BitCam - Reviews, Revenue and Downloads - Apple App Store

Description

A blast from the past!

BitCam is the digital camera you would have used on your mini pocket computer back in 1996. We made it to celebrate the Iconfactory's 20th anniversary of making cool things with pixels!

The design brief for this app was simple: “What would we design today given the constraints of the past?”

What we ended up with shows how much technology has improved since we first started writing software for Apple’s products.

We stuck to a black & white interface because color graphics support back then was hit-or-miss. Some folks had it, some didn’t. A mini pocket computer would certainly need a color graphics card upgrade, and that hardware would cost you hundreds of dollars!

There’s also none of the typical animation we see in today’s apps. Zoom rects were used for view transitions, scrolling in credits was jerky, and chunky controls were par for the course. (And boy, were they hard to implement on today’s devices that do asynchronous layout and high resolution drawing without an XOR operation!)

We did notice one thing that hasn’t changed over the years: the importance of clarity and simplicity in a user interface. BitCam’s graphics are blockier, but have many of the same traits we strive for in today’s client work. (We kinda wish buttons still had borders, too.)

Retina displays, selfies and social networks weren't around in 1996. Coming up with terminology in BitCam was a blast: we tried as hard as we could to guess the future wrong! The only reason we got FatBits right was because Bill Atkinson had already invented it. He also came up with the dithering algorithm used in the app. :thumbsup:

Another big difference is today’s 64-bit processor: it can easily process the video signal at 30 frames/second. We throttled the speed to simulate the 16-bit processor in the mini pocket computer. Higher resolution settings are slower for a reason!

We even thought about the past while making the app’s promotional website. If you’re a web developer, take a moment to view the source at www.iconfactory.com/bc.html (even that URL is old skool!) Native apps aren’t the only thing that’s improved remarkably since we first started out!

And then there’s the price. BitCam is free to download and try out, just like the shareware we first sold at the Iconfactory. The difference now is that BitCam’s in-app purchase is 1/10th of what we charged in 1996. Your kind support will help keep us in business for another 20 years.

Finally, make sure to check out the credits screen: it’s our tribute to the folks that have helped us be a success over the years.

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In-Apps

Color Graphics Card

$2.99

Screenshots

User Rating

4.64 out of 5

11 ratings in Canada

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Ratings History

Reviews

As a camera, it’s great!

This the exact effect I want to achieve, and it has a cool simple / retro interface, but I wanted to use the effect on images in my camera roll and was disappointed to see there is no import function. Maybe they’re trying to stay authentic to the simplicity of retro technology, but it’s frustrating that there are no other apps that achieve the same affect with imported images.

Simple Digital Nostalgia

Superb little camera app that brings back the feeling of photos on a classic 16-bit Mac. Even the interface and sounds are fun and bring you back in time. For the people asking to be able to import photos, it actually includes a plugin for the Photos app so you can apply the dithering effects to your existing photos. Or just snap a picture directly within BitCam then save it to your camera roll using an effect. The app is very functional even without the color in-app purchase so give it a try! The $2.79 color option is well worth it in my opinion, I bought it to support the Iconfactory.

Plz add record or import

Or inverted

Import

Please include the ability to import photos!!!

:)

It would make my day/life if there were a video-recording function of this app.

☺️

This is a pretty neat app, but I wish there was a way to mute the sounds.

Love it to bits!

There is a lot of retro joy to be had in this app. The attention to detail is amazing. Even the way the dialog boxes appear on screen had me smiling. Nice work, Iconfactory!

Handy way to take photos

The resolution is much higher than anticipated. Although I must admit my 14.4k modem is having some trouble uploading the graphics interchange format files to CompuServe. Luckily one of the sysops there introduced suggested minimizing the colour table and now I'm all good. Great application guys!

Name	Reviews	Recent release
Retrospecs Pixelate your pics!	11	2 months ago
2-Bit Camera 2-bit Photography	0	1 year ago
El Pintador	0	1 year ago
Peek-a-View Read-only photo gallery	0	1 year ago
Atkinson Photo by Atkinson dithering	0	3 months ago
PowerUp Camera	5	1 year ago
Dither: Oldschool Photo Editor Edit photos like it's 1986	0	9 months ago
PHOTO.EXE: Retro Photoshare Delightful dithered pixel art	0	1 year ago
DitherProg Dither processing application.	0	1 year ago
Low Camera -Low Resolution- Save space on your phone!	0	3 months ago

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