In my 15 years experience being in the Tech Industries, I’ve rarely seen company acquisition went fine, because at the end of the day some things have got to give, it always need some type of sacrifices. And this particular acquisition was one of those.
Yesterday, without any warning, the iOS development house Ghostbird had announced that it has been acquired by Yahoo! If you are wondering who Ghostbird is, they are the folks who had created 2 high-grade and wonderful iOS Photo Apps, namely Photoforge and KitCam.
Photoforge (the latest version is Photoforge2) is one of the oldest and the best Photoshop-like Photo Editing app for iOS. Before other apps had even thought about doing Layering, Photoforge had done it first. The new Photoforge2 added new Filters, Backgrounds, Borders, etc. – making it not just a great editing tool but also enable photo post-production, Instagram style.
Photoforge and Photoforge2 have been my go-to app to create some of my best photo edits like below. So much so that it’s been always in my ‘Camera Bag‘ folder on my iPhone Home Page, readily accessible any time.
As for KitCam, it’s a top-of-the-line Camera replacement app with a myriad of functions that only a few other apps can match. The live filters, where you can see the effect as you take photo OR video, is also quite nice addition. The ability to save photos you are taking in uncompressed TIFF format (or the standard JPEG if you like) shows that this is a serious app for serious photo-taking. In addition to this awesome Camera, KitCam is also a post-production app where you can import your photos and edit it with combination of nicely toned Lenses, Films, and Borders ala Hipstamatics (except that you can choose them after-the-facts).
And here is an example of a video taken with KitCam by one passionate user:
Seaside moment from ale di gangi on Vimeo.
A moment in time of relax.
Done with an iPhone 5 + KitCam app
Well, unfortunately, if you haven’t got these two apps by now, you will never ever have the chance to try them, because as for yesterday Ghostbird has pulled them out off the App Store! This is what I mentioned as the Sacrifice.
Sacrifice for what? In its press-release Ghostbird mentions that the dev team has been folded to the Flickr team. So for all Photoforge and KitCam fans sake I really really hope that they will create a similar if not a superior version of Flickr mobile which would include all the best things that Photoforge and KitCam had offered.
Although I can understand the necessity of being discreet, I still regret that Ghostbird didn’t give us even a hint of this plan to be acquired, because otherwise we would’ve promoted Photoforge and KitCam more so even more people would know about them.
A strong note for Yahoo!, please don’t mess this up, like you did for so many things!
And if you want to just admire how these 2 awesome apps like, just have a look at Google Image search for both Photoforge2 and KitCam, those images speaks for themselves. Again .. such ashamed.
Yahoo killed 2 top-quality Photo Apps – Say bye bye to Photoforge and KitCam http://t.co/bfoJI9gG8w
@Sweendex @kitcamapp @GhostBirdSoft I figured, such ashamed, I wrote my opinion about this here: http://t.co/bfoJI9gG8w
They killed them. Sadly, they killed them. They screwed up only like Yahoo could. The latest Flickr app that has the KitCam features is awfully poor, low quality, and shouldn’t even exist. It has less filters and features, and you can only upload a photo once you’re done editing – no save to camera roll.
Well, KitCam had a beautiful run with me but now that it merged with Yahoo in the poorest of ways, it’s time to move on and hopefully I will someday find an equally powerful app.
I feel your pain. It is unfortunate. I wished that I had bought all the lenses, now I only have the free one without the choice to buy the others.
Have you tried VSCOCam? It has the same sophistication as KitCam. I recommend it if you haven’t tried.
I Hate Yahoo. I’buy Kitcam & Photoforge 2, But my licensed software not be apsstore now. Never again update. This is not legal..
I agree with you. It’s crap.
I loved KitCam since the day I got it two years ago. Use nothing else. I’m migrating to a new iPhone and am keen to know if there’s a way to carry my existing KitCam gallery there (such that the shot images stay as originals with filters editable). Has anyone figured this out? Is there even a way?
I’m not sure that this will work, but when you migrate to your new iPhone, provided that you have your iCloud backup switched on for KitCam, everything will be transferred automatically when you login to the same Apple account (in the new iPhone).
[…] lohnt es sich die App “PS Touch” zu kaufen. Die mal vorhandene Alternative “PhotoForge2” gibt es leider nicht mehr, ausser z.B. auf meinem […]
I am devastated. I dropped my iphone in the toilet (dont laugh) just yesterday and my first thought was OH Fuck, I hate the new and embellished KitCam and hug and cradle the old version and now I am afraid it is gone…..When I looked today for the new and improved version (hate to settle for second best) there was no KitCam whatsoever. Who can we write to, in order to draw attention to this silliness????
The old KitCam is gone and won’t come back. Sorry about that.
This really sucks! I paid for that app and loved it to death. Suddenly it’s not working on my phone anymore. Not cool!
Well, it’s finally happened to me too… Kitcam hasn’t migrated to my new ES and I can’t seem to do anything about it… Just wondering if you had found an app that you deem to be equally as good?
Someone has made a clone of Kitcam called Kitcamera, you can get it via the App Store: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/gb/app/kitcamera-video-photo-editor/id1024600318?mt=8&at=1l3v7q8
If you want alternative, try ProCamera, Hipstamatic, VSCOCam, Camera+.