Remember Snapture? The first "real" camera app for the iPhone. It was a Jailbreak app first then hit the App Store. It disappeared some time ago though. Never knew why.
What ever happened to Snapture?
- Thread starter theorioles33
- Start date
From their Facebook page, it looks as if they never updated it and it broke in iOS 4. Odd that they would make it into the App Store, then disappear.
Never used the app -- what was it's claim to fame?
Never used the app -- what was it's claim to fame?
Strange that it just vanished when it was so popular. Here is shot of the features. It was pretty much the first of its kind.
It's bizarre. Their Twitter account has gone dark. Website has nothing but their logo.
The background on their Twitter account says "Snapture...coming soon...reborn".
That could be old though, given the lack of activity on the account. Who updates their background, but leaves a tweet from 2009.
The background on their Twitter account says "Snapture...coming soon...reborn".
That could be old though, given the lack of activity on the account. Who updates their background, but leaves a tweet from 2009.
Looks like the co-founder left -- He's now the founder of Inkmation. There are zero apps in the App Store made by Inkmation.
Hi All,
Founder of Snapture here. First of all let me just say it's a bit heartwarming to still see people talking about Snapture after all these years, so thank you for that.
Here's the back story of Snapture for those that are interested...
Snapture was founded in 2007 by a bunch of Carnegie Mellon alums. It got started as a hardware company aiming to build the first ever xenon flash case for the iPhone camera. Software was not really a focus for the company until the first app release: we expected maybe a few hundred users but ended up getting tens of thousands within a few hours. Lifehacker and Gizmodo picked the story up and within a few months we were up to 800,000 users. To put that in perspective, it was roughly about 1 out of every 4 iPhone user at the time were using our software. People LOVED us, we felt like rock stars.
The company pivoted to fully focus on software, and we created something called QuickView in Snapture 2.0 that became the reason for many people to jailbreak their iPhone. Even though Appled blocked critical API access so we couldn't sell it on AppStore, we still managed to do really well selling this underground with the help of Cydia. 18 months later, Apple changed their camera API stance and we were finally allowed in. Within hours of our AppStore launch, Snapture rocketed to the top of the AppStore and remained there for almost 2 weeks.
We did a number of small updates after the original launch but people lost interest in developing this further. No one really had the foresight that a camera application can be 10-20 million dollar company (or a billion dollar for that matter, that's just silly). Plus everyone was fully vested by this point, so it made sense for everyone to jump onto the next big thing with the Snapture lessons/experiences under our belt.
The Snapture crew built many companies since then, yes Inkmation was one of them. Playmesh was another, it was the largest iPhone gaming company at one point. CardMunch was also a Snapture company, and it was recently sold to LinkedIn.
It was never our intention to take Snapture off of the AppStore. It was our baby and pride so we all contributed a few hours of time here and there to maintain it. Unfortunately something strange happened where Apple took us off the AppStore, we were unable to bring it back at that point without re-writing the entire app. It was a very sad moment, but it became clear that it's time for us to put an end to this great company that we started.
To leave on a happy note though... A few months ago I upgraded my phone to iOS 5.0. There's a neat little hidden feature on the AppStore "Updates" section that allow you to find all of your previous purchases, even if the app is no longer available for whatever reason. Through this method I was able to download Snapture again and boy it still works beautifully! If you're feeling nostalgic, give this a shot and relive your good ol' Snapture memories.
So with that, I want to say thank you again for all of your support. Snapture interrupted our lives in ways we couldn't have dreamed of, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing today without you all. Thank you Everythingicafe too, we do remember your coverages as well. Gosh... we miss you crazy fans!
Every end is a new beginning. Hope to cross paths with you all again in the future.
Cheers,
- Bowei on behalf of the Snapture Team
Founder of Snapture here. First of all let me just say it's a bit heartwarming to still see people talking about Snapture after all these years, so thank you for that.
Here's the back story of Snapture for those that are interested...
Snapture was founded in 2007 by a bunch of Carnegie Mellon alums. It got started as a hardware company aiming to build the first ever xenon flash case for the iPhone camera. Software was not really a focus for the company until the first app release: we expected maybe a few hundred users but ended up getting tens of thousands within a few hours. Lifehacker and Gizmodo picked the story up and within a few months we were up to 800,000 users. To put that in perspective, it was roughly about 1 out of every 4 iPhone user at the time were using our software. People LOVED us, we felt like rock stars.
The company pivoted to fully focus on software, and we created something called QuickView in Snapture 2.0 that became the reason for many people to jailbreak their iPhone. Even though Appled blocked critical API access so we couldn't sell it on AppStore, we still managed to do really well selling this underground with the help of Cydia. 18 months later, Apple changed their camera API stance and we were finally allowed in. Within hours of our AppStore launch, Snapture rocketed to the top of the AppStore and remained there for almost 2 weeks.
We did a number of small updates after the original launch but people lost interest in developing this further. No one really had the foresight that a camera application can be 10-20 million dollar company (or a billion dollar for that matter, that's just silly). Plus everyone was fully vested by this point, so it made sense for everyone to jump onto the next big thing with the Snapture lessons/experiences under our belt.
The Snapture crew built many companies since then, yes Inkmation was one of them. Playmesh was another, it was the largest iPhone gaming company at one point. CardMunch was also a Snapture company, and it was recently sold to LinkedIn.
It was never our intention to take Snapture off of the AppStore. It was our baby and pride so we all contributed a few hours of time here and there to maintain it. Unfortunately something strange happened where Apple took us off the AppStore, we were unable to bring it back at that point without re-writing the entire app. It was a very sad moment, but it became clear that it's time for us to put an end to this great company that we started.
To leave on a happy note though... A few months ago I upgraded my phone to iOS 5.0. There's a neat little hidden feature on the AppStore "Updates" section that allow you to find all of your previous purchases, even if the app is no longer available for whatever reason. Through this method I was able to download Snapture again and boy it still works beautifully! If you're feeling nostalgic, give this a shot and relive your good ol' Snapture memories.
So with that, I want to say thank you again for all of your support. Snapture interrupted our lives in ways we couldn't have dreamed of, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing today without you all. Thank you Everythingicafe too, we do remember your coverages as well. Gosh... we miss you crazy fans!
Every end is a new beginning. Hope to cross paths with you all again in the future.
Cheers,
- Bowei on behalf of the Snapture Team
Thanks Bowei for the explanation. Sounded like some adventure. Sorry for the unfortunate ending. Wish you luck in your future endeavors.
