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Unofficial Apps: iPhone 4 LED Flashlight, iMovie and iWork for iPhone 3GS
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...and even more after this discussion.
Hopefully we'll all benefit. I just don't think an ad-supported model makes sense for this product. Last thing you want in the dark is a very bright animated ad shining in your eyes.
-michael
With the mountain of flashlight apps, there will be ones without ads in them.
So enjoy trying to market your "revolutionary" product.
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Nice vid on the Android on the iPod touch!
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Yeah, obviously there's going to be like 150 flashlight apps and the first one for free will win the war.
Yeah that was the method I was referring to which I described in an earlier post. In my opinion, it would be silly to pay for such a simple app.
Actually, the problem with that is it takes 4 clicks and at least 8 seconds to initiate the video camera and turn on the flash but the big problem is that you then have the LCD screen pointing at your face with a very bright video preview being lit by the torch light. When you are pointing a flashlight at something in the dark, if there is bright light shining in your face, your pupils will dilate and the flashlight will be much less effective.
-michael zaletel
Flashlight 4 for iPhone 4
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How will you compete with people who realize that it takes 30 minutes to make a flashlight app and release one for free? I bet there are already at least 20 flashlight apps already in the approval process for Apple.
It takes a bit more than 30 minutes to do it right. We're hoping everyone else only spent 30 minutes.
For example, CameraLight has at least two bugs I already found within 10 seconds of trying it out.
Simpler apps have made a lot of money competing with free options. I don't think development time is a key driver. There are apps that took 6 months to develop that aren't making any money either.
Still amazes me that people pay $2 for bottled water in some places.
-michael zaletel
Why does it matter that HD2 has brighter LED? Apparently HD2 camera needs brighter flash to capture a night shot. If you match the camera sensor with an LED that is too bright, the photos will come out overexposed. You don't want that. It's all about image quality and not about having the brightest flashlight in town.
It would have made more sense if he would have shot the video in a dark environment instead of daylight.
That's not daylight, it's all in the LED flash
hmmm. i've exported 3 movies so far. all about 1:30 and at different sizes.
I setup my 4 from scratch. originally i restored it from a backup of my 3GS, but had too many quirks so I installed fresh. if it matters
This is the best I've seen of the ones submitted to this thread. I hope this gets approved, looks like it's actually fun to use!
iMovie on iOS4 3GS
I've installed iMovie on my 3GS running iOS 4. I runs fine as long as you dont have anything else running in the background as it needs a lot of ram to export the videos. It will only export to 360p (640x360) as it seems it can only resize vids down and not up, which is fair enough.
I do wish it could export 480p but what can you do.
I've attached a screenshot from the codec info screen in VLC of a movie I did in iMovie.
iMovie is really ram hungry when converting a vid. I had 149mb free on my iOS4 3GS before running and it when I started the conversion to 360p it dropped as low as 12mb free and then back up to 130mb free after the conversion. This might be why it was crashing on me earlier as I had Beejive and a few other iOS4 apps paused/multi tasked/fast switched/whatever in the background that were using up a fair bit of ram.
I can see why Apple only wants us to run it on the 512mb iPhone 4. But a bit of better coding on their part and it would be fine on the 256mb iPhone 3GS.
I made a 2min 30second clip in iMovie that had 3 vid clips and custom music as well as a couple of pics in it. The export took about 6 or 7 mins I think as i didn't actually time it. I dont think thats to bad really to create a nice little clip when your on the beach and upload to YouTube for the family to see back home.
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I've installed iMovie on my 3GS running iOS 4. I runs fine as long as you dont have anything else running in the background as it needs a lot of ram to export the videos. It will only export to 360p (640x360) as it seems it can only resize vids down and not up, which is fair enough.
I do wish it could export 480p but what can you do.
I've attached a screenshot from the codec info screen in VLC of a movie I did in iMovie.
iMovie is really ram hungry when converting a vid. I had 149mb free on my iOS4 3GS before running and it when I started the conversion to 360p it dropped as low as 12mb free and then back up to 130mb free after the conversion. This might be why it was crashing on me earlier as I had Beejive and a few other iOS4 apps paused/multi tasked/fast switched/whatever in the background that were using up a fair bit of ram.
I can see why Apple only wants us to run it on the 512mb iPhone 4. But a bit of better coding on their part and it would be fine on the 256mb iPhone 3GS.
I made a 2min 30second clip in iMovie that had 3 vid clips and custom music as well as a couple of pics in it. The export took about 6 or 7 mins I think as i didn't actually time it. I dont think thats to bad really to create a nice little clip when your on the beach and upload to YouTube for the family to see back home.
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Thanks for the compliments - if it does release I hope you do have fun with it. It's funny, I actually wind up using it many nights on my own! I used to use the "screen" flashlight apps a lot so this just seemed smart to me to have.
Well on a side note the App went "In Review" today, so Apple is looking at it. Fingers crossed they don't reject it and I will update everyone as soon as I hear anything (even if rejected).
My company put together another iAd supported version thats been in the app queue as well called "iLight Pro", which comes with a flashlight and adjustable strobe light.
In regards to the iAds being distracting to the eye, we thought about this and tested the theory by replacing the ads with brightly color patches, and it didn't seem to affect the user's vision much at all. Mainly because the screen auto-dims in dark areas where the light would be typically used.
In regards to the iAds being distracting to the eye, we thought about this and tested the theory by replacing the ads with brightly color patches, and it didn't seem to affect the user's vision much at all. Mainly because the screen auto-dims in dark areas where the light would be typically used.
Um no...and the HTC HD2 takes crappy pictures, even though it has a better flash. The IPhone 4 has better light sensors, or at least better software using the light sensors.
Hi Jon,
Ours in review today as well. I think yours will do well. We used a slider for the strobe instead of a dial but separated it into another app. Some consumers will prefer a multi-purpose, skinned utility like yours and other people will prefer a simple, single-purpose flashlight like ours. We'll both learn something from this I'm sure.
Question is, what % of the public is willing to pay for something like this even if other options are free. I think it could be a surprisingly good percentage because it's worth every bit of $.99. I use ours all the time.
-michael
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Or, you would open the stock camera app, go go video mode, and set flash to on. Ohmygod it's the same thing for free!
Actually, the problem is that the camera application takes about 8 seconds to initialize and there are four clicks involved. However, the biggest problem is that when the torch light is on within the camera application, the LCD screen is shining a very bright video preview in your face. This causes your pupils to dilate and defeats the purpose of the flashlight.
It's a good idea, worth $.99 for sure to have a bright LED flashlight in one click, less than one second that mostly dims out the LCD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYBiT-mG7bw
-michael
There is now at least one of these apps in the app store. LED Switch showed up tonight. I bought it and it seems to work fine, although it presents a bright white screen back in your face. Here's to hoping that some of these other apps are approved very soon. For now this one will do the job much quicker than the video trick.