rule. It's not a rule, but that's what it is known as. I mainly know it from the audio world, but it was a common theme/trope/meme in radio shows about using music without royalties.
Whether or not it's described in the text of copyright law, it is a common concept people are familiar.
3 replies
1d2h
Nitpickiest of nits: given your intended description, the quotes should be around “rule” not “8 second”. When around “rule”, that implies it’s not really a rule. When around “8 second” it implies that it’s not 8 seconds exactly or it’s what it’s colloquially called, but it would still be a rule.
Regardless, the fair use laws are very loose and tend to vary depending on the medium type and association with product.
Anyway , I get what you’re saying but given it’s part of a product page, it should at the very least, call out that they’re illustrative and not actually associated.
2 replies
1d2h
Do you really think that this company is implying that they made The Matrix or Dune? It is clearly just an example used to aid in the discussion of the surrounding text. There is no claim of "we used this software to make Dune". If they had, you can assume they would have put that out in some sort of call out in their marketing.
If you were confused by the image as them trying to take credit, then boy, I don't know.
1 replies
1d1h
I don’t know why you default to being hostile.
I’m just stating that they’re intermixing it and that can play into whether it is fair use. I’m not saying that I personally am confused. I’m just saying that intermixing it may give people the wrong assumption if they’re not familiar with these films. Remember, the matrix came out 25 years ago. There’s many people who will likely never see it but will be working in film/cinema etc and use this.
I’m not ascribing malice either, just that it’s good form in the industry to delineate clearly.
Maybe take it down a few notches or step away from the keyboard.
0 replies
1d1h
You are reading way more into these comments than is actually there. Just because someone challenges something you've written does not mean you are being attacked. There's no notches to take it down from.
3 replies
1d3h
On copyright, we go out of our way to generate original graphics for our posts, but if we do use an excerpt of other people’s content, we keep it brief and link back to source for the full details.
Are you referring to the shots from the Matrix and Blade Runner? In this case, I think we’re commenting on the source material, which falls under fair use. I think the imagery is iconic enough that it feels a bit silly to say “this is from The Matrix,” but I could be convinced otherwise.
2 replies
1d2h
The matrix, blade runner and the Nicolas cage shot that I can’t identify personally. I think it would still be reasonable to have attribution and/or also say that the projects in question weren’t shot with Kino.
Of course it’s obvious that the Matrix isn’t shot with Kino , but I think it’s still good form to caveat that it’s there for illustrative purposes.
1 replies
1d1h
You're not asking, but in case anyone is curious - the Nicolas Cage shot is from Con Air.
0 replies
1d1h
Ah, thank you. I haven’t seen that film in a couple decades now.
10 replies
18h15m
I wish titles on HN would clarify the platform for limited releases like this. This is iOS exclusive.
7 replies
17h51m
Hell hath no fury like an Android user spurned.
4 replies
17h35m
Nah all software should be multi platform if possible. Locking programs in to some specific brand is just silly and you don't even need to be a open software extremist to acknowledge that.
Also not mentioning the platform anywhere in the title or even article body itself is inheritly deceiving.
3 replies
17h11m
I think its okay for people not to do twice the work to support a type of phone they don't care about or use. Who is this deceiving? You figured it out, clearly. I think you're more mad than reasonable here.
0 replies
15h36m
I figured it out after reading the half of their ad and navigating around their website where the platform isn't mentioned anywhere explicitly. Of course I'm mad for having my time wasted. This opaque obscurity feels almost like a dark pattern for farming more engagement and SEO.
Also transparency in a discussions forum is objectively a good thing so extending the title would clearly be beneficial to everyone involved.
0 replies
5h14m
From what I've heard about camera APIs, making an app like this for Android would be much MUCH more than twice the work, and also probably would become 98% of your support tickets because X feature doesn't work on the Samsung Galaxy J5 Skyrocket Plus LTE when running a custom ROM from XDA Developers.
Someone from the company said in another thread it's already enough of a hassle dealing with all the possible camera configurations across different iPhone models, and iOS updates breaking things. I think there's a reason you don't see apps like this on Android.
0 replies
8h20m
While your original comment might be taken as funny, this one quickly devolved into a strawman argument ending in a personal attack. Was that your intention?
1 replies
12h56m
Globally android has a 70% market share.
0 replies
10m
Only due to cost, the majority of that share is not devices that are capable of doing what would be required for an app like Kino to work with these features. The share of flagship Android devices worldwide is lower than flagship iOS devices.
0 replies
1h32m
Similar apps on Android offering direct RAW format recording include MotionCam Pro and Mcpro24fps. While compatibility depends on the phone, most recent (~ 4 yrs) models from Samsung, Google, Sony and several others are compatible. I think this covers >90% of Android phones.
0 replies
7h42m
I'm not sure if most Android manufacturers support recording in raw which would be the closest analogue to this proprietary log format, so it's not like they could even make it if they wanted to.
9 replies
1d3h
For a video recording app, it's an interesting marketing decision that there's only one video on the page. And at least on my computer, it doesn't play, I only hear the audio.
These folks have a stellar reputation, and I'll be buying this app on that (and the I-was-expecting-more-digits price) alone, but I would have enjoyed seeing some kind of short film "shot on Kino". If only to see some professional work.
5 replies
1d3h
These folks have a stellar reputation
The name they've chosen for the app, Kino, is a bit weird to me. When I hear the word Kino, I immediately start to think about lighting as that's how people refer to lights from Kinoflo which gained popularity from their fluorescent lights in the years before LEDs took over.
1 replies
1d2h
I think of the internet "meme" of calling movies you like "Kinography", or saying that a movie you watched was "kino".
Example: Movie XYZ is pure kino
0 replies
1d2h
I get the use of Kino, and that's why I caveated the statement with "weird to me" immediately followed by the specific reasons it is weird to me. I did not say that it is weird because it has nothing to do with anything. It's just when someone that's been in the production world and familiar with equipment names and brands, Kino definitely has a specific meaning on first hearing it.
1 replies
1d2h
Kino is German for "cinema" — maybe that is the origin of the name?
0 replies
10h36m
German, and Russian, and a few other languages...
0 replies
1d2h
Kino is directly or extremely similar to the word for cinema in many languages, including German, Polish, Slovak, Czech, Danish, Croatian, and Finnish, to name a few. The word cinema itself is ultimately from the hard-K Greek kínēma:
Borrowed from French cinéma, clipping of cinématographe (term coined by the Lumière brothers in the 1890s), from Ancient Greek κίνημα (kínēma, “movement”) + γράφω (gráphō, “write, record”). Compare German Kino (“cinema”), ultimately from the same Greek source.
1 replies
1d3h
We definitely had more video examples planned, but production fell through at the 11th hour, and we decided it was important to ship before WWDC. So it goes.
However, the advertisement in the blog post made by Sandwich Video was entirely shot on Kino.
0 replies
1d3h
Making the decisions like that for getting exposure from an event with a pre-release version is always a scary thing. Luckily, WWDC attendees will be much more understanding of early versions vs the public. Good luck!
0 replies
1d3h
but I would have enjoyed seeing some kind of short film "shot on Kino".
Funny enough, the website for the app is https://www.shotwithkino.com/, but it also doesn't have feature any videos shot with Kino.
7 replies
1d3h
On Android there is https://www.motioncamapp.com/ which has been doing raw video for years.
4 replies
1d2h
In typical Android fashion, this app is essentially the mathematical inverse of the iPhone version.
The UI on the iOS Kino app is beautiful, crafted, and elegant. The UI on MotionCam (even after the update) is functional, brutalist, and purely an engineering driven, unstyled Android 4.4 UI elements style.
But MotionCam Pro gives full control, and even a RAW mode which wouldn't be possible on iPhone. You can even do ProRes (but it doesn't work very well for long unless you have a new phone with good cooling).
For the purpose I use it for (magnifying glass/telescope, using S23 Ultra), it's wonderful. But I always wished that the two worlds of Android and iOS development styles would collide for a moment....
2 replies
23h48m
I've never done any iOS dev but I always assumed it was partly because the Android GUI toolkit (views, fragments etc.) is just SO awful that it just isn't feasible to make nice UIs. Certainly in the apps I've made there's absolutely no way I would invest time into animations, custom widgets, etc.
Hopefully Flutter will fix that because the difference in usability is night and day. It's just a shame the Dart ecosystem is so dead.
1 replies
4h5m
Your concept of Android development looks to be stuck in the 4.4 days. Jetpack Compose and its declarative UI is how modern Android apps are developed.
https://github.com/android/compose-samples
Hopefully Flutter will fix that because the difference in usability is night and day. It's just a shame the Dart ecosystem is so dead.
I don't see how the difference is night and day when they both use declarative UI's. Whether you use Jetpack Compose/Kotlin or Flutter/Dart is really up to your objectives. As for your claim that the Dart ecosystem is dead - I really don't get that, since Flutter/Dart is the #1 cross-platform development environment.
0 replies
53m
Jetpack Compose and its declarative UI is how modern Android apps are developed.
[citation needed]. I looked into Jetpack Compose a year or two ago and it was way too immature then to use in production. I guess maybe that's improved a bit but we're talking about existing apps here. They don't magically move to Jetpack Compose. Someone has to update them. How much would you bet that MotionCam Pro uses Jetpack Compose?
0 replies
4h19m
I download a lot of iOS apps using AppRaven and I can tell you that 95% of them are extremely poorly designed from a UI perspective - I'd even call them ugly. A lot of them don't even follow Apple's UI guidelines.
0 replies
1d2h
I wasn't aware of this. Thanks for the call out!
0 replies
1d2h
Is there an equivalent to Halide or Spectre (for raw still photos/long-exposure photos) for Android?
My Thinkphone has a pretty awesome camera and native camera app with integrated RAW output, but these apps do often provide some features and polish beyond what's available in that tool. For example, I was just trying to take a long-exposure photo of the aurora (visible a couple weeks ago here in Michgan) and the limits on even the manual controls had ranges that limited what I could do. Spectre (or its equivalent) would have been awesome to have.
7 replies
1d3h
Insta-buy as soon as I saw the “Data not collected” privacy label.
Thanks for not bundling spyware like everyone does in apps these days. I’m happy to support anyone who isn’t spying on users.
I don’t use Halide specifically because it does phone home (and is IAP subscriptionware cancer).
Even though I shoot log and use Resolve, this might be fun for quick stuff without a round trip through the desktop computer.
4 replies
1d3h
Hope you enjoy Kino! To clear up a few things about Halide…
The only time Halide communicates with a server is when we do a controlled rollout of a feature, and anonymized reporting when a capture fails. I’d prefer we didn’t need either but 1) the App Store model doesn’t accommodate safe rollouts and 2) iPhone capture and photo library frameworks regularly break, and sometimes the only way to get a fix escalated is to have numbers in hand.
If you don’t want to subscribe to Halide, though, there is a one time purchase option in app.
3 replies
1d3h
The Halide one time purchase is $60, and I carry a full frame mirrorless (rx1) with me at all times. Also, while I understand your QA issue, I won’t spend money on apps that phone home against my will, on basis of principle.
2 replies
1d2h
So then it objectively isn't "IAP subscriptionware cancer"..
1 replies
22h58m
Halide is $3 for a month, $12 for a year, or $60 for perpetual. $25-30 for perpetual would be reasonable.
Kino costs $10 for perpetual, for reference.
0 replies
9h36m
Yes I'm aware of the prices. You not liking the price of an app doesn't make it "cancer". Personally I think the fact that they have found a model that works and that doesn't require releasing entire new versions of the app, keeps legacy users' versions up-to-date and bug-free while continuing to deliver new features and improvements should be celebrated. Especially from an independent developer team who clearly loves the craft.
1 replies
1d3h
Just a heads up, the "privacy label" does not necessarily match the actual privacy policy. It's not required to match, and there is no accountability mechanism when it doesn't.
What you want is the Privacy Policy, which links to https://halide.com/privacy/, which is a 404 page.
0 replies
1d3h
Sorry about the broken link. We’re fixing it. To give a summary of our philosophy in the mean time: we don’t want your data.
6 replies
11h23m
Gotta love Apple's App Store. Search for "kino" and get a competing app as an ad, but then numerous other apps that aren't Kino including a variety of keno games. Search for "kino pro video camera", same situation, but finally find it in position #5 despite being an exact title match. Bravo App Store search team. (The same happened when Threads launched.)
4 replies
11h5m
Well they just launched today so I'd assume that is the main reason behind low rankings. It will get up there soon.
3 replies
5h47m
Low ranking even on an exact title match though is pretty bad.
2 replies
5h23m
It's a 4 letter word, commonly used in internet slang to refer to a good film.
I saw the announcement pretty early on and when I started typing in "kino" into the App Store search, the first autocomplete suggestion was the rest of the app's title in the listing "- pro video camera", and if I clicked that one it showed the app first (well, first result after an ad)
0 replies
2h46m
It's improved as people download it, the root comment by petercooper though found it at position 5. It's also not just a 4 letter word search it was the full app name which is where I was saying it was particularly bad. That's 17 letters not counting spaces and an exact match, that should be a really strong signal even with a brand new app that the person is looking for that app.
commonly used in internet slang to refer to a good film.
I've never heard Kino used that way personally.
0 replies
4h8m
It also literally means "Cinema" in [at least] two other languages.
0 replies
11h12m
Same thing happens on Android. Even for recognised apps/brands, the top search result is an ad for a competitor.
Just this morning I searched for "Strava" and the top result was some random hiking app.
6 replies
1d1h
let's walk through a few of the tent-pole features
Hehe nice job on the Apple lingo signaling
5 replies
1d1h
Standard marketing language, used especially in the features and series film industry. The Avengers is MCU tentpole IP.
4 replies
1d1h
Never heard it in any context in tech other than Apple.
3 replies
1d
2 replies
1d
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/business/apple-siri-ai-ch...:
a tent pole project — the company’s special, internal label that it uses to organize employees around once-in-a-decade initiatives
1 replies
1d
Pretty sure they lifted that from the features industry.
0 replies
7h37m
sure, I'm just saying it's not "standard marketing language"
5 replies
23h31m
That animation with the comparison swipes below "What if you could use all that powerful extra color data and get a cinematic look with one tap?" looks highly misleading. I've never seen original videos as bad as the ones used in the "before"-state. Am I wrong? I'm not into filming, so I might be.
3 replies
23h27m
Am I wrong? I'm not into filming, so I might be.
Yes, it's because you haven't seen raw log video before. It'll look very washed out when filming in log (and typically when previewing recent shots) but then in post-processing you'll actually tune the colors (called "color grading", in case you wanna seek out more about it).
2 replies
22h4m
washed out when filming in log
That's only because it's not viewed in the right color space? (I'm using color space in the ICC sense to also include the transfer function).
For some reason video folks seem really intent on creating their own terms for everything that photographers already standardized with ICC. And to make things worse they decided to make the EOTF and OETF not be inverses of each other.
Of course things will look off if you display a log-encoded image on a display that uses a power-gamma. You have to linearize the input (invert the log-encoding) then delinearize (inverse power) before sending it to the display. With ICC-aware tools (that most photographer uses) this conversion is done automatically for you (e.g. colorsync on mac).
But for some reason video workflows are not icc color managed. As I understand the oetf is basically unused entirely: since edits are made under bt1886 conditions, effectively baking in this bt1886 assumption on the viewer side as well. This seems to be the exact opposite of how ICC workflows work, where regardless of the monitor color profile the editor uses, all edits are transferred to the underlying source color profile of the image.
The only page I've ever seen which actually acknowledges that "log encoding" is just an alternative to gamma encoding is https://imatest.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/KB/pages/114161421..., as I discussed in an earlier rant https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37877599
1 replies
9h52m
That's only because it's not viewed in the right color space?
It's like that because it's the log encoding is not in a display-ready color space. Many modern cameras can apply LUT directly in the viewfinder though, so it's less of a nuisance today. In reality, it isn't an issue, just beginners get surprised when they see it the first time.
For some reason video folks seem really intent on creating their own terms for everything
Which to me makes sense. If I'm looking for terms that can apply to many areas, it becomes harder to find the right thing. I much prefer separated terms than the approach than one term being used in many areas, so it gets easier to search and talk about.
actually acknowledges that "log encoding" is just an alternative to gamma encoding
Not sure they are 100% alternatives though, but I'm much more familiar with log encoding than gamma encoding. As far as I understand, log encoding uses a logarithmic curve to capture a wide dynamic range, preserving detail in shadows and highlights for extensive post-production grading. In contrast, gamma encoding applies a non-linear curve that approximates human vision, producing footage with natural contrast and color suitable for immediate viewing and minimal post-processing.
But, I could also misunderstand the differences, and would be happy to be told otherwise :)
0 replies
3h15m
gamma encoding applies a non-linear curve that approximates human vision
IIUC it's a similar bit optimization scheme to allocate bits fairly across the entire dynamic range. The only difference is the curve used (log vs gamma). You are right in that "log" is probably more uniform from a physics perspective (something about each f-stop getting same # of bits) while "gamma" is supposedly more uniform from a perceptual perspective (something about steven's power rule). Note that even storing things in floating point is also effectively a form of log encoding since density of floating point numbers halves when you double the range.
To me they feel more similar than they are different, which is why it's annoying that there's this completely parallel set of terminology used for photography vs video-editing and I haven't been able to find a rosetta stone to translate between the two (part of this is undoubtedly because icc color management requires digital computers, while film making existed as a field long before that)
* log-encoding :: gamma encoding
* EOTF/OETF :: Gamma/transfer function (n.b. eotf not necessary inverse of oetf, unlike gamma)
* LUT application :: ICC color space conversion
* Video-workflow (make edits directly in target color space) :: Photo workflow (transfer edits to source color space)
* NCLC tag :: ICC color profile
0 replies
23h29m
As mentioned immediately prior to the comparison/line:
Out of the box, Apple Log footage looks really flat. It's not meant to look good. It's meant to be edited later.
The before/after is about how you can apply each of those different prebuilt LUTs immediately with a tap, not about comparing how much better edited log looks than unedited log.
5 replies
1d3h
"Now, it's not always possible for Kino to pick cinematic settings, such as when shooting in bright daylight."
Since the phone's cameras are fixed aperture, you lose one leg of the exposure triangle. Instead, they lean heavily on the shutter speed as ISO is also a function of the chip. Increasing the shutter speed also increase the jello effect from the rolling shutter. Using an ND filter helps. If you find yourself without an ND filter but you have your sun glasses, shoot your camera through a lens on your sunglasses. It'll be awkward but it will help. Bonus points if your sunglasses are polarized. You can rotate your sunglasses to "dial" in the effect similar to a circular polarizer. I'd assume at this point that there are a plethora of lens filters available for cheap.
4 replies
1d3h
Bonus points if your sunglasses are polarized. You can rotate your sunglasses to "dial" in the effect similar to a circular polarizer.
Surely that would only affect polarized light, like glare from reflections, no?
Possibly that's all you're saying (I understand the general purpose of polarized lenses) but it sounded like you were suggesting you could make the whole scene darker -- and thus improve the motion blur effect -- by rotating the lens.
1 replies
1d2h
but it sounded like you were suggesting you could make the whole scene darker
Did you read over this "Bonus points if your sunglasses are polarized."? I'm not talking about regular polarized lenses in your glasses. I specifically said the world sunglasses multiple times. The entire point of sunglasses is to make the whole scene darker. I really don't know how to describe this any more plainly.
0 replies
8h5m
Huh? I'm talking about being able to "dial in the effect." I read that as "dialing in the darkness" (as it relates to motion blur). That's what I'm talking about.
Obviously the sunglasses alone make the scene darker. You're the one who brought up dialing it in with polarized lenses.
0 replies
1d1h
it sounded like you were suggesting you could make the whole scene darker -- and thus improve the motion blur effect -- by rotating the lens.
That would be true if the iPhone's lens also has polarization...
https://www.seattleu.edu/scieng/physics/physics-demos/optics...
0 replies
16h16m
It’s been a while since I used a CPL but I recall using them to darken the sky, so that would probably affect your overall exposure somewhat.
3 replies
1d2h
On graphene is so I'm unsure how well this could work...but I might recommend this to my family members that only buy iphones.
Question I do have though: is the purchase done through the app store or your website, and if its done via the app store or website, can I use it on as many of my own devices attached to the account? Or is it more of a 1 liscense per device?
Second: the presents you have sound nice and you mention that "Of course you can turn off Instant Grade to save the original Apple Log footage, allowing you the flexibility to change your look in our video reviewer. " does this support saving the original apple log footage, then opening that footage in the app and being able to preview how the different effects would look? And can I export the effected footage as a copy of the original that way I can have both the original and graded footage without overwriting the original data?
2 replies
1d2h
It's a paid-up-front app, so you buy it through the App Store, which means you can use it with any device you have that's signed into the same App Store account. I don't see any in-app purchases.
1 replies
17h42m
On the App Store it says: "Up to six family members can use this app with Family Sharing enabled."
0 replies
3h46m
That’s for family sharing with other Apple IDs, but for your own Apple ID there isnt a limit like that
3 replies
1d
Literally every color grading example shows log footage as the "before". Of course this lacks contrast and vibrancy because it's not meant to be watched "as is". Please show me regular footage as a baseline so it's a fair comparison.
1 replies
1d
I didn't read this as a comparison against normal iPhone output
normal iPhone output is great looking just not "the look"
I prefer without a comparison of iPhones version.
0 replies
23h51m
It's a meaningless comparison. They're showing a "before and after" but the "before" is something that nobody uses.
0 replies
23h52m
Yeah talk about disingenuous.
3 replies
1d3h
I'm interested in the benefits of this app for anyone who doesn't have an iPhone 15 Pro that takes video in Apple Log. The post made it seem it seem to me like an iPhone 15 Pro was required.
2 replies
1d3h
Yeah, I am quite interested in the app but I would need this cleared up as I have an iPhone 13 Pro.
1 replies
1d2h
The ability to record in log is very important. Without log, you're never going to get the results as advertised on the box. You can attempt to grade any footage from any camera with any color grade software, but with a huge amount of limitations. When recording in a format that is not "log", you will have already trashed the majority of data an app like this needs to make those subtle adjustments. In log, the highlights tend to be preserved better as well as details in shadows have not be crushed into oblivion. If your non-log footage is brought in, the same knobs/buttons will be available, but the data it is needing has been lost and it just will not have the same effect. You will not be satisfied with "its abilities" as you are now in the "you're doing it wrong" with your workflow
0 replies
1d1h
Unfortunately that's what I figured was likely to be the case.
3 replies
1d3h
I didn't see it mentioned here, but is there any support for timecode?
2 replies
1d3h
Not at launch, but it's on the roadmap.
0 replies
1d3h
Thanks - that seems like a must-have for anyone anyone working with this level of tools. Glad to hear it's on the way. I would love to be able to use this with both external mics and storage, but I'm not sure how well the iPhone would handle both of those through a hub.
0 replies
1d
Are you going to integrate the Atomos/TCS wireless system? Apogee does for audio in their apps, for example. And Zoom recorders support it. Would be nice to go with the emerging wireless standard for timecode.
3 replies
1d
I wish they just said, "color grading made easy on the iPhone 15" in their copy. And then if they wanna dive in a explain it, fine.
1 replies
1d
Yeah, I may be stupid, but I initially thought it's a camera that I can buy, kind of like GoPro, but for cinematic effects, and I was trying to understand what the price is.
0 replies
19h47m
same thought this was a smartphone based camera
0 replies
1d
The submitter linked to the announcement on our blog, which goes into greater detail than our marketing.
3 replies
18h27m
Why does it say it’s 4 years old? Is that just when you initially put it in there during development?
1 replies
15h39m
Don’t worry. For a long time, like you, I thought it refers to the age of the app. But it’s really the content rating (meant for people older than 4 years old).
0 replies
14h33m
lol I see. Just switched to iPhone recently so still learning new things.
0 replies
18h12m
Content rating. Ages 4 and older.
3 replies
1d1h
This looks cool but the line about “show don’t tell” is followed by a LOT of telling.
0 replies
1d
The copy is atrocious.
0 replies
1d
You're also not supposed to say "show don't tell"
0 replies
1d
...and accompanied by an image that shows a camera oriented the wrong way for video
3 replies
18h57m
Just so you know: this app does not support zooming, it only switches between lenses. (This was a little surprising to me, but I'm not a video professional.)
1 replies
18h29m
Seems like what I’d expect from a movie making app. Why digital zoom your 4K camera 4x and pixelate your result down to 1080p?
0 replies
17h49m
If you're not shooting ProRes I'd imagine you'd get fewer compression artifacts by zooming before encoding.
0 replies
18h31m
That's the hardware. You can crop in post!
2 replies
1d
It's refreshing to see you kept the website simple. No stupid scroll jacking or fancy (read distracting) transitions or scroll effects.
I like supporting independent software studios like yours who try not to sell out, so bought it without hesitation, even though I don't shoot a lot of video with my iPhone. This will probably make me experiment more with video.
1 replies
17h50m
This is a blog post about the app, not the website. The actual website has the fun you are complaining about: https://www.shotwithkino.com/
0 replies
12h41m
Ha ok, didn't realize that.
The main site doesn't use scroll-jacking, i.e. scrolling feels like walking through a muddy swamp.
The other effects are subtle enough that they don't make me want to leave the site, i.e. make my laptop fan spin more violently.
2 replies
1d3h
I don't know much about the company and never used their products, but this article is such a delicious read: https://www.lux.camera/orion-from-idea-to-launch-in-45-days/
Really tells how much they care about their craft
0 replies
1d2h
Oh man, I wish the app was available on the iphone 15 pro too. I keep holding off buying that external HDMI monitor for the A7SIII, and that might be just the solution to keep the camera bag small...
0 replies
1d3h
Delicious is the right word, everything (post included) is crafted with care.
2 replies
1d2h
This is great! Just yesterday I was looking for a way to get a daylight 5500k white balance on videos the same way I do in Halide but it seems there’s no way to do that in the built in camera app.
I know you can “lock white balance” but it is still nudging it towards neutral before locking.
Unfortunately there’s no white balance option in Kino, but I already love its Auto Motion and manual focus. Maybe you’d be open to adding a white balance control too?
I also think it would make sense to have an option to persist the chosen white balance even after the app is quit. Same on Halide. I prefer “daylight” on all my shots [1], but I have to switch from AWB every time.
Sorry for the premature feature request, Kino is awesome anyway, the UI is so so good! and thank you for launching it with 50% off!
0 replies
13h38m
You can do that with the (free) Blackmagic Camera app https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagiccamera#:....
0 replies
21h39m
On the linked page they mention that manual WB is on the roadmap.
2 replies
1d2h
Speaking of accidental taps, when gripping the side of your phone to keep things stable, we found it too easy to accidentally tap buttons.
I have this problem CONSTANTLY with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, not when filming, but when doing everyday tasks. Something about the edge of the phone is such that a bit of my palm goes over just enough of the screen to trigger gestures, and now the YouTube video I’m watching is double speed or something I’m reading scrolls to the top for no reason.
I’m generally good about not dropping my phone (knock on wood) so I’d rather not get a case just to fix this weird touch sensitivity issue. As far as I recall this wasn’t an issue with my iPhone 12 Pro Max.
1 replies
1d2h
I frequently have exactly the same double speed issue on YouTube, nice to know I'm not the only one
0 replies
1d1h
I will say I love this feature on my iPad (touch the screen and hold without moving, the video will be 2x until you let go) but I wish it could be turned on on a per-device basis.
2 replies
23h23m
The original Matrix wasn't color graded like that! They only pushed the green levels in the subsequent home video release!
1 replies
15h36m
The original bluray release really went overboard to a jarring amount with that green. The original had some green but nothing to that level. Apparently the newer UHD release backed it down closer to the original.
0 replies
10h57m
Yeah, I recently watched a 4k scan of the Matrix taken from the original 35mm reels, it's a great time.
2 replies
1d
Cries in Android.
Realistically I don't blame em, but it sucks to see IOS get all the cool apps. With emulators coming to iOS I know my next phone will probably be an iPhone
0 replies
23h20m
There's MotionCam Pro for android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.motioncam
I myself feel the same, with emus on iOS the only missing class of software at this point is like... Blink+V8 instead of WebKit+JSC as a browser choice.
0 replies
1d
A bunch of Android OEMs already baked into the OS's default camera. The Honor Magic6 Pro for instance just lets you shoot log or preview (or bake in) any number of lut while capturing. I think they had it for 4 product cycles already.
1 replies
1d3h
Wonder if Kino is an homage to Stargate: Universe
0 replies
1d3h
Kino means "cinema" or "movie" in many European languages
1 replies
8h14m
Please enlighten me, how are the color "grades" different from just a bunch of filters? Granted they have sleek marketing. But why is this app supposedly worth $10 (or $20 when not on sale)? Don't all free camera apps support filters for hdr videos?
0 replies
7h59m
It's the difference between someone going mad with lipstick, and a theatre makeup department.
1 replies
5h50m
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned that this appears to be a (very polished) "Hipstamatic for video" yet. I feel like Hipstamatic has been a zombie app for years now, but was once beloved and at one point in 2011-2012 people spoke about it alongside Instagram...
Obviously video is harder, but the "analog film" UI looks mighty familiar... ;)
0 replies
3h58m
That’s because it’s a Halide for video.
1 replies
1d3h
Kind of a tangent but I'm worried that "Kodiak" is not going to pass the "a moron in a hurry" test (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry) and could get them in trouble. I for one read it as "Kodak" the first few times. Hopefully they cleared it with the owner of the trademark.
0 replies
1d
The design of the Kodiak card (logo? icon? not sure if there's a better word) also seems like it's intentionally mildly reminiscent of the Kodak logo, without being close enough that it's obvious at first glance.
1 replies
1d3h
Kino is also the german word for cinema
0 replies
1d3h
It's the same meaning in German, Polish, Russian, and Slavic languages.
1 replies
1d2h
With AutoMotion, Kino automatically choses the best exposure settings for cinematic motion blur.
The part I've italicized above should be "chooses".
Great looking app though!
0 replies
1d2h
It's not the only typo, either (not a big deal, but I noticed it too)
For one, there are artists who sculpts the contrast and color
emphasis mine
1 replies
1d
I like the still from Con Air (sporting Cyrus 'The Virus'), but do people actually use a phone to shoot 'serious' movies? Even amateur, super low-budget ones? When so many cameras that can be bought used for dirt cheap, shoot D-Log, and many have interchangeable lenses, and an actual shutter button, and removable SD cards, etc.
Taking pictures with a phone is unpleasant enough, but shooting movies is another world of pain.
0 replies
1d
I don’t think the overall goal here is to increase the frequency at which you choose an iPhone when you’re carefully considering which camera to use from a large selection of available cameras.
Instead, I think the overall goal is to increase the video quality for times when you don’t have the chance to carefully consider which camera to use from a large selection of available cameras. Your iPhone is already in your pocket.
1 replies
1d2h
I'm tempted to buy this while it's discounted, but if I'm a realist, I've taken 7 videos this year for a total of 2 minutes 47 seconds. I'm probably not the target market, but I'm glad to know options like this exist.
0 replies
22h55m
I am with you on this one. I looked through my photo library and realized that the last video I took was from the New Year's Eve :)
1 replies
1d3h
Unfortunately iOS only.
0 replies
1d2h
For RAW recording at least there's MotionCam Pro: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.motioncam....
1 replies
1d2h
"Opening a LUT file directly from an app will give you an option to open in Kino...even works in Messages!" - Anyone able to test how tapping on a .cube in iMessages opens in Kino? Last time I tried to code something like this, Messages is the holdout in not working properly. This StackOverflow I found requires a QuickLook extension: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22826978/custom-extensio... So does Kino open directly or is there 2 taps to open from iMessage?
0 replies
23h48m
It's sort of a PITA. Click on the name of the person who sent you the LUT in iMessage and scroll down to "Documents". Tap on the LUT file. Use the Share button in the lower left corner and then, where it lists the apps, tap "More". You'll see Kino listed. If you tap it, it will automatically import it.
Again, PITA, but given the iOS infrastructure, I'm surprised it works at all.
1 replies
1d2h
What's the font they're using for the UI?
0 replies
1d2h
Halide Router, a custom typeface we commissioned.
1 replies
23h19m
If you want to say "lets you do color grading", then fine. But claiming/implying this can make "pro video" or stuff that looks like it came out of a cinema camera is absurd. I know they don't say that outright, but it is heavily implied that the only, or major, difference is just color space and grading. And the name is just...laughable.
On a technical level, why does video shot on an iPhone look different than one shot on a big Hollywood camera?
...and then they launch into color grading and whatnot.
The real answer:
Because the pixel pitch on a cinema digital camera is four times the area of the pixels on an iPhone which allows for much greater light gathering which means lower noise, and the sensor is far less limited by diffraction.
Because the iPhone lens, being so tiny, has almost zero depth of field and that looks like shit.
Because the people operating the camera are very good at cinematography.
...not because of some software.
0 replies
19h13m
And most importantly, the artificial lighting.
0 replies
11h55m
Remember when Apple banned camera apps that used the volume button to take photos?
0 replies
1d
When I upgrade my iPhone I will buy this immediately.
It's unclear if you already support this, but I would love an option to automatically bake graded footage back down to HEVC. I will never edit most of the video I take, I just want to dial in the look I want.
0 replies
1d1h
Hi, I’ve just bought the app, congratulations on your release! Wishing for real time de-squeeze for anamorphic lenses users. And one more thing. If there’s any way to make it compatible with various gimbals and I mean like actually compatible with zoom/focus controls etc, it’d be a killer feature.
0 replies
8h19m
I purchased the app! I love the MF, and the grades look great. Can I make a feature request? One thing I have never seen on a camera app is a “record pause” button, like we used to have on old school video cameras (on pressing, it pauses the recording then continues when you press again, making seamless cuts in a single scene). IMO that would make this a killer app.
0 replies
1d2h
But blackmagicCam is free..
0 replies
8h23m
I bought the app right away when I saw it. I wanted it for its color editing feature. The app is nice and easy to use, and I didn't have any problems with it.
But when I started recording, the app crashed. It crashed again. It crashed again. It crashes while I'm still recording. This was very frustrating for me.
P.S –– I use iPhone 13
0 replies
5h53m
A breath of fresh air when there's no "AI" mentioned in a product launch
0 replies
13h12m
ctrl-f android: 0 words. Really? Interesting choice not to even mention it.
0 replies
5h7m
Has anyone used both Kino and Blackmagic? I have the latter so I’m wondering if there’s a reason for me to buy Kino. I’m on iPhone 12 Pro, so can’t use log iirc
0 replies
6h29m
Long time ago, I bought Halide from them, then they stopped supporting my preferred iOS version. Good riddance, I'm currently daily driving an Xperia and compared to it, that iOS app kinda looks like a Fisher Price toy now… ^^"
0 replies
20h6m
Somewhat unrelated, but it is my dream to one day build a product for this segment of the market: passionate users in an interesting niche who are using my product in pursuit of what they love.
0 replies
1d1h
Is it just me or does the marketing seem to disagree with itself a bit?
On the one hand it is talking about how until the iPhone 15 Pro one of the issues is that you were stuck with whatever version of the video your iPhone decided to record, but then it is talking about how this recording app is not just recording straight log and doing its own magic? What am I missing here, arn't they doing the exact thing that they were saying was bad in the first place?
Related to that, they seem to talk about LUT's but if with this we are saying that we can use these prebaked LUT's what exactly does that get me over using prebaked LUT's in my video editor?
I am curious how this compares to BlackMagic Camera.
Also curious how this will standup when Final Cut Pro Camera launches later this year (but that is obviously only valuable if you use FCP).
For $10, I may download it and give it a shot. But I am not fully sure I am seeing the value proposition here and I feel like there has to be something I am really missing here. If it isnt targeting the pro market as some commenters are saying, then what is the point of this over the built in camera app?
For context, I do my recording on an iPhone 15 pro max so maybe this isnt targeted at me?
0 replies
22h6m
Unboxing experience in an app is super cool.
0 replies
20h31m
Unimpressed. It's just an adobe filter ported to a phone. Just found the equivalent of people who buy vinyl.
0 replies
1d2h
is there something like this but for DJI action 4/pocket 3 camera? doesn't seem like this app will run on iphone se
0 replies
1d2h
The editorialized title should probably be changed. I get that the original one (“Introducing Kino”) is not descriptive enough, but at the same time “Kino: Pro Video Camera” is misleading since it's not a camera (let alone a professional one) but a camera app for iPhone.
0 replies
16h13m
I’ve used FilmicPro for years until bendyspoons acquired it and made a mess out of it. From there I jumped to BlackMagicCam from the DavinciResolve team and never looked back.
I already had VideoLUT and LumaFX so any kind of grading can be done afterwards.
I never had Halide.
Just saying, I’m trying to understand how Kino improves on this?
0 replies
1d3h
Complete sidenote but I'm an accidental fan of Sandwich (video production company) and the promo video in this did not disappoint.
0 replies
1h40m
I just downloaded this and ran it on my iPhone 15 Pro Max and the video quality is incredible. I had missed that Apple even added LOG support in the past, and the quality of color coming out of this thing is incredible. This is the first time I've seen video (even just a small test) from a phone camera truly look properly "cinematic" without taking footage into Resolve to grade it manually, etc. Bravo.
0 replies
1d1h
Take my money.
0 replies
16h57m
Does it come with a gold plated audiophile quality cable i can use to tap my reticule? i don't know what any of that means, but i really, really want to feel like a big shot movie director. Where do i send my money? Is it okay if i tell people i work for HBO or Netflix while sticking an iPhony in their face, or should i tell them i am an influencer.
0 replies
17h59m
Thanks for the honest pricing, and letting people own your software. I have an iPhone 11 with which I probably can't make the best use of Kino, but I bought anyway just to support you guys.
0 replies
1d1h
I did some quick testing. On my iPhone 15 pro it did not crash as some reported.
But the app did create a video file that has audio backed in at 2x the speed. So halfway true the video the audio stops already.
I guess this is an interesting app to keep eyes on after a few updates.
0 replies
11h8m
Can we change the microphone source with Kino, to a specific iPhone mic or if we are using any bluetooth device, like airpods?
0 replies
22h53m
At the $9.99 price point, I'd buy an Android version in an instant.
At a subscription or a significantly higher price point, I wouldn't.
Plural of anecdote isn't data, but anecdote is better than nothing, so there you have it.
0 replies
18h5m
Just a future suggestion. Can you make the record button go on for a set time at set intervals. Would be useful when filming action or yourself but you just want to capture a variety of clips as you're progressing at doing something. Eg. 15 seconds every 5 minutes as you're painting a room.
0 replies
18h24m
…app. Pro Video Camera App.
It's not in the title, but it really should be.
0 replies
1d1h
Does it disable (or allow for disabling) iPhone's dreadful dynamic tone mapping? (It makes exposure-locked footage look like auto-exposure is on)
0 replies
22h30m
Beautiful app. At $9.99 it was an instant purchase.
Seems nice upon first use but either way it’s worth the $10 as a lesson in beautiful UIs
0 replies
1d3h
Great app so far. Only taken a couple test shots, but it's great to use. Highly recommend an iPhone 15+ for ProRes support.
0 replies
1d2h
As a former happy Halide user, I bought their previous new app Spectre on launch, but sadly haven't found a good chance to use it.
(Why "former"? I switched over to Apple's Camera app for the bulk of my casual photography when Apple introduced Live Photos, since I really like the added vividness of having a video moment attached.)
I don't do many videos, and the Camera app (along with their Action Mode software video stabilisation) seems to do everything I need it to, so I'm not sure if I would be able to use any of the "pro" features here at all.
0 replies
1d
A "filmmaking" app prominently features a camera turned the wrong way (for video) on its homepage.
0 replies
4h45m
Not sure if it's my setup or me or what, but the AutoMotion video makes me feel queasy when it switches to AutoMotion on. Feels like VR sickness.
(Stock old Lenovo laptop with Intel iGPU and stock base-model X250 panel.)
0 replies
23h18m
I love this landing page, excellent work. Steps me through lots of examples with clean and efficient writing. Nice work!
Edit: i just bought it
0 replies
1d3h
Looks pretty good.
We'll have to see where it goes, from here.
I just looked at two pomodoro apps on the app store, one had a one-time purchase fee, the other had a subscription only model. It's a freaking pomodoro app! I can't believe I have to pay for that in the first place (why doesn't the countdown app of Apple not have a widget =.=) but a subscription? People are greedy af.
Putting on my Older Person hat for a moment, software from indie publishers used to cost in the ballpark of $40 in the late 1980s (that's ~$100 in 2024 dollars after adjusting for inflation). $100 for a single version of a single app. When the next point release comes out, the publisher might give you a discount of 50%, so it might only cost you $50. A major release was often required for compatibility with a new OS version.
All the software we used back in the day? We spent significant money on it.
Do you think apps like these pomodoro apps would sell in sustainable quantities if it were $100 for major releases and $50 for point releases? What if it were $100 to get the current version every time iOS did a major version upgrade?
Or is it more likely that these apps would simply not exist?
People say they want one-time purchases, but the small $ subscriptions are more consumer-friendly than is immediately apparent. And they support a vastly more comprehensive software ecosystem.
You could almost use this argument to convince me for a complex software like the Adobe products that is constantly getting new, major updates, but for a Pomodoro app? Honestly, $1 seems reasonable.
I should have been clearer. Apps from big publishers were more expensive than the indies in the 1980s. And indie shops that were charging ~$40 ($100 in 2024 dollars) for their titles. This is a direct comparison to the type of pomodoro app mentioned in the upthread comment.
The thing is, all software constantly needs new updates. If not platform-driven, then security, bug fixes, etc.
The more niche (like a pomodoro app), the fewer users over which to amortize the dev costs. A lifetime fee of $1, sold to a huge audience of 100k paid users, will pay for ~1 year of a single dev in the US, perhaps 2-3 years of a developer in a low-cost country. And then where does the money come from for updates in year 4 and beyond?
Subscription payments recognize the realities that a) development never ends for most apps that are in use and b) developers are not going to be free in the future just because the publisher only charged once.
I challenge you to demonstrate the Pomodoro app that has a full time dev effort for a year, and then requires anything more than piecemeal bug fixes or maybe a recompile in that four years of support...
Let me put it a different way.
You have already been paid everything you will ever get paid for work you did in 2021. Next year, I want you to do an unpredictable amount of work to support the 2025 iOS. How much will you charge me? Where will I get the money to pay you? Why would I spend it on this instead of something else where I might see a return?
Apple Watch app, widgets, Live Activities, new phone sizes... there are always things Apple wants you to add over time. Do you want meaningful updates or abandoned software? It doesn't take a full time job, but it's significantly more than $1 per install
That application is also probably not selling 100,000 units, so adjust your expectations downward accordingly.
Adobe was $600 per update. Per app.
Why go that far back? The average computer back then cost thousands of dollars, much more than what an iPhone costs now in inflation-adjusted terms. The App Store is not a new invention, it's been around since 2008, and for year apps were sold for a flat one-time fee.
The reason everything is a subscription now is because accountants decided that recurring revenue was how every startup should be valued, and every vendor adjusted their pricing structure accordingly.
Because this is the era before really any major software was sold by subscription. Even 2008 was a hybrid era where some Web software was already subscription-based. Consumer behavior had already started to shift by 2008.
This model also makes a lot of assumptions about where user data is stored and who is paying for that storage. Many apps have non-trivial backend requirements to support very normal use cases like "I also would like to access this from a Web browser sometimes." Those requirements cost money on an ongoing basis. One-time purchases are not a good fit for this either. We do not see many one-time purchases of Web software; many mobile apps are essentially parts of a larger whole that includes other modes of access to underlying services.
This is happening with a lot of companies that don't really have to care about "startup value"; they're tiny (sometimes even one-person) shops that aren't likely to ever go public, be bought for millions, or so on. I think you've got the cause and effect reversed for a lot of these -- the App Store pricing model has driven the price people expect to pay for apps down substantially, which made the "buy outright and then buy a new version in a couple years, at a discount, if it appeals to you" model much harder to sustain. I don't love subscriptions for apps that don't have a server-side component, but I get it.
(The example of the Pomodoro app with the subscription is pretty dubious, though.)
Personally, for smaller developers, I attribute this more to ignorance than malice (greed). Pricing is hard so they just look around and pick what they see happening around them without taking a moment even to think, forget about doing actual research.
These smaller developers go through the trouble of building an app and getting verified for distribution on the App Store but don't give even a moment's thought to pricing? Surely the easiest option is free compared to some arbitrary monthly price and having to set up payments, etc.
But why should people do apps for free?
People should be paid to do something, rather than be paid for something they did.
What? I create something, and I shouldn't be able to sell it? What?
Software isn't a "thing" so there is nothing to sell. The only way to monetize software is to monetize the labor of writing it directly. When you "sell" "licenses" to software, you're just double, triple, N dipping on monetizing labor that already happened.
The alternative is charging to write software, which is actually how most people (employees) make money writing software. Corporations take advantage of the difference between paying people to write software, and charging people over and over again to use the same software that has already been written.
I never said "they should do apps for free". I was rebutting the idea that small app developers don't give any thought to pricing and just use a monthly subscription, which sounds like more work than just giving it away for free. If they landed on a subscription model they must have given it _some_ thought.
Obviously they want to be paid.
"having to set up payments, etc"
people (including me) complain about apple taking a 30% cut from developers, but for that money, they do make that part easy.
People are so used to the zero interest rate period of tech that everyone expects the pricing model of VC backed startups that can burn money forever and maybe figure out a business model at some point.
Software costs time and money. People complain that they don't want the same uninspired corporate created junk – and then they balk at paying indie developers a reasonable amount for apps.
So much work goes into this stuff! It's so tempting for indie devs to just take the high paying job, and then congrats – no more unique and interesting apps like this.
What to ZIRPs have to do with Pomodoro subscriptions?
I’m not sure what your point was. Is this in defense or against IaP?
Most people don’t balk at paying fair prices for an app, but the definition has drifted so far that €7/month (€84/year) is described as “fair” for a simple timer, and that is plain absurd.
Halide goes for €69 one-time purchase, or €12,50/year. For professional software that is really well designed and is actually kept up to date. This should be the benchmark.
I hope the irony of these two statements isn't lost on you
I know right! I run a freemium B2C app and I get users telling me this all the time. It's so ridiculous. No one is forcing anyone to use the software. Go write your own version and give it away for free.
iOS and macOS ships with Pomodoro. Open Shortcuts and you should see it.
If you don't mind a PWA, I like this:
https://qoomon.github.io/time-timer-webapp/
Agree, it's frustrating to see simple apps like this requiring a subscription model.
That doesn't seem odd to me. Pomodoro/focus apps are a category where people start casual, but end up developing very specific desires that narrow their options. Someone catering to that can charge a bit.
Whether it's ethical for developers to cater to that kind of helpless behavior is another question.
I give it 2 years before they have regressed to a subscription model.
They have been around successfully selling apps with this business model for a lot longer than 2 years, why do you think they plan on changing it?
What happens is you run out of new people to sell your niche app to (or hit a long rather thin tail) while continuing to provide updates for your existing userbase. So you either have to release arbitrary new versions from time to time leaving the old ones neglected and eventually unsupported (or with the overhead of supporting several versions) or you switch to a subscription model.
It's happened with so many businesses.
Maybe the solution here is to stop supporting new phones with old versions. So your app works forever but if you upgrade your phone you have to buy the software again. It's hard to find what feels fair.
Subscription fatigue is very real today, but to your point, as a business you can't provide eternal updates (work) for free.
In the old days, you'd buy a new version of Mac or Windows or any software that you run on it (Office, Parallels, etc.) when you wanted the new features each year.
I think Apple's App Store has a lot to do with why everything is now subscription-based. They used to offer developers a smaller Apple-commission (15%) for subscription sales instead of the typical 30% for in-app purchase sales and paid-apps.
This was great for businesses, but in my opinion, only service businesses should be subscriptions - this transition would help reduce subscription fatigue. Normal software should mostly go back to just issuing new versions each year (or whatever frequency), so that consumers re-frame the purchase cycle to something that feels more reasonable again.
In order for this to occur, however, Apple may need to adjust the App Store algorithms. If you were to launch a new app (ex. "Kino v6"), you'd start all over again from day 1 with 0 app ratings and reviews, and not rank well on any keywords nor in the top apps charts.
Some apps simply rename their app with each new version, but that introduces similar complexities, especially for users who already paid & downloaded the previous "version". So in a big way, the App Store de-incentivizes any kind of transition away from a subscription-based business model.
The "new versions" business model vs. subscription may be similar cost to consumer (it wouldn't support monthly users), but it would allow consumers to only update when their ready and could continue using an old app version (especially on older devices) as long as they'd like. If a customer really likes the software, they'd likely buy the new version to access new features & device support before too long anyhow
What do you mean used to take 15% commission, that has never stopped since the small business plan became available.
I mean that initially the 15% commission was only for subscription sales. Then more recently, Apple added the small business program which gave 15% commission for any sales (not only subscriptions), at least for smaller companies
One way which feels fair that I have seen companies do is provide "Maintenance".
Premium paid support offerings which also includes upgrades to any versions released during your contract duration. It's enterprisey, and maybe weird for a camera app (how much support could you possibly really need?).
What about releasing new features as in-app purchases? This way you can make money from existing users too.
FiLMiC Pro, another pro camera app for iPhone, also existed for years [0] and sold with the one-time-purchase business model. They're now a subscription [1] and owned by Bending Spoons / Evernote. (Plus, more bad news [2]...)
[0]: http://web.archive.org/web/20111130073123/http://www.filmicp...
[1]: https://www.cined.com/filmic-pro-is-joining-forces-with-bend...
[2]: https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/3/23986187/filmic-staff-lai...
That kind of proves that one time sales can be a successful business model, doesn't it?
They were a successful business employing 23 people after more than a decade on the one time sales model!
No one said it’s not possible to be successful with it
Personally, even if I don't personally purchase this, I hope your wrong because I am strongly against subscriptions in most cases.
I see cases where it makes sense...but I also see the need for development to get paid their salery, and once you have reached all the users you can....their is no new user growth....and if your just selling based off a one time fee then that means you got very little income except the random guy who might donate, but a company shouldn't rely on donations to keep products alive.
If the thing needs updates or changes regularly say once very 6 months....due to changes in standard or just keeping things updated....this stuff costs money to keep developers paid.
My crude C program I wrote that converts an input between celcius or Fahrenheit is not really going to change. Unless I want to also support data inputs other than floating point numbers, I don't need to update or modify anything. But other stuff is more complex and might change due to standards, advancements, and the needs of the users.
The real problem is that people are afraid of paying high one time prices. Subscriptions allow you to lower your prices, which lowers the barrier of entry.
On iOS, it gets even worse as there never were high prices to begin with. Which means that the OTP model was never very sustainable.
I don't understand what people have against subscriptions.
To me that's the fairest. First, it incentives them to make a good product, and keep developing it as opposed to just throwing it out there and then not updating.
And secondly it's also fair for the customer. If I don't find something useful I might stop using it after a week, but I paid the full price, same as if I found it useful for years.
What do, say, furniture stores do when they "run out of users"?
The problem is of course, that the industry has settled into a nash equilibrium of constantly changing things, so regular people have to continuously update software, as a way to charge rents, on top of whatever productive improvements they provide.
Sofas don't need constant bug fixes; they don't inexplicably stop working when someone upgrades their apartment with a new TV. Also, the up-front cost of a piece of furniture is a couple of orders magnitude higher than most apps, which help keeps the retailer in the black until it's time for the customer to buy another, similarly high priced item.
Their other apps are much older than 2 years and still have a buy-once model. This company has a good track record. (There is a subscription for some long-running services if I'm not mistaken.)
That’s what I said about Halide, before they moved it to a subscription model.
Only for new features right?
Yeah and you can still buy it for a one time $60 purchase if you want.
You must be confusing Halide with Filmic Pro.
I think they're talking about this, from Halide's page in the App Store:
In-App Purchases Yearly $11.99 Monthly $2.99 One Time Purchase $59.99
It’s so much harder to sustain the business though. Obviously it’s better for the consumer, but way harder to run