Image credit: K?rlisDambr?ns via Wikimedia Commons
Since the iPhone 4S, the cameras on Apple’s smartphones have started competing toe-to-toe with their Android counterparts. The sensor, lens, and software of the iPhone 4S and the succeeding iPhone iterations have become considerably better. They have started producing snaps that compared to or even outperformed digital cameras. Now, iPhone users are using their cameras more often.
Still, the iPhone’s camera can still be improved with the help of apps that have not been integrated with the camera app yet. These apps can complement or supplement the iPhone’s processing, editing, and sharing functions.
1. Instagram – Best Photo Sharing App
Instagram is an extremely popular mobile photo sharing service. It would be illogical to not include it on a list of the best camera apps for iPhone. Obviously, this app provides the quickest way to access and use an Instagram account. It enables the quick editing and sharing of photos, with or without the filters and adjustments. More importantly, it also enables the fast sharing of photos on the web, not just among iPhone users but for Instagram users across platforms. The Instagram app carries with it almost all of the features available on the web-based Instagram account including the sending of private messages and the custom-built stabilization or videos.
2. YouTube Capture – Best Video Sharing App
Vine is great but can’t really compare to the more immense popularity and longer video duration supported by YouTube. YouTube Capture is an official app from Google that makes it easy to capture and share videos on YouTube. It comes with a number of useful editing or tweaking tools. It can stitch different video clips together. It has the ability to implement video stabilization and perform color correction. Moreover, it enables the quick sharing of videos not only on YouTube but also on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.
3. Adobe Photoshop Express – Best Professional Photo App
Photoshop has become a generic term for photo editing so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it is being considered as the best professional photo editing app for the iPhone. Sure, there are many photo editors available for the iPhone camera but, arguably, none could come close to the advanced features and functions Adobe Photoshop Express can offer. It even includes blemish removal, auto-fix, image quality correction, and photo sharing tools. It also has a RAW support and a new image rendering engine that greatly improves the handling of large photo files, something you would appreciate when you do edits on the 12MP photos captured by the new iPhone 6S.
4. Filterra – Best Photo Filters App
As the name obviously suggests, Filterra is an app for those who love photo filters. Developed with inputs from extensively experienced professional photographers, this app guarantees excellent filters for all photos you snap with your iPhone. Just head to the Filterra website and find examples of the many impressive ways filters can improve your photos. This app will likely change the way you view filters as a standard feature in camera apps. Even better, you can download Filterra for free and start using its extensive range of features and beautiful photo-enhancing filters and effects.
5. Photo Wall Pro – Best App for Collages
Photo Wall Pro allows you to piece various photos together to create beautiful collages and cards for birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and other occasions. It offers a variety of distinctive layouts and themes so you can easily produce collages that impress. It also has photo filters, content packs to supplement your collage compositions, background and border adding functions, the ability to write messages on the collage, and the convenient feature for uploading collages directly to Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter.
6. Snapchat – Best Photo Messenger
Including Snapchat on this list may sound contentious considering that this app does not enjoy high ratings on iTunes. However, as a messenger app that focuses on the sending of photos and videos, Snapchat is commendable. Its self-destructing concept alone is something many iPhone users will find useful. If you want to share a photo you don’t want your recipient to keep, this is doubtlessly the app you are looking for. Snapchat requires recipients to remain in contact with their touchscreens while viewing a sent photo, thereby preventing them from taking screenshots or making it difficult for them to grab another camera to take a photo of the photo being displayed on a device’s screen.
7. Camera+ – Best iPhone Camera Replacement App
Camera+ is often regarded as the best replacement for the standard iPhone camera app. It introduced features that were once absent in the iPhone camera app. Now on its fifth upgrade, Camera+ continues to improve, offering features that iPhone users wish they have on their standard camera app. Camera+ particularly excels in its impressing editing functions, customizable interface, and quick access to important settings like the f-stop, ISO, and white balance. It also has a great range of photo editing tools that include numerous filters, frames, and tints. Many users consider Camera+ as a more intuitive and versatile camera app than the one Apple has put in place for the iPhone camera.
These are some of the many apps that can help improve the iPhone camera. Hopefully, Apple would consider integrating them with the standard iPhone camera app or at least take cues from them to introduce new features that enhance the iPhone camera user experience. This is not to say that the iPhone’s camera app is not good. It has significantly improved over the years but certainly, nobody will complain with the addition of more features as long as they yield real advantages and don’t result to performance degradation.
