Last year, we released The Heist for iPhone. The reaction was awesome.

We’ve since been thinking a lot about what worked. Running through the list:

• Heist theme, story and setting
• 4th wall-busting light ARG elements
• Fiendish puzzles to solve
• Crack the MacHeist vault
• Awesome production value
• Free software, with Eets as a freebie to loot at the end

It’s a fine list, and it’s tempting to pat ourselves on the back for successfully porting the essence of the MacHeist experience to iOS.

But we started thinking about what didn’t work, or what might be missing, and then it hit us. We had somehow managed to forget the very thing we’re famous for – a bundle of awesome, discounted software, and delivering insane, bordering unbelievable value for our customers.

So we made it a bundle.

New in The Heist 1.1, crack the safe and loot up to $25 of awesome games for Mac and PC… PLUS, we’re also lowering the ticket price to just 99¢:

*World of Goo limited to the first 25,000 who make it to 100% completion

Yes, it’s an absurd, impossibly good value proposition. We figured if we ran the numbers, they wouldn’t work out. So we forgot to run the numbers.

This one’s on the house. Enjoy!

Oh, and speaking of Facebook, we have fixes for the issues that some of you’ve been experiencing with Facebook posting. We decided that it’d be best to hold them for the next release because we need to do much more extensive testing on them, though. But rest assured that we’re on it and you’ll see them in another update shortly.

http://campl.us

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Pair

Pair is a private shared timeline for couples which allows them to easily send SMS messages, photos, videos and locations. In Pair, you can access all the creative shooting and editing tools of Camera+ directly from the “+” button. Take a photo, edit it, and hit “use”. Your photo will pop up seamlessly on your Pair timeline.

“We didn’t have enough time to figure out how to do custom photo filters, so the integration API was a life saver. Thanks so much!”
— Jamie Murai, Pair

Forkly

Forkly helps people discover and share great food where ever they are. Now with Camera+ integration, users can make their food photos come to life using some of our best specialized features like photo flash light, the food scene mode, and a number of great fxs.

“It was easy to integrate the new Camera+ API into the Forkly app. Food photography is a challenge and Camera+ is helping Forkly users to transform a quick shot here and there to images so vibrant and delicious that you can practically taste them. It’s an exciting move forward for the full Forkly experience.”
— Brady Becker, Forkly

Roamz

Location-based social networking app, Roamz added integrated with Camera+ in their most recent version allowing their users to get more creative with their shared photos. Now, you can easily access Camera+ from the “Add Activity” panel.

“Integrating Camera+ into Roamz was a cinch for our developers, giving our users access to a world-class photo editing service. Now it’s even easier for them to share incredible images to within our community, which was something they were crying out for. We couldn’t be happier with how it fits into our service.”
— Heather Ann Snodgrass, Roamz

Scotty

Galarina’s Scotty app allows you to transfer all your Camera+ lightbox photos between iOS devices or from an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch to a Mac.

Wrenchy

Wrenchy is virtual garage app that keeps you current on regularly scheduled maintenance needs for your car. Making your car look awesome is a snap with Camera+ integration. Go ahead, HDR your Porsche, we know you want to!

The Camera+ API was incredibly easy to use and makes an awesome addition to Wrenchy. Taking pictures of your auto maintenance receipts for your records is a central feature for Wrenchy. Camera+ makes our receipt management really amazing. Thanks a lot guys!
— Bryce, Wrenchy

Join the cool club!

All the juicy API details are on api.camerapl.us, along with the integration library, a sample app, and a support forum. If you would like to learn how Camera+ integration would be a great addition to your app, please check it out!

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One of our users, Ed Elliott created a detailed guide for Camera+ that is worth checking out. If you are looking for a little guidance on how the app works, this comprehensive guide goes into detail about the various shooting modes, editing tools, and sharing options available in Camera+.

But in the process of doing so, somehow having the shooting mode set to Burst would cause slowdowns when launching Camera+. We’ve identified this thanks to some diligent users who helped us track it down and it’ll be fixed in the next update of the app.

In the meantime, to get around the slow loading issue, simply don’t leave the shooting mode set to Burst when you exit the app.

http://campl.us

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We’ve crossed the 10 million paid sales mark for all of our apps.

When you consider that I started tap tap tap just a few short years ago… essentially as a hobby… it’s pretty mind-blowing. The iPhone and the App Store have really changed everything.

None of this would’ve been possible without the amazing teams I work with here and without all of you, our great, loyal customers. Thanks.

http://taptaptap.com

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One of the flagship features in Camera+ 3 is the all new app integration API. It enables other apps to easily offer their users access to Camera+ features. They can use Camera+ to shoot a photo, or choose a photo from the Lightbox; use Camera+ to edit a photo or share photos with Camera+’s social sharing function.

We’ve been working with some amazing developers who have already integrated their apps with Camera+. You can try these out immediately as they’re already on the App Store…

Tweetbot

In Tweetbot you can now choose to use Camera+ when you want to add a photo to a tweet. Once you’ve chosen the right photo you’re popped back into Tweetbot and the photo slides smartly into place. You can also use Camera+ to edit a photo before you tweet it, so you’ll always post exactly what you want.

The Camera+ integration in Tweetbot gives our users the ability to do very advanced image editing without adding a ton of code and UI complexity to our app. It’s a huge win for us.
— Paul Haddad, Tapbots

WordPress

When you start a new photo post in the WordPress iOS app you can now choose to take the photo using Camera+ or choose a photo from the Lightbox. Once you’ve chosen the photo it pops back into the WordPress app ready for you to post to your blog.

It was surprisingly easy to integrate Camera+ into the WordPress for iOS app. The ability to post great photos in a quick and seamless way is priceless – we expect a lot of people to be very excited about this enhancement.
— Isaac Keyet, WordPress

Foodspotting

Foodspotting has added a Use Camera+ option to its Spot menu, so you can jump straight into Camera+ to take a photo of your food, or grab one from the Lightbox that you’ve taken earlier.

Camera+ has been our team’s food photo taking app of choice for a while now (Clarity + Depth of Field = Amazing food photos!). Being able to launch Camera+ straight from Foodspotting makes something we already do — shoot with Camera+ then import into Foodspotting — easier than ever.
— Alexa Andrzejewski, CEO, Foodspotting

Your name here?

We’ve published our API documentation over on api.camerapl.us, along with the integration library and a sample app. If Camera+ integration would be cool in your app, we now invite you to jump in and take a look! We’d love to have you onboard.

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We’ve just hit the 7 million sales mark for Camera+. A huge thanks goes out to all of you who’ve supported us by purchasing Camera+!

And without further ado, allow me to introduce you to Camera+ 3. It’s the biggest and best version of the app ever. We’ve slaved over this update for you for many, many months and we truly hope you enjoy using it nearly as much as we’ve enjoyed bringing it to you.

Here’s what’s new in it…

App icon

The very first thing you’ll notice in Camera+ 3 is its shiny, new icon. It’s essentially the same Camera+ icon that you’ve grown to know and love… but better and much more polished.

Here’s a back-to-back comparison of the old and new icons so you can see the difference…

Dramatically improved sharing

There are two main improvements here… The first is that you can now share to multiple services, or even multiple accounts on the same service, all at the same time. The second big thing that you’ll notice with sharing is the increase in speed. It’s now faster than ever to share your photos online.

Multiple photo library import

We’re introducing a great new feature where you can import multiple photos from your photo library all at once. And we’ve added several fine touches to the import panel. Large thumbnails, zooming to view your photo large, and photo info will help ensure that you’re choosing exactly the photos you want.

Workflows

Sometimes you want to shoot a bunch of pics in a row without having to think about things like editing and sharing. And sometimes you want to do just the opposite and edit and share each pic you take, right after you take it. Workflows easily provide you with the flexibility to do it either way.

Focus & exposure locks

Now you can lock the focus and exposure of the camera, independently of each other. Photographers looking for the utmost flexibility in shooting will love this new feature because it enables all kinds of creative ways of taking awesome shots.

“Bokeh?! I hardly know her!”

APIs

We’ve created a few comprehensive APIs for Camera+. These APIs enable people to integrate Camera+ into other apps and to create web services that make use of the many, many photos that have been shared by Camera+ users.

The first part of the API is web widgets. Very easily add the photos you share with Camera+ to your own website.

Next, there’s the app integration API. Use Camera+ functionality to integrate high-quality photo shooting, editing, and sharing in your own iOS apps.

And thirdly, there’s the web sharing API. Create web, mobile, and desktop apps that enable browsing Camera+ user’s shared photos in unique and interesting ways.

Several prominent developers have already integrated Camera+ into their apps via these new APIs. Check-out the WordPress, Tweetbot, Twitterrific, Foodspotting, and Twittelator Neue apps in the App Store to see these APIs in action.

Our lead programmer / all around fine chap, Good Karl, will be posting many more details about the APIs here shortly. He and Terrorist Karl spent a lot of time polishing them and writing-up some great documentation so that you can incorporate Camera+ functionality into your apps as easily as possible. But if you’re anxious to delve into the APIs immediately, you can visit http://api.camerapl.us now and get going on making cool things.

Improved Lightbox UI

We’re a bit obsessive when it comes to user interface and user experience. With Camera+ 3, we’ve reworked several details of the Lightbox to make it even more usable. It’ll take a couple of seconds to get used to the changes but we’re completely confident that you’ll love these improvements almost immediately.

Create web link

Many of you used to use the SMS sharing feature (now renamed to Message) for passing web links along to others. Now we’ve got a much better, easier, and dedicated way of doing it.

Tuned Clarity

Often imitated but never duplicated, Clarity is one of the things that makes Camera+ what it is. And now it’s even better, especially if you’re using an iPhone 4S.

VolumeSnap setting in menu

VolumeSnap is our birthright. That is all.

Status bar in Lightbox

In previous versions of Camera+, we didn’t display the status bar (you know… that thingy with the clock, battery level, etc at the top of your screen) when you were in the Lightbox. Well, that’s all changed with this version! Never again miss picking your kids up at soccer practice because you were editing photos and had no clue what time it was.

Improved performance

We’ve gone through painstaking steps to improve performance in several parts of the app. It all feels a lot more fluid now. But don’t just take our word on it… try it yourself and see how much nicer it is now.

Notifications

Find-out about Camera+ updates, news, and contests. We’ve implemented notifications so they’re not intrusive and they’re opt-in only.

Lotsa bug fixes

We’ve identified and fixed several bugs in Camera+. Thanks to all of you who’ve reported any issues you’ve experienced.

Various other subtle, but significant enhancements

“Beware of the person who can’t be bothered by details.”
— William Feather

And that’s about it for now. We really do hope you enjoy Camera+ 3 and that you’re looking forward to all that’s in store for the future of the app.

Thanks again to all of you for your support!

http://campl.us

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Stress in small doses is a good thing. Given an achievable goal and controlled timeframe, stress keeps you out of the doldrums. If your boss gives you a challenging project within your resources and abilities, your day flies by. Stress mobilizes you appropriately if you are an antelope running from a lion, or if you are held at gunpoint.

Problems arise when the chase never stops, when your boss gives you tasks you do not have the resources to solve, or when you are stuck in traffic for hours and don’t know if it will end.

Technology is not usually seen as an optimal tool for handling stress. I was doubtful when I began producing Serenity. After fifteen years as a massage therapist, I was sure that technology could do nothing more than create more problems than it solved. But I decided to set doubt aside and suspend preconceived notions.

My first intention for Serenity was to give people a tool to help them pause. I’ve seen way too many folks tie their bodymind into knots — literally — for lack of pausing. I also wanted to help people who could use pleasant distraction from chronic pain, or who wanted to complement stress-reliving things they were doing already (like yoga and meditation).

From the reviews in the app store so far, it looks like the intention came through.

Overall, the reviews are amazing and, although Serenity lacks the mega-hit factor of certain other taptaptap apps, the people using Serenity are passionate about it.

On the website, I alluded to using Serenity to take a “sound bath”. If you just purchased Serenity and are wondering what to do with it, this is a good place to start:

Sound Bath Recipe

Ingredients:

• Serenity
• headphone set or airplay-enabled device
• You

Mix these ingredients in a quiet room. Minimize distractions by closing the door, making sure kids and pets are occupied, the lights are dimmed, ringers and TV off. Make sure that you won’t be too distracted by hunger or thirst. Lay comfortably on the floor or on a couch near the speakers, or put on headphones.

Put a blanket over yourself if you are cold. In a few minutes, your heart rate will start to slow to match, which may cause your body temperature to drop as you relax.

Select a screen that strikes your fancy and set the timer to 15-20 minutes. As the music plays, let the sound wash over you. Focus on your breathing, letting it become deep, slow and regular. Set aside any “to-do’s” that come to mind. Just take note of them and let them go. You can watch the movie play for a while and then close your eyes.

When you are done with your sound bath, get up slowly, stretching a little and transition back to life gently.

Call it the softer, sweeter side of tap tap tap. Call it techno-medicine. I hope you enjoy.

-Flo

The Team

Many talented individuals helped Serenity through its sometimes messy birth process:

Corwin Derkatch – Lead Programmer
Wolfgang Bartelme – Graphic Designer
Florence Arnold – Producer
Josh Mobley – Sound Designer
Art Gillespie – Binaural Beat Generator Programmer
Karl Baron – Web Programmer
John Casasanta – Executive Producer

For all the details on Serenity, please visit http://taptaptap.com/serenity/

Here are the weekly sales after Apple’s 30% cut…

The app has earned us a grand total of $5,125,844 to date.

Over the past 6 months, Camera+ revenue has increased over 3x. Play along and fantasize for a second about that trend continuing over time… if it keeps going, by 2018 our daily sales would be twice the world population. Yeah, this growth might not be sustainable over time. Anyway…

The two most relevant things contributing to the large jumps on the right side of the above chart were the launch of the iPhone 4S in early October and the annual Christmas bump. Both were increases that were expected but what’s been surprising is how long each has lasted.

When the iPhone 4S came out, Camera+ sales have approximately doubled and have sustained that new level since then. And with Christmas, even though it occurred weeks ago, sales have increased by about 2/3 more than the level they were before the holiday.

In comparison to last year, even though Camera+ was ranked higher on Christmas Day then (#6 last year versus #8 this year), the app tanked and fell off the Top 100 by the middle of January. This year, it’s actually risen in rank since Christmas and is currently at #4. And the tail of the Xmas bump is looking like it’ll be very long… even weeks after the holiday, sales numbers are still up considerably and not tapering-off by much at all.

It’s pretty obvious that the iPhone 4S has been doing incredibly well since it debuted.

The following graph shows Camera+ total sales over time. It’s interesting to see the increasing trend this way (not to mention the insane slope the last few months).

Various other Camera+ statistics

• on average, a copy of Camera+ is sold approximately every 3 seconds
• Camera+ was the top selling non-game app in the App Store in 2011
• over 5 million out of the total 6 million Camera+ sales have been in just the past 12 months
• Camera+ has had over 950,000 sales in the past 30 days alone
• even with the overall volatility of the App Store, Camera+ has consistently ranked in the Top 10 since early September
• in-app purchases of the “I ♥ Analog” effects pack only account for about 5% of Camera+ total sales, but this still adds up to over 340,000 sales to date, which on its own, would make for a highly successful standalone app

What’s the most surprising thing about all these stats? It’s that Camera+ has achieved all this and has never ranked #1 in either the US Top Paid or Top Grossing charts.

http://campl.us

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Happy New Year everyone! We thought we’d start 2012 with a fun photo project to get everyone shooting and sharing photos and discovering new awesome photography apps.

The Rules:

1. Take & edit a photo with your phone using three different photography apps.
2. Share your photo on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ and mention the three apps you used to take and edit the photo.
3. Add the hashtag #3photoapps

For the above photo of the Santa Monica Pier, I captured the photo in Camera+, added the Retro 70s FX, and cropped the photo square. I then brought the photo into the second app, Percolator which gave it those cool illustrated circles. My third app was Diptic where I combined half of the Percolated image and half of the Camera+ edited image in this collage.

I look forward to seeing all of the amazing photos you create!

We have a lot coming-up in the very near future with the app that I’m sure you’re going to love. We’re sticking with the the principles that we’ve stuck with all along and continuing to focus on the best photo quality and the best user experience with the app. The Hipstagrams of this world got the every-photo-should-look-the-same, asstastic-70s-retro thing down and we’re working extremely hard to try to truly innovate and do a lot better with Camera+.

http://campl.us

And for last-minute stocking-stuffers for your loved ones, you can give the gift of great photography for just 99¢ right here. It just takes a quick moment and you know how much they’ll appreciate it.

1. Shoot outdoor lights before it gets too dark

The best time to capture outdoor festive lights with an iPhone is during “blue hour” just before it goes completely dark. Catching the lights while you have enough ambient light will help you avoid getting blurry photos. You can help by using both hands to steady your iPhone while using the stabilizer mode. If you plan on doing a lot of night photography consider investing in a little tripod, the Glif or the Gymbl Pro make great options. Avoid leaning your iPhone on walls or ledges unless you have a protective case, one gust of air or curious cat paw can send your beloved iPhone tumbling onto the hard, unforgiving concrete floor.

2. Capture the sentimental details

It’s the small sentimental things that make your holiday special. Take shots of your favourite ornament, candles, table placings, and bows on gifts. To get great macro shots, position your iPhone at least 2″ away from your subject and tap the screen to focus. Use a second finger to get the proper exposure. Make sure you don’t get too close or the iPhone won’t focus! Also, you may want to add a bit of external light. For the above shot, I held a small twinkle light in front of the ornament to get more light on Santa and the reindeer.

3. Change your perspective by shooting from a low angle

The beauty of shooting with an iPhone is that you can easily move it around and even position it on the floor to get really interesting shots. Changing the angle that you shoot from changes the size of your subject and also plays on the the light and shade and patterns on objects. Get low and make presents look huge as your kids tear open gifts. Play with perspective by shooting from underneath the tree or below a plate of cookies.

4. Use focus settings to capture amazing bokeh lights

One way to get “wow” holiday shots from your iPhone is to position an object in the foreground of a lit tree or some twinkle lights. The lights in the background will become small out of focus light circles called “bokeh”. The trick is to position the object at least 5-10ft away from the lights. Tap to focus on the object and make sure the lights in the background are out of focus, then adjust the exposure by tapping with your second finger. If you aren’t getting any bokeh, you need to move the object further away from the background lights.

5. Compose and fill the frame for great holiday portraits

Photographs of your friends and family are the most precious holiday memories. It’s easy to forget to compose shots with an iPhone, so turn on the grid mode and fill the frame with your subject by getting close and cropping out any background distractions. Since my friends and family are shy, Squatchi agreed to pose for me amid a fervent present wrapping session.

6. Focus on one point of interest

Holiday photos can often get cluttered with people, colours, and lights that all distract from what you are shooting. Use the Depth of Field FX in to blur out the distractions and bring your subject to the forefront. Tap on your photo in the Lightbox and hit FX. You’ll find Depth of Field in the Special FXs.

7. Use Photo flash light to capture beautiful food photos

In between eating plates of cookies, brightly wrapped chocolates, and delicious buffets of yum, snap some photos of your holiday treats. iPhone food photography can turn ugly pretty quickly if you don’t light things properly, so if you are in a dimly lit room or restaurant, instantly add light by using photo flashlight (a continuos light source). Just tap on the flash icon in the shooting screen and choose the photo flashlight icon. Tap on your subject to get focus. Tap again with a second finger to get a second exposure point to get the perfect exposure.

8. Use your headphones as a remote to snap shots in low light

One of the challenges with taking great holiday shots in low light is camera shake. If you are shooting ornaments in a dimly lit room use a tripod and your headphones as a cable release.

9. Tell the story with captions

Make sure you capture the “story” of your holidays from decorating cookies to putting up decorations to loved ones arriving at holiday gatherings. Tell the story of these moments by adding fun captions. First, add a border and then tap the captions button.

10. Head outdoors for winter nature shots

You can capture some of the most spectacular sunsets during winter. Photograph barren frozen landscapes with stark silhouetted trees, or snow covered winter berries. It’s hard to get good photos if your hands are cold! Get some touch-screen compatible gloves so you can use your iPhone outside in cold temperatures. When your hards aren’t freezing you can spend the time to compose and focus on taking great shots.

Magic memories only happen once. Good thing you always have your iPhone and Camera+ in your pocket!

The most thrilling part about working on Camera+ is seeing all the amazing things people are creating with it. It was always our goal to create a tool that would inspire people to take and share their photos.

Don Williams, Editor of Ultimate MotorCycling, set out on his Harley-Davidson Switchback to conquer the open road on Route 6, the longest continuous highway in the US. Instead of weighing himself down with his bulky professional dSLR, he decided to travel light, capturing his entire journey on his iPhone using Camera+.

Don says in his article, “Just as painting is not about the brushes and paint, neither is photography about the camera. It’s about the person operating the camera and what he does with the images.” I couldn’t agree more.

“Everything happened with a camera phone and a 99¢ app from the Apple App Store.” Read about Don’s epic adventure here.

I hope this story inspires you to head out on your own iPhone photography adventure with Camera+. You might want to leave the Hog riding to the experts though