QuickCam on The iPhone: A Personal Review

Yo people! What's up? :)

Today I'm gonna blog about this new app that has just arrived on to the App Store. It's called QuickCam, written by those guys who did the ClearCam, another great camera app for the iPhone of which I have also reviewed here.  

I've been testing it for a week now and I find myself using QuickCam more than the stock Camera app by Apple. One thing that you'll notice when you first open this app is the speed. While it takes a couple of seconds for the stock Camera to fire up, QuickCam only needs 1 to 2 seconds on my iPhone 3GS. 

Once the app has started, you'll be greeted by this user-friendly interface: 

Well, I admit that this is not the best looking GUI for a camera app, but hey it's fast! How many times have you found yourself missing on some quality shots just because you were waiting for your camera app to start? I've been through a few myself.

Besides, the GUI is very self-explanatory too. And that is the reason I think that the developer didn't include a Help/Info button on QuickCam :)

The button on the right is used to take still shots. Tapping it once takes a single shot where you'll see a white flash on the screen together with the shutter sound. If you would like to take multiple shots, just hold your tap onto the button and voila, multiple shots without even lifting your fingers!

The button on the left is for taking videos. Tapping the button once automates the recording process, of which the button will turn red. Tap the button again, its colour turns back to blue and the recording stops. 

I think the biggest selling point of this app is that you can take video and still shots at the same time. Yes, you read that right! While video taking, tapping the camera button takes still shots of that particular moment without stopping the video recording! And I think that at this point of time, this is the only app which is capable of doing this.

The magnifying glass slider in the middle, needless to say is the zoom button. Alternatively, you can also zoom in and out via the pinching 'viewfinder'. While the slider has a limit on how much you can zoom in, the pinching action doesn't. This means that you can zoom in all that you want to while taking videos or photos, albeit compromising on the quality once you zoom in too much.

Since I was only testing it on a 3GS, some of the features included such as flash, switch-to-front-camera and video light could not be tested. However, they should be able to work on the iPhone 4. 

Overall, this is a pretty solid app if you need to take videos and pictures in a jiffy with its fast start up time. However, features wise, I think ClearCam still stands out. But then again, these 2 apps are targeting different users and of course, different operating conditions. For speed, QuickCam is the way to go.

The app is now available on the App Store at a special launching price of $0.99. 

Cheers,

Mark