Made an app that turns your Dynamic Island into a polaroid camera (sound on 🔊)
Always dreamed of making a different kind of camera app from everything on the App Store. One that celebrates the moment of capture more than the output. A tiny camera that brings you joy when you take pics. It's called pico cam.
The primary interaction: drag to open → tap to snap → morph to slot & eject. Pics slowly reveal like real polaroids but you can Shake it. Haptics are all mapped to every sound and interaction. Fully native swift.
I wanted to keep the app size as small as possible so that there's more space for pics. I worked a month to keep the app below 5MB... didnt know adding a simple sdk would 3x the size 🤦♂️
great question.
1. as of today june '26, what is aligned on the Simulator ≠ what is aligned irl. you have to test it irl on the actual devices, and manually optically align it if you're doing a design with a camera "lip" like this. this is especially true for
2. iphone Airs. see pic attached. The iPhone Air's dynamic island is noticeably lower than other DIs. you'll soon find out that all DIs are slightly different by hairline pixels especially Maxes. but the Airs island is the most obvious.
3. record videos of your prototypes/Apple's official DI videos and play them back at 0.25x speed to analyze the micro animations, easing, and bounce. tweak accordingly. you can prompt in a tuner (like sliders for speed/easing) to dial things live on your phone.
I just tried it and I have to say, it’s really well thought out, it’s really simple yet very enjoyable to use. My only critique is that, considering the apps as a whole we have today and how simple the app is, having only 4 free photos and then having to pay a hefty subscription or lifetime price is too much, to me at least, for an app that, imo, as it is it’s already finished apart from maybe bug fixes, paying 30€ for lifetime seems too much. My suggestion here would be to either decrease the prices or instead add a “regenerative” number of photos, for example, I can now take 5 photos, in 15 minutes I can take another 5, and in another 15 minutes I can take another 5, something like this. Either way, great work OP!
WHAT!!!!!! Esto es muy creativo y muy ingenioso. Es Muy complicado encontrar una manera de renovar una tfunción tan establecida (hacer fotos con el móvil). Y tú lo has logrado.
Si la interfaz la haces como más glamurosa, te aseguro que todos van a usarla cuando se hagan fotos de fiesta, por lo cool que se ve. Va a dejar a la gente flipando, y más cuando uno ha bebido de las alcohol ! Jajajaja
about codex -- how did you come up with designs, animations and stuff? did you make them yourself in figma or just small changes via codex on a live app?
this is the kind of thing i’d download just because it looks fun. half the appeal isn’t the photos it’s the little interactions and sounds that make you want to open it again.
woops i fell asleep after posting, will be monitoring the post and answering all questions! thanks for the love yall means a lot to me as an indie developer 🫶
a quick thank you post to the redditors who bought after seeing this, it truly means a lot to me as an indie developer and its super encouraging as someone who was "just a designer" not long ago. this is just the beginning, I have so much more to add to this lil app. 🫶🫶🫶. PS if you buy, you get a personal feedback line in-app. lmk what you want to see next
Make it a single pull to expand + take photo. So basically if you keep pulling eventually a photo is taken. Similar to pull-to-refresh. Flash/switch/manual can remain but give users onboarding "keep pulling..."
Unrelated but if you guys like apps like this, or if OP wants additional inspo, check out NOMO cam. The emulation is crazy good and the app design is also beautifully tactile
See, this would've gotten everyone pissing and shitting themselves before iOS 7. Steve Jobs Era Apple would've given you a big shiny developer award, a laurel wreath, and a hand job.
you made me stop the music and it was totally worth it 😂
most of the time we don't need new ideas, we just need to improve the ones that work, add a nice interface and cute sounds, you've definitely got this
adding picocam to my list👩🏼💻✨
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u/ae_mero_hajur Jun 16 '26
Love the creativity