PicTapGo+ 2.0 - inspired by the original

PicTapGo+ 2.0 is now available, and while there are several REALLY great changes, the thing many of you will love the most is the return of a more grid-oriented UI. Like the original app, PicTapGo+ 2.0 allows you to simply scroll down to access a grid of thumbnail previews, making it easy to compare and browse options.

The best of both worlds (hopefully)

The workflow in PicTapGo+ is now VERY similar to PicTapGo Classic. If you're just looking for a way to stack and combine filters, the only difference is you have to confirm your changes before scrolling to apply another filter. To make that easier, we've added the ability to confirm your changes by double-tapping the image, and it works in all of the various editors (i.e. Intensity, Curves, etc), which I think you'll love too.

Check out this quick comparison, stacking three filters in PicTapGo+ v2.0, and PicTapGo Classic. Feels VERY similar. I actually think the new app has the potential to be even faster, because your favorites are right there at the top.

Ever since we introduced PicTapGo+, I was getting feedback that the new app was harder to use, and people missed the simplicity of the original PicTapGo. I figured that people would get used to the new interface over time, but those sentiments kept showing up in App Store reviews and social media comments. To dig deeper, I posted a question in an Instagram poll a couple months back: did people preferred the carousel in PicTapGo+ or the scrolling grid from PicTapGo Classic? A full 90% said they liked the way the old app worked. The signs were pretty unambiguous - I had REALLY missed the mark with the new filter interface, and despite having some pretty good reasons motivating the design decision, it was clear that an overhaul was needed.

The thing about the original PicTapGo app that made it endearing to its fans (and also VERY limiting to its capabilities), was the simplicity of the swipe, tap, swipe UI. Mentally, editing happened in a couple narrow contexts - look for a filter, and adjust a filter's strength. When iPhone photography was in its infancy, this was a great balance - Instagram was new, and all the rage, but it only allowed you to apply a single filter, with no adjustments at all. Other apps like Camera+ and Snapseed had more features, but had a steep learning curve, and felt (to me anyway) like they were asking too much of the low-quality camera images, low-powered iPhone processors, and low-experience users. PicTapGo, by contrast, tried to balance giving you control with a direct, straightforward interface. For a great many photographers, this was just the balance they were looking for.

Why did you mess with a good thing to begin with?

For its entire life, PicTapGo Classic's simplicity has also been a bit of a boat anchor, in terms of expanding its capabilities. Every new bell or whistle we could have added would have come at the expense of its simplicity, which was really the guiding principle of the whole thing, so despite sketching out big plans for a redesign more than once over the years, I largely left it alone. We actually based the original app off RadLab's code, and PicTapGo had some really cool features under the hood from day one. It's always been ability to tune filters beyond just strength, and had RGB curves and such - just no way to present them to the user, because doing so required us to break the tap-scroll-tap UI its fans loved.

The challenge with PicTapGo+ has been to bring all these cool new ideas and capabilities to the app without making people feel lost within "just another photo editor". Clearly the first release missed the mark, but hopefully version 2.0 feels more familiar and immediately usable for our longtime fans. Thanks for giving us a second chance to get this right - you're going to love where we're going.

-db

Doug Boutwell