We’ve put together a very short video demonstration of Click’s exclusive one-finger focus and exposure control. Check it out on YouTube below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AzUYQTnIqA

We hope you like it! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or subscribe to our YouTube channel to be informed of future videos.

Santa almost had to cancel Christmas this year due to skyrocketing expenses after having to repeatedly replace elves’ iPhones. Apparently they kept dropping them while performing the finger gymnastics required to get candid photos during the after-hours office parties. Avoid both finger-pretzel-itis and financial duress by getting Click while its on sale during the holidays. Better yet, help Santa keep his expenses under control and prevent a potential elf revolt by gifting it to that special iPhone-toting elf in your life for only 99¢.

Win an iTunes Gift Card!

We’ll be giving away iTunes Gift Cards throughout the holidays until January 1, 2012. Enter to win up to a $50 iTunes Gift Card by helping us spread holiday cheer on your favourite social site.

On Twitter: Retweet this message (click to view) from our twitter feed to your followers. If you are signed into Twitter, just click the “Retweet” button at the bottom of the linked message.

On Facebook: Like and share our status message from our wall to your own wall (publicly viewable). The status message is located here (click to view). If you are signed into Facebook, just click the “Like” (thumbs up) icon, then click the “Share” link, make sure it says “On your own wall” in the top left and “Public” in the top right and click the “Share Link” button.

Happy Holidays! ☃

Americans probably don’t appreciate the wrath Canadians unleash upon retail outlets on Boxing Day. That’s ok though, we don’t really get Black Friday either (but it *does* sound sinister). However, we do know how to make the iPhone camera come alive with features you never dreamed of while keeping it all lick-ably simple. So in the spirit of world unity and better photography, we are having a special pre-Boxing Day SALE all BLACK FRIDAY weekend! Help promote world peace and improve bilateral relations… get Click on sale now!

The new iPhone 4S has a dramatically improved camera over previous models and we’re eager to take advantage of it. So we are pleased to announce the immediate availability of an update which brings a big increase in the zoom magnification for iPhone 4S users. When the iPhone 4 came out, we increased the maximum zoom magnification from 5X to 8X. Now with the iPhone 4S, we’ve increased it again, this time from 8X to 16X. Older models will continue to support their previous magnifications.

Remember that this still is a digital zoom, so there is some degradation of the image quality for zoomed in photos. However, we do preform some interpolation to try to smooth out the unavoidable affects of enlarging a photo digitally. As you can see in the results above, we think the results are pretty amazing. For best results when using maximum zoom, we recommend a well-lit area – preferably outdoors, and ideally your phone should be secured with some sort of tripod to prevent shaking.

This is probably also a good time to mention some of the other features of the zoom control in Click! that you may have previously missed.  The zoom control has a nifty feature for letting you quickly select magnification levels or providing finer control when you need it. As you know, the zoom control can be brought up by simply sliding your finger in any direction on the screen, either a horizontal or vertical control will be displayed automatically. If you keep your finger on top of the control and you increase or decrease the magnification, it will “snap” to the major magnifications as you get close to them – 1X, 1.5X, 2X, 4X, 8X, and 16X on the iPhone 4S. If you want finer control, slide your finger away from the magnification bubble (usually to the right when the control is vertical or to the bottom when horizontal) and it will no longer snap – allowing you more precise control over the magnification selected.

Finally, many users never venture into the Settings App, but if you go in there and look under the Click! options, you’ll find a mysterious “User Orientation” setting. You might think that’s a personal question for a camera app to be asking you, but its actually letting you set the orientation of on-screen controls, such as the zoom control. The default “No Preference” option tries its best to figure out which hand your using and keep your hand from obscuring the magnification bubble. If you find that your finger is frequently covering the magnification bubble, try specifically setting the orientation to either right- or left- handed (whichever applies to you).

Got an iPhone 4S? Get your copy of Click! now at a specially reduced price!

Today we released Click v3.2 which has built-in support for PhotoAppLink. Essentially, PhotoAppLink makes it possible for the very best photo editing apps available on the App Store to be available directly from within Click. We think it’s really going to change how photos are handled on iOS. PhotoAppLink opens the whole world of App Store photo editing apps to Click. Click with PhotoAppLink gives you the best pure camera app experience and works with the top photo apps to give you the best photo editing features available.

You will notice a new icon at the bottom-left when previewing a photo, or when viewing a photo in the camera roll. You can use this icon to access PhotoAppLink and send your photo directly to another app for further editing. This replaces the hassle of saving the photo, quitting the app, finding and opening the editing app you want, and then finding and re-opening the photo you just saved.Click can send a photo to any app that supports receiving via PhotoAppLink. Any such apps that are installed on your device will automatically show up in the PhotoAppLink selection within Click. The complete list of launch titles supporting PhotoAppLink today is as follows:

Click!	ColorSplash	Photogene
AutoStitch	PicTools	Juxtaposer
Snap!	Simply B&W	TrueHDR

You can even find other apps that support PhotoAppLink from within Click. Just tap on the “Get More Apps” button and you will be presented with an updated list of the apps supporting PhotoAppLink in the App Store. You will notice that some apps are listed as only supporting sending. Keep in mind that Click can only communicate with apps that support receiving. Tapping on the “Store” button will take you directly to the app’s store page so you can complete your purchase.

PhotoAppLink will change the way we all work with photos on our iPhones, iPods, and iPads. We are now free to use the very best photography tools for the job, without compromise. If you don’t already have Click! – get it now on the App Store. If you already have Click! make sure you get the update and check if you already have some PhotoAppLink enabled apps.

If you are a developer of a photo editing app and would like to incorporate PhotoAppLink into your app, please head over to the PhotoAppLink repository on GitHub. We’d love to have you aboard!

Today, we are happy to announce that we have a grand-prize winner for our much-longer-than-originally-planned contest! Before we get to the big announcement though, I would like to quickly update you on some new developments we got brewing.

If you’ve been paying attention, and we hope you have, you are already aware that we are changing the name of 321 Photo to Click! The first step of that transition is already in the App Store – its the full premium version of Click! and its chocked full of great new features. However, if you already had 321 Photo (especially if you bought a premium unlock for it), you may have been holding off purchasing Click as we promised that those new features would be transitioning over to 321 Photo users. Well, we are pleased to announce that the upgrade to 321 Photo is in the final stages of approval and will be on the App Store in the next couple weeks (at the latest). It will be called “Click! à la Carte”, it will still be free to download, and it will have all the same features available as the regular version Click. Just like 321 Photo, it will use in-app purchases to unlock premium content, or you can just use the basic features for free. If you’d rather not use in-app purchases or pick-and-choose features, get the regular version of Click, it’s your choice!

Additionally, we would like to give you a sneak peek into a great new feature that we’ve added to both versions that will be debuting soon. Its called PhotoAppLink, and we think it’s really going to change how photos are handled on iOS. Essentially, PhotoAppLink makes it possible for the very best photo editing apps to be available directly from within Click! In one easy step, you can take a photo and send it directly to another app, such as ColorSplash or Photogene, for further editing. This replaces the hassle of quitting the app, finding and opening the editing app you want, and then finding and opening the photo you just took. It opens the whole world of App Store photo editing apps to Click! Why settle for a mediocre camera app or second-rate image editing options. Click with PhotoAppLink gives you the best pure camera app experience and works with the best photo manipulation apps available. Any app that supports PhotoAppLink that is installed on your device will automatically be available within Click. A list of supported apps will be announced shortly.

Finally, the contest winner. We had a lot of fun with this and, after a somewhat slow start, we are prepared to declare the contest a success. Over 4500 individuals entered by the end of it, and we’d like to thank every one of you for telling your friends just how great Click is. The winner of the factory unlocked iPhone 4 is…

Launi Lewis
(@DocsLeiLani on Twitter)!

We’ll be sending her the grand prize and 5 promo codes for free copies of Click for her and her friends & family. If you followed us on Twitter or “fan’d” us on Facebook, Thank-you, and please keep following us. As you can see we have a lot of exciting things coming your way as well as some more contests and giveaways!

Best Regards,

Brad & Pierre

Way back in the day, 321 Photo was originally meant to be a one-trick pony that was simply going to enable taking self-portraits with a full-screen shutter button and a 3-second countdown timer. But, that was a long time ago, during the dark ages of the App Store. By the time we actually released 321 Photo publicly, it had become a full-featured camera app and had clearly outgrown its name. This past weekend, we quietly introduced Click! to the App Store as a step toward correcting this misnomer.

Click! is a complete rewrite of 321 Photo, with plenty of new features and functionality thrown – while at the same time reducing complexity in the interface. Currently, Click! is essentially a paid, stand-alone, updated, premium version of 321 Photo. We plan to bring an update to existing 321 Photo users that will provide access to the same functionality that Click! now provides as soon as we can. In the meantime, if you prefer not to wait, there’s no harm in purchasing Click! now.

So what’s new in Click!

Really, there are far too many changes to go through them all, but I’ll briefly try to touch on a few of the key ones here:

One-handed operation

While researching how people actually use the iPhone camera we kept noticing one thing over and over. They are constantly holding it in one hand, and precariously balancing it while they try to take photo. Further complicating things, most camera apps have ridiculous controls layered under menus that are almost impossible to navigate when your trying to get that special shot. Some force you to use two hands for gestures like zooming in or out or adjusting focus and exposure. We think this isn’t good enough and so, we completely re-thought the entire operation of every camera function to ensure that they can be accessed and operated with only one hand. The result is a slim, minimal interface with a lot of flexibility.

Exclusive one-handed focus and exposure controls

There are a few other apps out there by now that let you independently control focus and exposure settings for each shot, but none of them let you do so like Click! – complete control with only one hand. To set the focus, just tap-and-hold which will display the focus reticule. If you continue to hold your finger down and move it around, you can change the focus location. To set exposure, just double-tap and hold. Similarly, you can change the exposure’s white point setting by continuing to hold your finger down and moving the exposure reticule around. Once you’ve set either focus or exposure, you can edit the settings by simply dragging the reticules on the preview screen. To reset your settings, simply double-tap. Repeat to restore your previous settings. We think you’ll agree that this one-handed control for focus and exposure is far superior to the alternatives. (Focus and Exposure controls available on iPhone 4 & 3GS w/ iOS 4 only)

Twitter, Facebook, Flicker, and more!

We’re just as addicted to social services as you are. We took our time adding this functionality, but we wanted to get it just right. Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr are all there. We also support multiple accounts on all services. Its super easy to switch between accounts, and if you type a message and send it to one service, it will automatically be copied to the other services, ready to send without re-typing. Lastly, we added e-mail support, just because.

Continuous shooting mode

Actually, this feature has been around for a bit, but we haven’t publicized it much. Some camera apps may include a “Burst” mode, which usually takes 3 or so photos in succession. We did it a little different. If you tap the camera button and continue to hold it down, Click! will take continuous photos – limited only by the speed of device and the memory available – until you let go. You can also enable this feature without looking at the screen by doing a triple-tap-and-hold gesture.

Customizable countdown and interval timer

We love time lapse photos, and Click! now makes them easier than ever to take. We still support the adjustable countdown timer we had in 321 Photo, now with far more custom delays, but we’ve also added a completely customizable interval timer. You can edit the countdown timer delay or enable the interval timer by double-tapping on the timer icon.

Completely new Camera Roll access

Our new full-featured camera roll adds tonnes of new features. It now lets you zoom in or out of your photos. You can also swipe between photos and access our social sharing options for any photo. Additionally, we’ve made Click! work directly with the built-in Camera Roll – theres no need to shuffle photos around or manage a “Lightbox” before syncing with your computer.

Much more!

Of course, there are many, many more improvements that we’ve made along the way. Hopefully you approve! Please check out Click! and let us know what you think.

Thanks,

Brad & Pierre

It been about a month since our last update on our iPhone 4 giveaway. We now have about 750 followers on Twitter, we’ve certainly started adding followers at a faster rate, and we’re well on our way to our goal of 2500 to announce a winner. Although this is great, we really want to kick it up a gear and get this iPhone 4 into some lucky winner’s eager hands as fast as possible! So, we’re going to try extending the contest to our Facebook page as well. Facebook says we’re not allowed, but everyone else is doing it, so shucks to them!

We are going to include anyone that has “liked” our Facebook fan page in the draw (you can like it from the facebook panel on the left). Of course, we can’t force you, but it’d also be great if you also posted a message to your wall asking your friends to check us out or join the contest (here’s the link: http://bit.ly/321contest ). Hopefully, this will also drive followers to our Twitter page and we can reach our goal sooner. If we reach 2500 followers or fans, we will make the draw for the contest winner. May the best social network win!

Good Luck!

PS: Yes, you can still improve your odds of winning by liking us on Facebook AND following us on Twitter.

If you are reading this, you are probably aware that we are currently running a Twitter contest to win a worldwide unlocked iPhone 4. Well, apparently in our zeal to jump into the social networking game, we may have over-estimated our ability to build a user-base from zero. So, after much deliberation, we’ve decided to come clean with our situation and our plan the remainder of the contest.


First off, we aren’t a big software company and we don’t have a lot of resources at our disposal. There’s just two of us here and we develop for the iPhone and iPad because its something we really love and we believe that these devices are mapping the future of computing. We do this for passion, not financial gain. We’d love it if this paid the bills, but so far that’s not happening. We have side jobs to try to pay the bills, we meet late at night at coffee shops for development meetings, and generally spend way too much time and effort crafting apps that we really love.

I tell you all this not in an effort to evoke sympathy, but in an effort to have you understand how much it took for us to commit $1000 to buy an iPhone 4 and other incidentals for this contest (which we did). We need that money. But we did it anyway, because we thought it would be a good way to get the word out about our camera app, 321 Photo. Maybe we were a little drunk on all the internet-hype about the “power of social media”. We certainly underestimated the amount of work involved in getting the word out. We were confident that we would get immediate attention from bloggers and Twitter fans the world over. Well, that didn’t happen. The Twitter fans have trickled in (thank-you!), but unfortunately at a pace far below our expectations.

So here we are, about a week away from the end of our contest ending and it looks a ways off to have it pay off for us in any measurable way. I suppose that we could just cancel the contest and slink away as some others have done, but we don’t think that’s fair. In all honesty, we want to give this iPhone 4 away (they really are awesome!). But we also need it to at least come close to meeting our objectives. We were hoping to gain up to 5000 followers through this contest, we know we have many times that number of actual users of 321 Photo, but clearly reaching our Twitter goal in the next 6 days would be a tall order.

So, we’ve come up with a compromise that I hope all our fans and Twitter followers will agree is fair. Here’s what we plan to do:

• We will make the drawing for the iPhone 4 within 72 hrs after we reach a reduced goal of 2500 Twitter followers. We think this reduced number is reachable within a reasonable amount of time. The more you tell your friends about it, the faster the draw will happen (but please, don’t spam them).
• Every weekday that the contest continues, no matter how long, we will give away a premium copy of 321 Photo.
• All winners of any prizes so far, and future winners of the continuing premium versions of 321 Photo, will continue to be eligible for the Grand Prize draw.
• We are also loosening up the requirements for what counts as a “qualifying entry”. Basically, any message that includes the contest web address (http://bit.ly/321contest) will qualify to a maximum of one per day. Please be respectful and please don’t spam.

You can view the full changes at the contest web page (here). This was a very difficult decision for us, but we hope for your understanding and that this solution meets with your approval. We hope that you will continue to recommend our contest, and our app, to your friends — and we wish you the best of luck in the draw!

Thanks,

Brad & Pierre

We submitted an update of 321 Photo for iPhone to Apple last night. Fixes a nasty bug on launch for some iOS 3.1.x users and other fixes. Hopefully Apple will approve it quickly.