Halide camera app

What hackers pick instead

• Open CameraFree Android camera app offering full manual control and optional features; critics say it lags on high-resolution shots and trails stock apps on newer phones.16recommend
• Google CameraFree camera app whose image processing and panorama mode people prefer, especially via third-party ports. Caveat: ported versions may differ from the stock app and lack photo preview.10recommend
• iPhone dual-lens photo fusion appFuses simultaneous shots from two iPhone lenses into one photo; some find the results sharper. Most common caveat: the free tier allows only 3 exports a month.8recommend
• GCam (Google Camera port)Recommended for better photo results than Open Camera, and for people who find photo quality important. Free ports are hosted for Android phones.5recommend
• GrapheneOS CameraFree camera app for GrapheneOS phones that needs no media, storage or default location permissions. Critics call it fine but nothing outstanding.5recommend

Every quote

The 26 most detailed of 30 comments. Each links to the original.

1. I've had it save a number of photos that the native app couldn't handle. But as a lifelong photographer, technologist, and occasional developer, I still somehow get really lost in the inscrutable icons

   Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Looks: A Halide Mark III Preview”

2. One of the big benefits of Halide (and working with raws) is that I'm not beholden to the aesthetic preferences of its creator.

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Looks: A Halide Mark III Preview”

3. getting a camera app like Halide and shooting in one of the RAW formats will let you do this and more

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “What an unprocessed photo looks like”

4. I recommend trying out RAW photography with the Extended Dynamic Range setting set to on

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (January 2026)”

5. You can avoid a lot of the smudgy processing on an iPhone by shooting ProRAW

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Google launches Pixel 11 Pro Fold”

6. They very obviously care deeply, and that's reflected in the product

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Looks: A Halide Mark III Preview”

7. people using Halide's app were able to capture correctly

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Looks: A Halide Mark III Preview”

8. Love Halide, and Pro Raw and Nitro, and pay for these

   Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Looks: A Halide Mark III Preview”

9. I can't remember the last time I lost a shot.

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: iPhone app takes simultaneous images from 2 lenses, fuses into 1 photo”

10. I bought Halide and it is indeed a nice app

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Looks: A Halide Mark III Preview”

11. the grandfathering somehow stopped working for me because I didn't buy it on my primary App Store account

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Open Camera is a FOSS Camera App for Android”

12. Also slower and I haven’t noticed any changes or improvements in the last two years.

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: iPhone app takes simultaneous images from 2 lenses, fuses into 1 photo”

13. Halide's subscription system seems to have broken since late 2024/early 2025

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: iPhone app takes simultaneous images from 2 lenses, fuses into 1 photo”

14. only works if I'm logged into the App Store account I purchased it from.

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Open Camera is a FOSS Camera App for Android”

15. that doesn't unlock the new updates sadly

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: iPhone app takes simultaneous images from 2 lenses, fuses into 1 photo”

16. it feels like it's getting behind

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: iPhone app takes simultaneous images from 2 lenses, fuses into 1 photo”

17. writing the algorithm and the execution descriptions as separate passes with access to auto-optimisers and GPU runtimes

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Everyone Should Know SIMD”

18. Halide had the right idea, and some of us could sense that tile-based programming would eventually go mainstream

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “CUDA-oxide: Nvidia's official Rust to CUDA compiler”

19. allow you to achieve performance without needing to resort to asm

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Memory Safety Absolutists”

20. Halide which is better suited to macro (coin) photography

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook”

21. Then Process Zero comes and solves all of my issues...

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Looks: A Halide Mark III Preview”

22. which was a huge rewrite and leap forward in features

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: iPhone app takes simultaneous images from 2 lenses, fuses into 1 photo”

23. camera apps that give me more control

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “What an unprocessed photo looks like”

24. Halide looks really interesting!

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Halide – a language for fast, portable computation on images and tensors”

25. I lost tons of photos because apparently I turned the screen off before the photo finished saving to the library.

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Show HN: iPhone app takes simultaneous images from 2 lenses, fuses into 1 photo”

26. And other camera apps, I use Halide too.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief”