This is a wild claim to make. The camera is one of the most used apps on the iPhone, and most of the photos shared online are taken with one. So, why would this app beat the iPhone’s camera app? According to the video, Microsoft Pix is a smart camera, and looking at the features, it seems like they might’ve developed something quite great.
Purpose
It's a smartphone camera app. So, it's for taking pictures of your family and friends, and obviously not for professional work. The app is built around capturing people. Its pre-photo setting and post-photo enhancements adjust automatically so your crowd automatically look their best. It optimizes focus, color, and exposure and auto-enhances each shot so you can compare the difference.
How It Works
It takes bursts of shots before and after you take the shot and puts them together. It keeps the best photos and deletes the rest so you don’t waste any memory. Artificial intelligence? Yes. It uses it to adjust the camera settings to best fit the scene. You are left with no settings to set according to your taste, so it takes a specific segment in the iPhoneography arena. And, I think it’s pushing too far saying that it’s like having a professional photographer in your phone. You don’t have any exposure controls or HDR modes. You are left with only a shutter button; the app does the rest. Another feature is that if it identifies interesting motion, it stitches together all the images and creates a short looping video. It also does hyperlapse, cinemagraphs and super stable video:
https://youtu.be/Wa2L2SaR2V4
Taken with the iPhone 6S regular camera app
https://youtu.be/rHFcB0tMzxg
iPhone 6S, stabilized with Microsoft Pix
Conclusion
It has only been out in the wild since yesterday, and I will surely play around with it over the weekend. My default way of taking a photo with my phone is by sliding up, so it's going to take some discipline for me to actually browse to the app and open it to take a picture, but let's give it a shot. Download it here. Let us know what you think about it in the comments.
Everyone is so into this Microsoft Pix announcement. But honestly, I just don't see it catching on. For starters, who really uses "Pix" anymore? That's so 2001.
But all kidding aside, I want more control (if anything) from my camera phone -- not less. And while there are some decent concepts such as automatically brightening faces that are recognized in a scene, I think what this process does to other parts of the photo when considering color rendition are worse than the iPhone Camera app equivalent. Of course, that's just judging from some smaller photos in the marketing and is super subjective. But overall, I don't see why this is such a "breakthrough."
At the end of the day, it seems like Microsoft threw in some somewhat interesting AI features, took away all control, and came out with this more or less boring photos app that MIGHT SOMETIMES improve a photo here or there... Hmmmm...just not very excited, myself.
For guys (and gals) like you there's RAW coming to iOS in the Fall.
For the rest of people that just happen to always have a phone with them that also takes "pix", this looks like it's not so bad.
Odd: Microsoft's apps on iOS have been major hits for them and they're far better in many ways than what MS offers on their own mobile devices outside Surface Pro & Book.
it's not made for you so it's appropriate that it doesn't excite you.
The "Times Suare V2 Original Video" is NOT straight from the iPhone 6S camera. This is NOT stabilized by the iPhone's algorithms. It is by default usually, not there. Clearly it has been disabled.
Biased comparison - and the Pix version makes me so sick...
When I shoot videos with my "old" iPhone 6 (not even "S") it looks so much better and more stable.
If you want to provide a balanced and FAIR comparison, show us iPhone's stabilization vs Pix's and the we'll talk...
Get a real camera if you are looking for the perfect camera.