Review: Pano
Author: Jeff Noble | Posted under: Photography, ReviewsTags: native apps, panorama, panoramic images, photo, Photography
Pano v1.0 | Published by Debacle Software | Via App Store | $2.99 | Released: 10-13-08
Overview
Pano is an impressive entry into your iPhone app array, especially for those who have grown to love the iPhone camera, which surprisingly continues to churn out some amazing shots, even with its quirks. Pano allows you to take panorama shots, seamlessly weaving them together on your iPhone.
Functionality
Herein lies the difficulty… functionality. If you can get Pano up and running without an app crash, you’ll be delighted in what it does. I got crashes so frequently that it was hard for me to even write a review of the app. Every two out of three times I used it, either it crashed on startup or while adding the next shot.
But here’s how it’s supposed to work… Pano launches with a camera view. It immediately prompts you to take the left-most picture of your panorama. It will allow you to preview the shot and either retake it or use it. Then it’s off to the next segment of your panorama.
This is where the promise of Pano lies. As you take the next shot, you’ll notice a translucent ghost image of a portion of your previous shot on the left hand side of your screen. This allows you to overlay your next shot carefully. Very helpful.
After snapping the next shot, you simply shoot and repeat until you’re finished with your entire collection. Pano then stitches it all together into a seamless panorama and adds it to your photo library.
After trying a few outside shots and failing to get through the process, I tried in my office, and the image above was my first successful result. There are some tips at the Debacle Software site for a more cohesive pan shot, but overall, I was impressed by the result. I didn’t move from my angle in the corner of the room and was able to get three different walls into one single pan. The shot edges are noticeable only because of the distorted angles. I’m sure that with practice I could be taking gorgeous pans.
As far as how the app “looks,” well, it doesn’t. It does only what it says - takes multiple pictures and stitches them together. There are no options, no menus, nothing other than you pointing and clicking. For that reason, the aesthetics of the app are understandably understated. It’s no frills at its best. The performance issues seem to be acknowledged on their website - a hard reset is first recommended, then an uninstall and re-install. At last gasp, they urge you to call so they can help you figure out what is preventing your Pano experience.
Review
Pano offers something that I never would have dreamed of for the iPhone. Unfortunately, the iPhone camera, as most know, is simply inadequate for consistently good pictures. For those who have mastered its quirkiness, Pano will bring a welcomed feature to the table. I’ve been fortunate enough to snap a few really gorgeous photos with the iPhone, and with Pano, the opportunity to get some scenic shots opens new vistas for the iPhone lover.
Summary
In spite of the performance problems, I was pretty impressed with this app and found myself reading their FAQ just to see how Pano pulls this off. It’s a pretty steller app for the iPhone. Folks with an eye will really enjoy the ability to now record panoramas they encounter in their travels and daily routine. I enjoy the app enough to try and keep working to solve the performance stuff. For $2.99 though, I sincerely hope they’ll be bringing an update soon to resolve these annoyances.
Usability: 4 / 5
Value: 4 / 5
Utility: 3 / 5
Aesthetics: 3 / 5
I haven’t had ANY problems, and I LOVE this! Best $3 spent!! (to date)
Mike on October 27th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
It hasn’t crashed on me *at all*. (Not affiliated with the developer.)
Sure, we all experience these random app-crashes, but I’m beginning to believe that 99% of them have nothing to do with the apps, themselves — but are due, rather, to an unstable iPhone OS. (And yes, I’m running v2.1.)
I have never encountered a crash with *any* app that wasn’t solved by rebooting my iPhone. With all due respect — sincerely — I think it may be unfair to developers to attribute these types of crashes to the apps, themselves, in reviews.
mark on October 27th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Oh — forgot to say: I *love* this app. Easily the best $3 I’ve spent (and I’m an app junkie). LOL.
mark on October 27th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
@mark: most apps “crash” due to insufficient memory resources and there are plenty of things developers can do to optimize their apps to minimize this (granted, native apps sometimes crash too).
that said, i don’t think Jeff really punished the app — just reported what he experienced.
Andrew Robinowitz on October 27th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
there’s a similar app called panolab that’s FREE. while it doesn’t show u the ghost image while taking the next shot, it shows it to u afterwards and let’s u move and even rotate it to stitch them cleanly together. the finished result is a full 360 degree shot that u swipe to glide. it’s actually more than 360 degrees; u can take pics to see a whole SPHERICAL view including the ceiling and floor. while u obviously can’t save that to ur camera roll u can save it within the app. definitely worth checking out. please let me know if u think pano is better and worth my spending the extra $3.
eli on October 27th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Hey, my name is Julian and I’m one of the guys who developed Pano. As Pano does manipulation of raw image data, it’s a memory-intensive application. We do our best to keep the memory overhead as low as possible (and we’re hard at work on an update which will further lower it), but it’s always going to be relatively high. Unfortunately if an iPhone is short on memory to begin with, there’s nothing Pano can do, and the springboard will kill the app when it runs out.
(Sidenote: one of the most memory intensive parts of Pano is the camera tool, which is provided by Apple and developers are required to use to take pictures.)
In the few cases where we’ve heard from users who were experiencing crashes, a simple reboot has always solved the problem, and that’s what we’ve suggested on our FAQ. This is my own first response when I get crashes (both app store and native apps) on my iPhone.
Jeff, if you’d like to take the upcoming update for a spin, send me an email and we’ll set you up.
Julian on October 27th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
I take back part of what I said about panolab - u can’t save it to the app itself, rather u save it to ur camera roll. that makes it kind of hard to get save a wide shot made up of many pics, but if u zoom out when u save it it looks pretty good when u zoom in to the saved pic.
eli on October 27th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
@Mark: I was indeed just describing my experience with Pano. The fact that it is memory intensive (and that the good folks at Debacle are aware of it) is a certain cause of that. I think folks should know that when they have similar issues. Keep working to get it working. It’s well worth it.
Jeff Noble on October 27th, 2008 at 10:12 pm