Essential Photography 101 by Apple, Fixed for iPhoneographers

Apple failed to collect best apps for shooting, editing and sharing your iPhone photos, so I removed less useful apps from their collection and replaced them

Everyone fail. Apple too. Usually it happens when it promotes apps in the featured section in the App Store. In the past few weeks a interesting new collection made its appearance: “Essential Photography 101". This could be connected with two factors: Summer, that means lots of time and opportunities to take more photos; and the new iPhone, reportedly coming in September with an enhanced camera and a brand new iOS 7 camera app with the ability do add filters (quite good) and capture photos in square format. They definitely did it wrong,as Raman Pfaff first stressed in a post on iOS photo apps. Well, it can be worse or better depending on witch country you live in, i.e. in Italy’s App Store Analog Camera is replaced with Camera Awesome, much better in my opinion. Let me take the US selection and fix it.

Shooting apps

• VSCO Cam (free + in-app purchase): move it under editing apps, this is not an app for shooting even if it comes with separated focus and exposure option –> replace it with Pureshot ($ 1.99), the unique app that let you take control of your iPhone camera. It comes with a brief manual you should read if you are serious about taking photos with your iPhone;
• Analog Camera ($1.99): I never used it, but in its description it is clear is an editing app more than a shooting one –> replace with Pro HDR ($1.99, more controls) or vividHDR ($1.99, all automatic) for shooting in HDR when you find yourself stick in a dark-bright scene;
• Hipstamatic ($1.99) (love! at first sight);
• Blux Camera Pro ($0,99) –> it’s a mess of options, not focused on shooting, but on what this camera offers –> replace with Camera+ ($1.99), that, even if comes with filters (and, by the way, you’ll really love clarity), is indeed focused on shooting and is simpler to use, or with Pro Camera ($2.99), a little bit complicated, but with better editing tools, or even with Camera Awesome (free + in-app purchase);
• ProCam ($0.99) nice, but again not so painless to use –> replace with 645 PRO ($3.99) that let you shoot with a lot of filters and in different formats, taking color or also b&w pics, or an app for shooting in black and white.

Editing apps

• Snapseed (free), very useful;
• Facetune ($0,99) –> replace with VSCO Cam (free + in-app purchase) that comes with a free add-on to fine tune faces and lots of preset that improve skin colors.
• Over ($1.99) –> Do you really need to write on your pics? Ok, it’s up to you, but I’d replace with Mextures ($1.99), an app that will let you create wonderful pics using quality textures that will add unobtrusive effects;
• Fuzel Pro ($1.99) –> replace with Image Blender ($2.99) to simply combine two photos together in a lot of blending modes, plus cropping and rotating the image you want to superimpose;
• iPhoto ($4.99), maybe the worst app Apple have ever released, very powerful but more complicated to use than the majority of Apps Store apps –> replace with Filterstorm ($3.99), the really Photoshop equivalent for your iPhone.

Sharing apps

• Instagram (free);
• Tumblr (free);
• Facebook –> replace with Starmatic (free) or EyeEm (free), real Instagram competitors and more iPhoneography oriented;
• Flickr (free), you should really give it a try now that it has been improved so much;
• Ink Cards (free) –> replace with PrintUP (free) or any other app that will let you print your photos, definitely the best way to share them.

This is a personal project with two goal: learning how to shoot better with my iPhone and improve my English. Every feedback and correction is welcome.

Thanks to Brandy for her precious help.