© Red Pop
From the maker of MoviePeg™, comes the Red Pop; an iPhone 4 dock-connected grip handle that’ll turn your iPhone into a proper point-and-shoot by adding a physical camera-shutter button.
The FAQ seems to have answered most of my initial curiosity; the good news is they are working with ‘other app developers’ to make it work with ‘your fave app’, besides the free Red Pop app, but the FAQ is yet to uncover the technical aspects of the product itself:
- Will the iPhone fall-off when we hold the grip vertically upside-down?
- Does it work as a capture button only, or it also works as an AF/meter function on half-press like most modern camera?
- When the app crashes, do we have to manually open our fave camera app from the homescreen, or can we push the Red button to automatically launch it too?
- Will it recognize which app to use if we have more than one non-Red Pop apps?
- The grip comes with a wrist strap; can we carry the iPhone on our wrist without falling-off or am I asking too much?
- Will the Red Pop works with the 3GS, and to-be-announced iPhone xx where it has a different form factor and build with the iPhone 4?
The only way I could justify a $75 purchase of this thing is that if it answers most of the above questions with a simple yes; carrying an expensive add-on to my iPhone means an increased footprint inside the pocket/bag/pouch (excess baggage), it also means I have to make sure I don’t loose it (extra care & attention) and it has to work better — way better — than my current favorite always-available-camera setup: the iPhone 3GS + Hipstamatic.
With the latest Hipstamatic update, we can shoot continuous frames without having to wait for the rendering to finish, and since it only captures a square-formatted images — along with the clever back-camera style design — and the brilliantly located yellow capture button, I can comfortable snap pictures with just one hand and one thumb.
A properly designed shutter button would make the experience more pleasant, but to justify the $75 and the ‘more’ factor above, it needs to do more than just ‘a pleasing experience’.