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Rosemary Orchard
So good, so good, so good.
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Rosemary Orchard
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Rosemary Orchard
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Micah Sargent
Coming up on iOS today, Rosemary Orchard and I, Micah Sargent, talk about some of the third party camera apps you should be checking out. Stay tuned. This episode is brought to you by OutSystems, a leading AI development platform for the enterprise. Organizations all over the world are creating custom apps and AI agents on the Outsystems platform and with good reason. Build, run and govern apps and agents on one unified platform. Innovate at the speed of AI without compromising quality or control. Trusted by thousands of enterprises worldwide for mission critical apps, teams of any size and technical depth can use Outsystems to build, deploy and manage AI apps and agents quickly and effectively without compromising reliability and security. Without systems, you can accelerate ideas from concept to completion. It's the leading AI development platform that is unified, agile and enterprise proven, allowing you to build your agentic future with AI solutions deeply integrated into your architecture out systems. Build your agentic future. Learn more@outsystems.com TWiT that's outsystems.com TWiT podcasts
Rosemary Orchard
you love from people you trust.
Micah Sargent
This is twit. This is iOS Today episode 801 with Rosemary Orchard and me Micah Sargent recorded Tuesday, April 28, 2026 for Thursday, May 7, 2026 take a shot with camera apps hello and welcome to iOS today. This of course is the show where we help you make the most of your wonderful Apple devices by telling you about apps, features, settings and all the things you should know about them. I am one of your hosts. My name is Micah Sargent.
Rosemary Orchard
And my name is Rosemary Orchard. And I'm very excited to be here. You know, all you have to do is just frame it right and then suddenly you'll be able to use your device so much more powerfully.
Micah Sargent
Indubitably, in fact. Let us go ahead and get rolling with our kind of picks here. Now when it comes to the camera, you of course have your built in default camera and that camera app can do quite a bit. But over time, Apple, while adding new features, new settings, new controls, has arguably, I think I feel sort of taken away or buried some of the options that you have to go deeper with the camera controls. And it is a good thing that there's such a robust third party marketplace for cameras because those apps are doing more and giving you more control, more availability. And you know, there's, there's this show, it's, it's an HBO show if I remember correctly, but it's called the Comeback and it's starring Lisa Kudrow. And this is a show that it's, it's a meta show and it's better. Meta as in self referential, not meta as in the company that, that owns Facebook. In any case, it is a show that has had sort of generational seasons. But what's funny is that in this new season, one of the people that's running her social media team is documenting the stuff that she's doing. And you, if you're watching it, will note that the app that the person is using for the photo and videography is not the stock camera app, but instead is a third party app that has more information available that would be needed for someone who works in, you know, video. And I, I found that as a, a funny little Easter egg, so to speak, that it wasn't just let's pop open the camera app and go from there. It's like, no, this stuff puts in time codes and makes sure that this footage can be used by actual video editors. And I thought that was clever. But one of the apps that I want to talk about today is one that has been around for a while and in fact one of the apps that I mentioned on our 800 and that is Halide. Now Halide is an app that is made by the folks at Lux Optics Inc. And it is a camera that has quite a few pro features built in. It has been an editor's choice in the past. It is regularly featured because of the fact that the company will make sure that new features and new options that are available from iOS that Apple has sort of made available to developers are among the first that Halide supports. So within the app you have your basic controls. Okay, so let's say I've got this little fidget toy here and what I am seeing sort of on this main screen are a few options that I have. I've got my autofocus, I've got, of course, the shutter button, but I can go through and make some adjustments to this. First and foremost, look, we've got a beautiful histogram, so I can see how the lighting is looking. I also have the ability to change the grid pattern. I can of course, switch the camera, change whether Flash is enabled or disabled. I can change the type of processing that takes place with this photo, including what's called Process zero, Apple Processed and Apple Pro Raw. Now, with Apple Processed, it is a photo that has gone through Apple's image pipeline. Apple Pro Raw is a photo that has gone through a special image pipeline. But the Process Zero photo is as close to the bare metal as you can get. There's a timer right in the middle. You can change whether the white balance is automatically selected or is adjusted based on the the value that you set. And so this case, we'll switch that back to auto white balance. We can change the focus very easily as well. Set it up in a macro mode and check that out. We're able to focus in on this. There we go. Look at that focus peaking. We love to see it. And then we can take this photo of a little fidget cube. And what is also part of this experience, What I love is that you are able to learn a lot about your phone's camera. I can see all of the cameras and all of the information from this technical readout here, including the min and max exposure. The full image size, 8064 by 6048 pixels. What autofocus system is used for the telephoto camera? What size? Okay, same size. That's good to know. For the ultra wide camera, the focal length of that lens. I can also see the front camera and the front ultra wide camera. I just love having the technical readout information. And then of course also being able to adjust the different methods for image processing. So I have right now Process Zero set up, which means that it's not doing AI image adjustments as it moves through the pipeline. Apple Processed does that and Apple proraw gives you the ability to essentially get that same image, but also with more data added on top of it. There's a lot that you can do to improve upon or make adjustments to the way that the photo is taken. But even just that ability that you saw there to change the focus and use focus peaking already takes it past the default option that's available in Apple's own camera app. Halide is available in the App Store with in app purchases. For the full version it's $9.99 a month, $19.99 a year, or a one time purchase of $60. And again, it's an incredibly well designed and powerful camera app that I think anyone should give a go and see if you want to add it to your toolkit. All right, tell us about your pick. Rosemary.
Rosemary Orchard
So my pick is called Obscura and yes I have been to a natural camera Obscura. Obscura is not quite the same in that sense, but honestly one of my favorite features in this app is the help menu because it does just tell tell me how all of the things work that I forget because I did learn photography on a DSLR and since then I kind of switched to just using my iPhone and Auto mode in Obscura or in the native camera app gets it right for me the vast majority of the time. So what I really love about this is there's a whole bunch of things and there is a free trial version of this app as well as the the full paid for version and the help mode is very good at explaining to you that for example the portrait photo mode is a paid for feature because it's got that little seal over to the right. However, Auto photo mode is just free. And so there's the two primary modes that most people probably use is auto or manual and Auto actually automatically captures all of the different lenses on the back of your device and combines them together to render a they call it a virtual camera. I don't understand exactly what technology they're using. Basically I call it wizardry and just go wow. Every single time it works. Because as much as I did love photography with my dslr, the carrying around lenses and stuff kind of made me go like I don't love it that much. So I do just love the fact that Obscura just makes it a lot easier. It can explain all of these things to you like what is focus and how does it work it how does it work and things like that. I've also met the creator of Obscura several times called Ben. Ben is an Absolutely lovely person. So I'd recommend downloading the app and giving it a try. Even if you're not sure you need an app, you should also try Halid just because the developers are nice people. Ben in particular. Very lovely and yeah, worth having a chat with if you ever run into them in real life. But yeah, there's. There's a whole bunch of explanations here and I'll just. Unfortunately, I forgot to get something actually exciting. So I have my AirPods Pro case here and, you know, there I can just go ahead, take a picture. I've got the options to adjust the color temperature right here. My white belt. Sorry, that's white belts. I can also change various things with regard to color and things like that. I could just focus and try to pick. You know, I've got. Now I've got two focus points. I've selected it back to just one. Which optical zoom would I like to use? I could use 0.5 ultra wide, or I could use 8 and try and zoom in on it. Turns out this is made by esr, which is not something that you really see a normal zoom level. Then I've also got the plus and the minus options for adjusting how much light I'm allowing into my lens and things like that. And, you know, you can change all these things. I have set it up to just be using the free version at the moment because I wanted to show folks what you can get for free. But, you know, you don't have to, you know, subscribe to these. I would recommend it if you. If you can afford it because, you know, it's great. And these also do video as well. So. Yeah, I mean, it's really difficult. I could spend hours talking about Obscura and I would still not cover everything, which is why the fact that the help is just right there in the top right is just great because it does just let you go. Okay, cool. I do filters. So how do I make. Oh, filter. Drag it out from the filter button to select one of my favorite filters. Oh, well, there we go. That's nice and easy. I can remember how to do that and it just makes it nice and easy for you. So, yeah, I'd recommend Obscura and also shout out to Ben for being a lovely person as well as a great developer.
Micah Sargent
Indeed. I agree. On all accounts, the next app that I want to talk about is actually sort of a, in a way, a companion app to Halide because of the fact that in the Halide app there is a shortcut to access if you have it on your phone. Darkroom. Darkroom is an image editing suite that will let you create the photos that you're after creating. It's a photo organization tool for your photo library. It is an editing tool first and foremost and it does color grading as well. Plus, because of the way the Darkroom is set up, it is that non destructive option where kind of everything, all of the refinements, all of the choices that you make can be added as part of the photo file instead of it needing to be a complete overwrite and reformatting of the photo file. It can also edit video. So it works with portrait photos, it works with raw photos, ProRAW, slow motion video, 4K video, even 8K video. All of those tools are available to you within the app. And on top of color grading, you can do things like setting up special local masks so that you are able to say, okay, I only want to adjust the look and feel of the person and I want to leave the background alone. Being able to change the color profile of a photo and of course that ability to go through and kind of adjust the organization and the. Whether you use flags or you, you say yes to this photo, no to that photo. It's got a histogram, it's got clarity tools and as I mentioned, it integrates really well with the Halide app. And so if you've got one, then you can use that with, with Darkroom to kind of take you to that full experience and be able to, you know, use them both. One to capture, one to edit after the fact. Anything else that you want to mention for the camera section of the show,
Rosemary Orchard
I would like to say Micah. Actually this is one where folks should check out the tips app because there's a huge number of things that you can do with the native camera app that people just don't realize. So one of the things that I do, and I'm just going to pop open my camera app here is I have it in photo mode, but I tap and hold on the button and it's recording a video and I let go and it's recorded a video. That's it. Really simple. Did you know that you could do that? Maybe, maybe not. Did you know you can customize your action button and say what it does? I've got mine set to the different zoom levels. Sorry if that's making anyone seasick. You can, you can customize a huge number of things with the camera app. So honestly should, you should definitely spend a little bit of time playing with the camera on your iPhone. I know that you can just, you know, point and shoot. There is nothing wrong with just pointing and shooting, but understanding a little bit about cameras, like, what is the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom? By the way, pro tip, the optical zoom is based on the actual physical lenses on the back of your camera. And so that is directly taking a photo, whereas digital zoom is taking the closest one and then, like, stretching it to get closer in. So that's where having all of those pixels on your iPhone comes in really handy and why people buy new iPhones every year.
Micah Sargent
The last one that I want to mention is one that I only recently paid more attention to, and that's because I went on, I did a little photo walk with a friend of mine, and my friend was telling me about the Leica camera that they had and talking about how this camera sort of their process for editing photos, because a lot of photographers will, of course, take a bunch of photos on their camera and then move them to their device and do editing. And I was just curious what my friend's workflow was. And with the Leica camera, they did a lot of that work directly on the camera because you can set up special profiles. It turns out this is what I didn't know that my friend was telling me. Laika had a team of image scientists and film scientists who understood film processes and color and this and that and the other, assigned them to creating digital versions of the physical. Physical processes that, you know, a Kodak photograph would take or whatever it happened to be. And so, given that Leica has these. These digital profiles that are emulators essentially for film, then the company decided to make a camera app that would also give you access to these tools. So you get the Leica look and feel thanks to those film simulations. But in this case, it's done just on your device. So the camera app itself is going to look a lot like any of the. The, you know, any camera app. That's not the point of it. It is those lens simulations, because Leica has a unique. A unique set of these beautiful different film simulations that are truly based on physical outcomes from different film and different lenses together. So this is a really cool app to make use of, something that Leica threw a lot of its money behind in the wake of switching from manual analog to the digital experience that we have today. So if you're looking for a way to take advantage of some of the more physical manifestations of photography, this is one of the ways that you can come closest to that while still remaining in the digital realm. So that's Leica Lux in the App Store. As you might imagine, given the fact that Leica is, you know, Leica Camera is kind of expensive. The monthly and annual subscriptions are $70 a year or $7 a month. To be able to use them and make advantage or take advantage of what Leica has to offer, I think it's really cool and it is one of the apps in my repertoire for whenever I am trying to take moody photos like a Lux in the App Store. Folks, I would love it if you shared with us the camera pics that you have. What is the camera that you're using? If you send us an email iostodaywit TV and you tell me you're just using the Snapchat camera, I'm gonna be a little sad. I'm gonna be a little sad. But hey, if that's your choice, that's your choice. And we would love to hear what you're using as your camera app and what makes it special, you know why? What makes you choose it over the base camera app, the default camera app. So be sure to let us know there. We're going to take a quick little break from the show so I can tell you about NetSuite bringing you this episode of iOS today. Every business, they're asking the same question. How do we make AI work? For us, the possibilities are endless. And guessing well, it's too risky. But sitting on the sidelines is not an option because one thing is almost certain, it's that your competitors are already making their move. No more waiting. With NetSuite by Oracle, you can put AI to work. Today, NetSuite is the number one AI Cloud ERP. Trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It's a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM into a single source of truth. That connected data is what makes your AI smarter. So it doesn't just guess, it knows it intelligently automates routine tasks, delivers actionable insights, helps you cut costs and make fast AI powered decisions with confidence. Plus, you've got total flexibility. From software and IT services to healthcare equipment manufacturing, financial services and many other great American industries, NetSuite delivers a customized solution for your business. This isn't another bolted on tool. It's AI built into the system that runs your business. Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead of the pack. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures. Get NetSuite's free business guide demystifying AI at NetSuite.com iOS the guide is free to you at NetSuite.com iOS NetSuite.com iOS all right, let's head back to iOS today. All right, moving along to the news, there was this article over on 9 to 5 Mac that I think was well worth a look whenever we were kind of putting together this story. Chance Miller wrote an article. Never lose anything again with these Find My accessories. And I think that it's worth remembering that Find My is not just a network for tracking your Mac and your iPhone and your iPad and your iPhone, of course, but also a network of other gadgets and gizmos that can either be tracked themselves or help you track other things. So of course, there's AirTag 2 from Apple, which has better precision, finding a better Bluetooth chip that has a better range and a louder speaker. But Chipolo also makes Find My devices, including the Chipolo Loop and the Chipolo One Spot Switchbot makes a little card that you can use to pop into your wallet and it will help you track things. There's the one pack and four pack. Pebblebee also has different devices, including the Pebblebee Clip and the Pebblebee Universal tracking Tag. There are also some backpacks that feature tracking. And then my favorite is Nomad's tracking Card, which is a QI wireless charging tracking card that you can, that you can again thwack onto a wireless charger to charge and then pop it in your wallet. I have the non metal version. So there's the, there's the Find My Tracking Card Pro, which is the one that's metal. It's a little bit. That one's thicker than the one that you and I have, which is called now the Find My Tracking Card Carbide. I think that is the one that you, that, that I have. That I believe you have. That is just as great. It's just not as expensive. And also it's thinner. So.
Rosemary Orchard
Yes, yeah, in my case, it being thinner was a big selling point for me because I just didn't want to like. I have a fairly small purse wallet for Americans, because we call them purses over here. The, the, the bag that you put stuff in is called a handbag. You know, it's a bit of pants in the boot. It's fine. But yeah, I, I have a fairly small pair. So I didn't really want something that was taking up the space of like five cards. I wanted something to take up a space of ideally one card that wasn't going to happen. The Nomad one, that's the Carbide one. Takes up about the space of two to three credit cards depending on the thickness of your cards. So yeah, I'm, I'm very happy with it. It works really well. And the big thing that I found, as much as I love the Air tags and the features of the air tags is sometimes being able to recharge something is the difference between me having the ability to find it and the not and not having the ability to find it. So yeah, big fan of things that you can just plug in or pop on a charger.
Micah Sargent
Yeah, very nice. There are also several other items mentioned in this article, but we don't want to spoil all of that. I want you to go and check it out. So check out the show notes for more. But yeah, I just, I think at the time I was looking through and saw this piece and thought, you know what it's worth talking about the fact that Find My is not just for your Apple stuff, but also other developers and manufacturers have added the technology to their devices. Moving along from the news, let's head into Feedback and Rosemary, would you like to read this feedback for us?
Rosemary Orchard
Yes, I can. So this is a lovely piece of feedback we got and it says so the F said about chill apps come into my feed. A big relaxing app I play is Sky Children of the Light. It's a chill cross platform MMORPG that stands for a massively multiplayer online role playing game for anybody who doesn't know. And that's main focus is exploration and making friends. And this is from Matos. I'm not entirely certain I pronounced your name right Matos, but thank you so much for writing. It's always lovely to hear from one of our listeners. Greatly appreciated. And yet yes, it's also nice finding massively multiplayer online role playing games that don't feel exclusionary to people who identify as female, you know. So I, I personally love it when I can enjoy those games.
Micah Sargent
Yes, indeed. All right, moving along, let's round things out with App caps. These are the apps or gadgets we have been using for some time that we want to share with you all because we think they're great and can make all the difference to, you know, the, the enjoyment that you get from your devices. So Rosemary, let's start with your pick.
Rosemary Orchard
It's, it's basically if you're using reminders, here's a feature you may not have realized is a thing that you can do. So I've got the Reminders app open here on my phone and I am in the view that is the overview of all of the list lists. So if at the top I tap on the list icon with a little plus, I can create a new list. Now there's. First of all, there's another feature I'm just gonna quickly mention here. You can create templates. That is a whole awesome feature which is great for things like packing lists and so on and so forth. But if you change your list type here from standard not shopping but to smart list, then you can create an awesome automagically filled list which can go, if you want, across multiple kinds of reminders, multiple lists and reminders, and it can grab things. But also if you create things in the list, it will automatically apply those things to your reminder. So for example, a location, I can say, hey, I'm only looking for things that don't have a location. Or I can say, hey, I'm looking for these with a specific location, like getting in the car. And so yeah, that is. Yeah, it's just one of those things where it's really useful. I can specify tags. So I can say, hey, any tag, any selected tags or all of my selected tags. So that can be like it could have the tag of car and banana, or it needs both the tags car and banana, for example, to. To appear in the list. You can specify things that have got like a date. So if they have any date or if it's like within a specified range or within a relative range. So a specified range would be like from May 1 to May 31. A REL range would be within the next month and things like that. So yeah, there's a whole bunch of things that you can do with this. And you can get really nerdy. I personally think it's really useful to be able to automatically go, okay, I shall see the list of things I have as a reminder for when I get to this location or things with this tag. And then I can just go, oh cool, there's like 28 things I need to do. I get to this location or I've got 15 items I need to collect at the store. I need to allow myself more than five minutes for this. I need to allow myself 15 minutes or whatever. So yeah, if you want to check that out, then I would highly recommend playing with smart lists on your iPhone or iPad or on your Mac.
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Micah Sargent
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Rosemary Orchard
@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for
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Micah Sargent
See full terms@mintmobile.com all right, that is Rosemary's pick mine for you. I recently was talking to some friends and they were talking about chess and asked me if I played chess. And I said honestly, I've not played chess in a very, very long time and pretty much only remember how most of the pieces move. That's how long it's been since I've played. And so I in talking with these friends, we were saying, oh, let's maybe put some focus on that and we can get together and play chess and whatnot. And so I said, all right, I gotta remember how to do this. Well, Chess.com makes an app that you can download that has instructions and daily puzzles that you can play as you learn or relearn to play chess. And so over the course of this experience we look at the goals of chess like what you're supposed to do, what do you do when you are working on checking a piece? It's also kind of rating the pieces so you know which pieces should be kept more safe or which are worth kind of giving up. And a reminder, I mean it's, it's everything that you need to know. And I really like how they've built it out so that you can learn the important parts that get you playing early before you need to go into the stuff about trying to remember different chess moves and whatnot. It's been and a humbling experience for sure given how long it's been since I've played and how much before it was just about playing other people who had just learned how to play and mostly about just knowing where the pieces can go. More than anything now there's a little bit more thinking involved and that has been again, a very humbling experience. So Chess.com's chess app. If you would like a refresher on chess or if you're just looking to play again or want to even watch chess people play, these are all ways that you can go about doing that. So be sure to check it out free in the App Store. You just need an account which is very easy to set up and you can even use your sign in with Apple to do so. Folks, that is going to bring us to the end of this episode of iOS today. I hope you're taking great photos with whatever apps you are using as your camera apps. I want to remind you about Club Twit at Twit TV Club Twit, which is where you can go to become a member of the club. It's just $10 a month, $120 a year. Joining the club gets you some pretty cool things. Access to every single one of our shows, including this one, ad free. You also gain access to special feeds that are yours and no one else's. A feed that as I mentioned, has our ad free content but also a feed with behind the scenes before the show, after the show is published. There we have a feed that is our that includes our live coverage of tech news events and a feed that has our special club shows like My Crafting Corner and Stacey's Book Club, plus so much more. And if you can believe it, access to the members only Discord Server. A fun place to go chat with your fellow Club Twit members and those of us here at TWiT. If all that sounds good to you again, head to TWiT TV Clubtwit to check it out. We would love to see you there. Rosemary Orchard, it's been a pleasure doing the show with you today. If people would like to follow you online, where in the world should they go to do so?
Rosemary Orchard
The best place to go is rosemary orchard.com which has got links to apps, books, podcasts, and all the social media sites that I'm on or have been involved in. The one thing it doesn't have a link to, however, is the Club Discord, which currently contains a number of very cute pictures of a border collie in the live chat channel. And there's Also a wonderful iOS today area where people can post their response to the episodes and ask questions and all of those wonderful things. Micah, where can folks find you?
Micah Sargent
If you're looking to follow me online, I'm ichasargent on many a social media network where you can head to Chihuahua Coffee, that's C H I H U A H u a Coffee where I've got links to the places I am most active online. Thank you so much for being here with us today and we'll catch you again next week for another episode of iOS today. Bye bye.
Hosts: Micah Sargent & Rosemary Orchard
Date: May 7, 2026
Theme: Discovering and mastering third-party camera apps for iOS to elevate your photography and videography experience.
In this episode of iOS Today, Micah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard dive deep into the world of third-party camera apps for iPhone, highlighting how these apps empower users with more robust tools and creative controls than the stock Camera app. They demo and discuss top camera and photo editing apps—including Halide, Obscura, Darkroom, and Leica Lux—and offer practical tips, personal anecdotes, and advice for making the most of mobile photography on iOS.
[03:32] Micah Sargent:
Quote:
“It is a good thing that there’s such a robust third-party marketplace for cameras because those apps are doing more and giving you more control, more availability.” —Micah Sargent [03:32]
Micah notes instances in pop culture (like HBO’s The Comeback) where professionals use third-party camera apps for more technical needs on social media teams.
[05:01] Micah Sargent:
Quote:
“Even just that ability…to change the focus and use focus peaking already takes it past the default option that’s available in Apple’s own camera app.” —Micah Sargent [09:21]
[10:30] Rosemary Orchard:
Quote:
“There’s a whole bunch of explanations here…It just makes it nice and easy for you. So yeah, I’d recommend Obscura—and also shout out to Ben for being a lovely person as well as a great developer.” —Rosemary Orchard [13:49]
[14:25] Micah Sargent:
Quote:
“…It integrates really well with the Halide app. So, if you’ve got one, then you can use that with Darkroom to kind of take you to that full experience.” —Micah Sargent [15:39]
[18:11] Micah Sargent:
Quote:
“If you’re looking for a way to take advantage of some of the more physical manifestations of photography, this is one of the ways that you can come closest to that while still remaining in the digital realm.” —Micah Sargent [19:00]
[16:52] Rosemary Orchard:
Pro Tip:
“Optical zoom is based on the actual physical lenses on the back of your camera…digital zoom is taking the closest one and then, like, stretching it.” —Rosemary Orchard [17:57]
[20:50] Micah Sargent:
[22:40] Micah Sargent & [26:17] Rosemary Orchard:
[27:50] Rosemary Orchard:
[29:10] Rosemary Orchard:
[32:58] Micah Sargent:
On why third-party camera apps matter:
“You are able to learn a lot about your phone’s camera…I just love having the technical readout information.” —Micah Sargent [08:15]
On Obscura’s developer:
“Ben is an absolutely lovely person…worth having a chat with if you ever run into them in real life.” —Rosemary Orchard [12:50]
On inclusive game recommendations:
“It’s also nice finding massively multiplayer online role playing games that don’t feel exclusionary to people who identify as female…” —Rosemary Orchard [28:18]
This summary covers the full episode content, focusing on actionable advice, app demos, and insightful discussion—perfect for anyone seeking to level up their iPhone photography game.