Halide, one of the highest-rated camera apps for the iPhone, updated to version 2.16 which gives it iOS 18 support (which launches today). Now, photographers can add Halide as the camera of choice on the lock screen and Control Center, replacing the default Camera App.
The company says this is beyond just a Lock Screen widget because Halide will be able to launch and take shots even when the phone is locked, which is the same expected behavior that the built-in camera app had ever since Apple enabled the feature in iOS years ago.
“Start setting up Lock Screen Capture by long-pressing on your wallpaper when your iPhone is unlocked. You can now remove the Camera or Flashlight control at the bottom of your screen and replace it with Halide,” the company says. “Some features of Halide will require unlocking your iPhone, of course — but our entire camera works great. We think this is an incredible upgrade to the camera experience in iPhones.”
The update also adds support for Dark mode and Tinted icon mode widgets.
Today’s 2.16 update to Halide follows on the company made in August that adds what it calls “Process Zero,” a new image processing pipeline that strips out all of the typical iPhone image processing. On all iPhones, photos are heavily processed through stacking multiple captures. The newer the iPhone, the more processing typically happens. Process Zero removes this.
“Process Zero is our own process,” Halide says. “We take raw sensor data, and do minimal processing to make a beautiful, natural and film-like shot. It’s very quick (up to 20 times faster than ProRAW) it is saved along with a 12 megapixel native RAW file. You can choose it at any time by tapping the “RAW” / “HEIC” format picker icon in the Halide interface, or you can read more and select a process in the Capture settings.”
Process Zero launched along with Halide’s first editing feature called Image Lab, which was meant to allow photographers to tweak exposure in those Process Zero images. Even though they’re not processed, they are still RAW files, and exposure adjustment lets photographers recover some highlight and shadow detail even though the image file itself isn’t as data-rich as a standard ProRAW file.
Halide is available for $19.99 per year or as a lifetime license for a one-time payment of $59.99.
Image credits: Halide