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In May, we launched Mark III, which was a huge rewrite and leap forward in features.

https://www.lux.camera/halide-mark-iii/

As for the subscription, there’s always been a pay-once option for major releases. You just miss out on a free trial, the beta program, and anything we might release with ongoing costs.

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Halide's subscription system seems to have broken since late 2024/early 2025 — my v1 purchase with a different Apple ID from the one I'm usually logged in with (different country/region) wasn't being recognised.

When I emailed in, they blamed it on how the App Store mechanism changed.

Halide somehow is the only app that has this issue.

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We switched to Apple's StoreKit 2 framework, which uses different internal plumbing. Not only is it the recommended way moving forward from Apple, but it improves the user experience for purchase management.

The issue is that, indeed, it actually validates that the App Store account currently logged in purchased the app. I believe this is intended behavior, as it closes a piracy loophole where you could log into the Apple ID of a friend, download all their paid apps, and then log in to a different account while retaining access.

If other apps don't run into this problem, it's possible they haven't moved on to StoreKit 2. Or the app has their own login independent of app subscription; setting aside the time it would take me to build that, I don't think most people are willing to create an account to try a camera app.

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They offer both a subscription model and a lifetime purchase. Or that used to be the case, at least. But I agree that it feels like it's getting behind.
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They just released a major update, but it's not something I would pay a subscription for. I paid the lifetime fee in it's early days, but that doesn't unlock the new updates sadly.

I use Analogue for day to day capture, and NoFusion and Moment apps for things I will want to edit later. All with one-time purchase. I don't mind paying for quality apps, but I do have subscription fatigue now.

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There is still a lifetime purchase for the new version, IIRC. I can see it in the App Store IAP section. (Which is so useful! Lets me filter for apps that have a lifetime option at all.)
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Did not know that!

Might check it out. Thanks for letting me know. But really been enjoying Analogue lately.

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Also, I just checked, I purchased Mark II lifetime and got Mark III for free. It's only Mark I users that didn't get it.

Unfortunately it looks like lifetime users don't get access to the beta program for whatever reason. I guess they don't want feedback from those users.

I tried Analogue too, but I stopped using third-party camera apps altogether because they all seem to suffer from an issue where if you lock the phone too quickly after taking a photo, the photo is lost forever. I lost so many photos to this that I knew I took.

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Apple limits TestFlight to 10,000 testers. Folks who are paying a recurring fee expect to see more frequent updates, so they get priority.

Halide shouldn't be afflicted by the lost photo issue you're talking about. Normally, if you close a lock-screen extension before a photo is written, it won't be in your library. This can be a problem when the user quickly smashes the capture button and your photo queue gets backed up.

Luckily, the unlocked app gets a chance later to access the content of lock-screen capture sessions. So our strategy in Halide is to write the intermediate files to disk as soon as you initiate a capture; this should take a split second. When we have uninterruptible time, later, we make sure the photo finished writing to your library, and if not, we try again.

However, Apple's documentation isn't clear if the OS will "wake-up" your main app to process unfinished photos, or if it relies on the user launching the app. I'll just say that I dog-food Halide every day by capturing photos of my toddler, and I can't remember the last time I lost a shot.

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At this point, I don't remember if I was using Halide from the lock screen or not, but I lost tons of photos because apparently I turned the screen off before the photo finished saving to the library. Halide forgot about it, and even after reopening the app, it was gone forever. This would only seem to happen when I turned the screen off quickly after taking the photo.

These days, I use the regular Camera app because I need my damn photos to save. I loved Halide, but that bug made it too unreliable. I get very distressed by data loss and couldn't continue to risk it while trying to develop a way to work around it.

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