/Malachite

Bring new power to your iPhone's macro lens.

Primary LanguageSwiftGNU Affero General Public License v3.0AGPL-3.0

Malachite

noun

  1. a crystal with the properties of revealing hidden parts of yourself
  2. the name of my app to take control of the macro lens on iPhone

What is it?

Malachite is a work-in-progress app that gives you more control over the macro lens of (or connected to) your iPhone.

What do I need?1

I recommend one of the following configurations...

  • An iPhone or iPad with one of the following:
    • A built-in ultra-wide camera that supports Apple's macro mode:
      • iPhone 13 Pro or iPhone 13 Pro Max
      • iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max
      • iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max
      • iPhone 16 or later (excluding iPhone SE)
    • A third-party lens attachment ...and iOS 14.1 or later.

What can I do with this?

  • Enjoy a fully-native, no-external library Swift app
  • Quickly open Malachite with a lock screen widget, Control Center, or even the Action Button!2
  • Basic camera view, with buttons that are out of the way
  • Switch between the ultra-wide and wide cameras, with fallback support for devices with one camera
  • Pinch-to-zoom gesture3
  • Autofocus and autoexposure adjustments by tapping and holding the display
  • Manual focus adjustments by adjusting a slider next to the other controls
  • Photo capture support, even when library access is set to Limited
  • JPEG and HEIC support4
  • 48MP and high dynamic range support5
  • Watermarking support!
  • More features, coming soon...

What's it look like?

I don't currently have images for it; I'll be adding some as I get closer to my first release.

How do I get it?

TestFlight

Malachite is available on TestFlight!
https://testflight.apple.com/join/Bj2HlOQV

Building from source

  1. Clone this repo
  2. Open Malachite.xcodeproj
  3. Change the codesigning team in Signing & Capabilities6
  4. Build!

What started this one, Eva?

So, I live with my love: @ThatStella7922. She and I are both big nerds, and I caught her using her macro lens on an Xbox 360 motherboard to let her work with traces and pads while she was RGH'ing it. The idea for a magnifier app came from how much time it took for her to get into the right camera setting, turn the flashlight on, and still not have much control beyond autofocus and zooming. With Malachite, I strove to solve this problem - and then I ended up making it even greater for the people who love macro photography on their own iPhones.

Footnotes

  1. Malachite is validated against iPhone SE (1st generation) with no lens attachment, iPhone 8 Plus with no working main camera, iPhone 11, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad Pro (11-inch). Not all features are available across all devices, due to hardware and software limitations. iOS version support may change depending on the difficulty of targeting older iOS versions and/or other factors. ↩

  2. Support for the Camera Control button on iPhone 16 and later is planned and will be implemented when I receive my iPhone 16 Pro Max. ↩

  3. Pinch-to-zoom will feature haptic feedback when reaching the minimum and maximum zoom levels in a future commit. ↩

  4. Capturing images in RAW and ProRAW is being looked into. HEIC requires iPhone 7 or later, iPad (6th generation) or later, iPad Air (3rd generation) or later, iPad mini (5th generation) or later, iPad Pro (12.9-inch, 2nd generation) or later, iPad Pro (10.5-inch), iPad Pro (11-inch) or later, or iPod touch (7th generation) ↩

  5. High dynamic range is currently limited to HEIC-supporting devices to investigate issues with older models. ↩

  6. This will be unnecessary in a future commit. ↩