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You Can (Not) Build a Pro Video Camera App in Four Months

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You Can (Not) Build a Pro Video Camera App in Four Months

It’s been seven years since we launched a little side project, Halide. We built it for us: we didn’t set out to ‘disrupt’ the world of camera apps, or get rich. We wanted to build a beautiful, powerful, and delightful camera app that we would enjoy using.

Working on finishing up Halide 1.0 — May 2017

It exceeded our wildest expectations and quickly grew to become an award-winning photography app and a legitimate business. Soon, we quit our jobs to work on apps full-time. Yes, that’s plural, apps.

From what we learned building Halide full-time, we spun out one-off projects such as Orion and Spectre (that one went places — a little long exposure app that won 2019 App of the Year). While these were fun diversions, Halide remained the focus of our company. It was what we worked on most days of the week, for the last seven years.

There was just one thing we knew we’d never add to Halide: video. Ever since Halide 1.0, users asked for it, but we knew it wouldn’t work. Photography and cinema are different mediums that call for different user experiences.

Instead, Sebastiaan and I talked about building a completely separate app, a “Halide for video.” Talk never went past the “Wouldn’t it be cool…” phase, because we weren’t sure if we could juggle a second major app. We’re a small team. Ridiculously small. One designer and developer.

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The team, circa 2019 – photographed by Apple for a feature exclusive to the Japanese App Store. ありがとう!

We knew expectations were sky high, and honestly, nothing excited us about iPhone video. It felt photography was at the forefront of the camera innovations.

Our attitude quickly changed in November 2023, and we launched our video app, Kino, six months later. This is the story of why we made the plunge, its whirlwind development, the results, and where we go from here.

Fall 2023: “How hard could it be?”

At the end of last summer, Sebastiaan and I launched Orion, a free app that helps turn your iPad into an HDMI monitor.

We normally take our time with new projects. Both Halide and Spectre each took one year to ship (though, in our defense, these started as side projects). Orion was a fun challenge to see if our two-man company could ship a brand-new app in 45 days, and it went really well. It reset expectations of what we could accomplish quickly, but it felt a bit exhausting toward the end.

We expected to spend the rest of the year slowing down and turning our attention to Halide. We were in the home stretch of a brand new feature that we were very excited about, and with another month or two of work, we could bring it across the finish line.

I could also use a little breather for the rest of the year, as I expected my first kid at the end of February.

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Those plans changed moments after the Orion release, with Apple’s unveiling of the iPhone 15 Pro. We watch every keynote paying close attention to changes in photography, which we’ll weave into our fall Halide update. This time we were blown away by the announcement of “log video.”

Log video is a very big deal. It contains much more information than conventional iPhone video, allowing ridiculous control over the final image. Apple called it Apple Log. Of course.

Apple Log video is fantastic for professional-looking video — but it requires some editing.

As Apple Log made waves in the filmmaking community, we got a sense of déjà vu. Our minds went back to the Summer of 2016, when Apple iPhones would soon capture RAW photos, allowing incredible editing superpowers. Sebastiaan and I felt that was the right time to build Halide. Now, with Apple Log, we felt iPhone video was about to have its RAW moment.

That said, there are only so many hours in the day. Could we add another major app to our portfolio without supporting ou breadwinner, Halide?

Well, Halide is overdue for a refresh. Its foundations were built seven years ago, and Apple’s newer technologies would vastly improve the product. Orion wasn’t just a fun side project, it was a test as to whether Apple’s new technologies were mature enough to start rolling into Halide. If so, how much do they improve our productivity? The result was “yes,” and “a ton.” We were able to accomplish some tasks for Orion in hours that would take days in Halide.

But Orion wasn’t nearly as complex as Halide. Our video app would let us build a foundation for the future. While our photo and video apps would never share user interfaces, we could architect them to share underlying technologies. If we do this right, we can manage the workload.

The Deadline

Maybe the hardest part of our job is planning everything around Apple’s schedule. We spend summers readying our apps for the Fall iOS release, which launches alongside new iPhones. Then we scramble to test our apps and support the new camera hardware. If we’re lucky, we get six months a year to define our product direction.

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Our desk is always a pile of iPhones of various generations – and the pile grows every fall.

That said, constraints help you focus. We decided that Orion had to launch when iOS 17 dropped, because we expected lots of similar apps to pop up over time, and we wanted to be there right out of the gate. Orion had to ship in 45 days, so we made it work.

I’m not advocating crunch time, where developers work long hours for the sake of unrealistic deadlines. Quite the opposite. Deadlines force us to accept that we won’t get everything done in 1.0. We have the freedom to cut as many features as needed to keep things sustainable. The old adage goes, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion,” but can’t the same be true for work shrinkage?

The question was whether we could ship a whole new camera app within four months, before my baby’s due date. It might sound ridiculous, given Halide 1.0 took one year to ship, but Orion proved how much more productive we could be with the latest technology, and this time we were building a camera with seven years of experience in Apple’s AV stack.

One reason that Halide and Spectre each took a year was that we handled 100% of each project ourselves. With Orion, we worked with Anton Heestand on its wonderful over-the-top onboarding, and Cabel Sasser wrote us an intro song! It turns out we can delegate work and collaborate with friends without losing any character.

The biggest risk with our four-month deadline had nothing to do with code. We were worried that we didn’t yet understand what we were building. There were already plenty of free apps that let you record Apple Log. What could our new app bring to the table?

Defining the Product

After surveying the app landscape, we quickly realized that every app that supports Apple Log targets advanced users. These types of users look at a high-end camera rig and go, “Wow! Cool!”

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If you look at this and you go ‘hell yeah’, yes, you are that kind of user.

Don’t get me wrong, we love this stuff, but we weren’t excited to build a high-end tool exclusive to pros. But as we dug into the techniques of filmmaking, I had a flashback to the late 90s and early 2000s. I grew up on the cusp of digital filmmaking and had lots of fun making short movies with friends.

Tequila (2006)

In the mid-2000s, we used a ridiculous camera that had been modified to shoot 10-bit log footage. That hacked camera required a handful of portable hard drives that would overheat at the worst times, but these technical shenanigans piqued my
curiosity, and led me down a path where I now build camera apps for a living.

Returning to the world of filmmaking excited me. I could build an app for 99% of people just starting who wish they could record beautiful, cinematic videos, but can’t make heads or tails of “colorspaces” or “shutter angles.” I had the chance to
build the camera I wish I had decades ago.


If we have one guiding principle, it’s the belief that “intuitive” and “powerful” do not have to be mutually exclusive. We thought our app could deliver 95% of the features demanded by high-end professionals without making the app too complex for novices. We’d start with an approachable 1.0, and carefully layering on more advanced features over time.

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It turned out, Sebastiaan had been quietly designing concepts for a video app for quite a while. This is how early some of Kino’s most recognizable visual elements were born, like the recording tally light ring that follows the curvature of your iPhone’s screen, or the little segmented audio levels.

one of Sebastiaan’s early Sketch explorations of a video app, codenamed ‘Amalfi’

That said, the worst way to explore a product is with a pixel-perfect version. A beautiful UX takes extra time, and pretty images can distract you from fundamental problems. So in the interest of speed, I spent the next few weeks focusing on a functional prototype that resembled Sebastiaan’s concepts. It could record Apple Log footage, connect to an external microphone, and let us quickly experiment with UI concepts.

We call this style ‘brutalist’

In December 2023, just as our prototype built momentum, news broke that Filmic Pro— the most popular filmmaking app on the App Store— was shutting down. This left a vacuum in the ecosystem of filmmaking apps and a material loss in our tiny community of camera apps.

Normally, we don’t pre-announce products. Part of it might be Sebastiaan’s ex-Apple penchant for secrecy, to announce stuff and surprise and delight. But it also raises expectations and runs the risk of committing to features that might not work out. At the same time, the demise of Filmic was an invaluable opportunity to announce our new app and test demand. We decided to pre-announce.

First, our app needed a name, and we didn’t want to repeat the pronunciation ambiguity of “Halide.” (Note: Sebastiaan says Hey-lide, and I say Hal-ide, but we switch every other week.) Sebastiaan floated a name that both encapsulated ‘craft video’ and sounded friendly: Kino.

I spent 24 hours shooting an announcement video with our alpha build, and we launched a teaser page at shotwithkino.com.

The reception to our video was overwhelmingly positive, and it felt like we had a hit on our hands.

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Now we just had to ship it. Wait… what were we shipping?

December: Instant Grade

Sometimes building products is like writing a story. Writers don’t go, “Once upon a time,” and finish the story in one pass. Many writers approach a blank page with ideas for characters, major plot points, and themes running through their heads. The hard part is forming loose ideas into a cohesive structure. It’s called “cracking the story,” and there’s a similar process in building products.

We decided a good starting point was to shoot videos. When you’re forced to eat your own dog food, you quickly figure out what works and what doesn’t. In a meta turn of events, we made a video about making Kino.

We appreciated the natural look of Apple Log footage, as it didn’t have the same post-processing you see in iPhone video. The hard part is giving log footage a nice treatment. Straight out of the camera, Apple Log looks… uh…

A frame from an Apple Log video. By design, log video is quite washed out.

Log footage is supposed to look that way. It just contains the ingredients that can make up gorgeous images, and it’s your job to bake them. You’re supposed to bring it into a high-end tool like Davinci Resolve to “color grade” it. While these tools feel empowering to professionals, to a novice, they feel as intuitive as the cockpit of a commercial airplane.

We knew Kino could be a game changer if it let everyone grade their footage right in the app with a tap, by using a handful of packaged presets.

But why stop there? We could let you import a preset from anywhere. Apple Log was only a month old, but pros were already selling great grade packs, ready to be imported into your favorite editing suite.

We saw that people like Evan Schneider and Tyler Stalman had made some beautiful presets.

And if you’re a high-end user, you could even author your own looks in Resolve! Speaking of the high end…

Tackling the High End

On the other end of the spectrum, we had to figure out what professionals demand. We packed up and flew down to Los Angeles, where Sebastiaan booked us into the only NFT hotel in town (Sebastiaan Note: So sorry, I had no idea).

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Google Photos is getting an Updates page to help you follow changes to shared albums

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More than a quarter of new code at Google is generated by AI

Google Photos is making it easier to follow activity in your shared albums with a new “Updates” section. In the new section, you’ll be able to see notifications like updates to a shared album and updates to a conversation within Google Photos, according to a support post from Google.

The Updates section can be found by tapping a bell icon that replaces the Sharing button (the one that looks like two people). Updates are shown chronologically, and you’ll be able to look at activity from “today, yesterday, this week, this month, last month, and beyond,” the Google Photos team says the post. “We want to streamline how you can view recent activity with an interface that makes albums, groups, and conversations more accessible.”

Google notes that if you want to access shared albums, you can do so from the newly-launched Collections section.

The new Updates page is rolling out now on the Android and iOS Google Photos apps. I personally don’t have it, but one of my colleagues does; if it’s not available to you, the Photos team says to check back “over the coming weeks.”

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Another reason to avoid edge-lit 4K TVs: they may fail faster than others, according to this report

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The Edge: good for rock, not so good for lighting your TV


  • Edge-lit LEDs appear to develop visible problems very early
  • Problems are particularly obvious with larger-sized displays
  • Shop around for discounts on better-quality panels

Late last year, we published a warning for Black Friday TV buyers: avoid big TVs with cheap edge-lit panels. The main reason was the visual quality, as edge-lit panels aren’t great for big sizes. But a new report suggests another reason you should steer clear. Big edge-lit panels appear to fail more quickly than other types of TV displays.

That’s according to Rtings’ ongoing TV longevity tests, as reported by FlatpanelsHD.com. The tests feature 100 different TVs from multiple brands and with multiple technologies – edge-LED, direct LED, full array local dimming, and OLED – and the results for edge-LED aren’t great.

What’s the problem with edge-lit panels?

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Slick trick separates oil and water with 99.9 per cent purity

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Slick trick separates oil and water with 99.9 per cent purity

Oil and water are difficult to separate without leaving some impurities

Abaca Press/Alamy

Mixtures of oil and water can be efficiently separated by pumping them into thin channels between semipermeable membranes, paving the way to cheaper and cleaner ways to deal with industrial waste. Experimental prototypes managed to recover both oil and water with a purity greater than 99.9 per cent.

Various methods already exist to split such mixtures into component parts, including spinning them in a centrifuge, mechanically skimming oil from the surface and splitting them with chemicals, electrical charges or semipermeable membranes, which allow some substances through, but not others. Membranes are the simplest method, but are currently imperfect, leaving behind a stubborn mix of oily water or watery oil.

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Now, Hao-Cheng Yang at Zhejiang University in China and his colleagues have developed a more efficient method that uses two membranes – one hydrophobic layer that allows oil to pass, and one hydrophilic layer that allows water to pass – in order to cleanly separate both.

Yang says the idea has been tried before with less-than-impressive results. This is because as oil or water is removed from the mixture, the concentration of the components changes, making the membranes less efficient.

To overcome this, the team pumped the mixture into a thin channel between the two layers. In this confined space, droplets of oil are more likely to collide and accumulate, which means they can then be removed more efficiently by the hydrophobic membrane. This, in turn, increases the ratio of water in the mixture, creating a beneficial feedback loop that ensures both clean oil and water are removed continually.

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“When we put the membranes [close] together, they will affect each other, making the process continue,” says Yang. “There’s a feedback between the two processes.”

In tests, the researchers found that total oil recovery increases from just 5 per cent to 97 per cent and water recovery increases from 19 per cent to 75 per cent as the channel width is narrowed from 125 millimetres to 4 millimetres. The purity of the recovered oil and water is more than 99.9 per cent, with only small amounts of waste left, says Yang.

The team is in talks with industry and Yang believes that the process is so simple that it could easily be scaled up to suitable levels within a few years.

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This 24-inch gaming monitor is under $100 at Walmart

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This 24-inch gaming monitor is under $100 at Walmart
An Onn. 24-inch gaming monitor on a white background.
Onn.

Monitor deals are rarely this inexpensive: Walmart just knocked $50 off the Onn. 24-inch FHD Gaming Monitor. Usually priced at $149, it’s down to $99, which is a steal of a deal for a gaming monitor with some great specs. If that instantly sounds appealing to you, keep reading while we take you through what the Onn. 24-inch FHD gaming monitor has to offer for the price. The deal is proving popular already, so don’t count on it sticking around for much longer.

Why you should buy the Onn. 24-inch FHD gaming monitor

While you might not think of Onn. as making some of the best monitors, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the Onn. 24-inch FHD gaming monitor. It’s a 24-inch 1080p/full HD monitor with an impressive refresh rate of 165Hz. That means even if you’re playing action-packed games that are moving quickly, you won’t have to worry so much about motion blur as your monitor will be able to keep up with it.

Alongside that, the Onn. 24-inch FHD gaming monitor uses adaptive sync technology so it works well with your graphics card. There’s a 1ms response time so input lag won’t be a negative factor here. It also has low blue light adjustments, and you can change the height, pivot, swivel it, and tilt the monitor through the adjustable stand. One of the best gaming monitors? Maybe in this price range, given how affordable the Onn. 24-inch FHD gaming monitor is.

On the back, the Onn. 24-inch FHD gaming monitor has two HDMI ports and a DisplayPort, so you can easily hook up your PC or your console to it. Eight different gaming modes also add to the potential of the Onn. 24-inch FHD gaming monitor — tweak things just how you like them. It all comes together to make the Onn. 24-inch FHD gaming monitor surprisingly feature packed for the price.

Usually $149, the Onn. 24-inch FHD gaming monitor is down to the bargain price of $99 right now at Walmart. This is a fantastic price for a gaming monitor that has all the key tech specs you need. Check it out now by tapping the button below before the deal ends very soon.

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Sony has patented a controller with a rewind feature

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Sony has patented a controller with a rewind feature

Sony made some honest to god advancements to the game controller when it released the PlayStation DualSense alongside the PS5, and now it’s apparently looking to add some more innovation with the inclusion of a rewind feature.

The company has patented a new type of controller that comes with a rewind button. This would allow users to rewind gameplay with “user-triggered bookmarks.” The patent was discovered on Patentscope by Tech4Gamers (via TechRadarGaming). It appears to have been published as of October 31, 2024. The patent was applied for back in April of 2023. That might suggest that Sony is already working on this type of controller. Since the patent was applied for more than a year ago.

That does not, however, mean that Sony actually plans to release it. Sony could also just be securing the patent in case it ever wants to start developing a controller with such a feature.

Sony controller with a rewind feature would allow you to rewind gameplay

You can technically rewind a game now, although it depends on the game and it doesn’t really work like this feature that the patent is describing. However, any number of games will allow you to reset at a checkpoint after death. So in a sense, this would be a more advanced version of that perhaps.

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The difference may lie in the ability to immediately hit the rewind button and go back to a very specific point of the player’s choosing. According to the patent, when the rewind button is pressed, it captures a series of frames and places them in sequential order. From there, users can pick out a frame and re-enter live gameplay from that point.

“The user is able to enter the rewind mode from the live gameplay using one or more controller inputs to view recent gameplay (e.g. rewinding, fast-forwarding, playing, etc.), and returning to live gameplay afterward,” the patent says.

The button could also allow for fast-forwarding

In addition to the rewind feature, the new button would also allow players to fast-forward. This could potentially let players skip past a particularly difficult portion or area of the game. It’s also noted that the button would be in the same location as the current share button on the DualSense. So it seems this would take the place of the share button. However, the rewind button would incorporate the share button features, so nothing would presumably be lost here.

The patent also describes additional features like a Highlight Reel mode. It’s unclear if this controller will ever make it into consumer’s hands. But, if it did it would be a nifty feature that could enhance gameplay on PlayStation consoles even further.

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Affirm (AFRM) earnings report Q1 2025

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Affirm (AFRM) earnings report Q1 2025


Block and Affirm slide on earnings

Affirm, the provider of buy now, pay later loans reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results.

Here’s how the company did, compared to analysts’ consensus estimates from LSEG.

  • Loss per share: 31 cents adjusted vs. a loss of 35 cents expected
  • Revenue: $698 million vs. $664 million expected

Affirm reported gross merchandise volume (GMV) of $7.6 billion, topping the average estimate of $7.28 billion, according to StreetAccount. GMV, a key metric that helps gauge the total value of transactions, increased by 35% from a year earlier.

Revenue in the fiscal first quarter rose 41% from $496.5 million a year earlier.

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Revenue less transaction costs (RLTC) came in at $285 million, ahead of earlier guidance of $265 million to $280 million.

Affirm said it expects to achieve profitability on a GAAP basis in its fiscal fourth quarter of 2025. Last quarter, CEO Max Levchin said in a note to shareholders that the company had set a new goal of hitting operating profitability on a GAAP basis by the end of its fiscal year.

The company sees second-quarter revenue of between $770 million and $810 million, or $790 million in the middle of the range, versus the average estimate of $785 million, according to LSEG. Affirm is guiding to GMV in the range of $9.35 billion to $9.75 billion. Analysts polled by StreetAccount called for GMV of $9.48 billion.

Affirm shares were about flat for the year as Thursday’s close, but have been trending higher lately, up more than 70% since the end of August.

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The company’s new relationship with Apple plus other partnerships with Amazon and Shopify are helping results. In June, Affirm and Apple announced plans for U.S. Apple Pay users on iPhones and iPads to be able to apply for loans directly through Affirm.

“Affirm’s growth story has continued, particularly as they add new strategic distribution partners,” Kevin Kennedy, an analyst at global research firm Third Bridge, said in an email.

Kennedy added that the quality of Affirm’s underwriting, specifically for higher-priced orders and interest-bearing BNPL purchases, sets the company apart from the growing list of competitors.

“The payments space is constantly facing commoditization risk, and BNPL, while nascent, is facing the same challenge,” he wrote. “However, large ticket interest bearing purchases, which are becoming more accessible through Affirm, are better protected” compared with offerings from peers, he added.

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Square parent Block, which also reported earnings after the bell, acquired BNPL firm Afterpay for $29 billion in 2021.

Affirm’s quarterly earnings call starts at 5:00 P.M. eastern.

WATCH: Affirm CEO on consumer behavior

Affirm CEO on consumer behavior: 'shopping is back on and people are buying'



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