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There are better ways to take a photo of your pet in iOS 15, thanks to Obscura 3
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Taking photos in iOS has always been a relatively simple affair, just by using the Camera app by Apple. But third-party developers have gone further to make the iPhone camera work harder for you and the photos you take every day.

This is what Obscura has been doing since its launch in 2015. Developed by the Obscura team of Ben Rice McCarthy, Adam K. Schmidt and Sara Lovic, the third version of the app launched this week (February 17) for $ 9.99 / £9.99 / AU$ 10.99.

This new version brings a redesigned gallery view, video capture, refined layouts for controlling exposure settings, and the multiple lenses of the iPhone models, alongside controller support. This allows anyone with an Xbox or PlayStation controller, to take a photo through Obscura 3.

Having used the update for a month, it’s a significant improvement over Obscura 2. The new gallery view brings your albums front and center, giving you a quick overview of what you want to select.

There’s also the ability to rate your photos, not just a thumbs up or down as in Apple’s Photos app. Here, you could take a selection of photos, say different locations for a wedding venue for instance, and rate them in order. It makes sorting some photos much easier, as it could help you decide on certain locations or products for those important situations.

Gallery view in Obscura 3

(Image credit: TechRadar)

It’s the gestures that help make Obscura 3 shine – especially the exposure gesture. As you’re taking a photo, you can press the exposure icon on the bottom-left of the app to change how light or dark you need the image to be. But if you use your thumb to slide up and down on the icon, you can more accurately choose the exposure point instead.

These little touches are found across the app in this third version. While you can’t currently change the default camera app in iOS, Obscura 3 makes a compelling case for why the option should be there for pro users.

A chat with Obscura’s developer

Speaking with McCarthy after the launch of Obscura 3, I asked them whether the pandemic inspired the development of the new update, in regards to features and what users were asking for. “Not particularly. In an ideal world we would have taken a trip to somewhere exciting to take incredible marketing photos of rainforests or glaciers,” McCarthy clarifies. “But for the most part, the production of Obscura 3 wasn’t all that different to Obscura 2.”

With every major update to an app, there’s always the question of what the main objective was for the newest version. We asked McCarthy what the aim was for Obscura this time. “Am I allowed to say everything? Because we really did throw it all out and start from scratch,” McCarthy continues. “There are obvious changes like the new camera interface, but everything has been rewritten and improved, like the gesture to close the camera, the photo capture pipeline, the filters to support P3 color, I could go on all day. 

“If I had to choose just one though, I’d probably say the Image Detail view,” McCarthy reveals. “There’s an astonishing amount of complexity to it. It was honestly pretty janky in Obscura 2. It now has better support for RAW files, depth data, video (for the first time!), and is much smoother at handling changes to the photo library while you’re browsing. The triage features are also really neat if you care about keeping your library organized.”

Focus feature in Obscura 3

(Image credit: TechRadar)

We wanted to mention the Exposure wheel, which we found very intuitive for allowing certain amounts of light in. We asked McCarthy how this came to be, and why it’s arriving in this update.

“Conceptually, the Exposure and Focus dials were planned from the very start. In fact, I had built a very rudimentary version of them in Obscura 1, but it wasn’t great,” McCarthy explains.

“We played around with the functionality quite a bit. Should the dial have values displayed around the ring? Should the sensitivity vary as it expands? How sensitive should the haptic feedback be? But everything we added made it feel less intuitive and more distracting. In the end, the simpler it was, the more natural and like using a physical camera it felt.”

With the new gallery view being a tentpole feature of Obscura 3, we asked McCarthy whether there was going to be an option for opening the app and having the gallery appear first.

“I had thought of making that an option for the forthcoming iPad version, which is well suited to browsing and editing photos, but I hadn’t really considered it for the phone,” McCarthy explains. “But if we build that functionality anyway, I don’t see why we wouldn’t add it to the phone.”

Obscura 3 video mode in landscape

(Image credit: TechRadar)

In-app purchases, or IAPs, are ways for users to buy more features for an app. In previous Obscura versions, this allowed you to buy additional filters, but for Obscura 3, there are no IAPs this time.

We asked McCarthy what the reasons for this were, and if IAPs have had their due, especially for photography apps.

“There were a few reasons behind this decision, benefitting both us and the user. The first is that we wanted to avoid the feeling of upselling, especially when the user is in the middle of taking photos,” McCarthy explains.

“Secondly, the StoreKit API has also been a pain to work with in the past and was the source of more support email than any other part of the app. And thirdly, having IAPs for filters necessitated having example photos for the product pages, and those added quite a considerable amount to Obscura’s download size (O2 was about 70MB and O3 is down to about 5MB, though the sample photos weren’t the only factor).”

The gallery view also shows promise for other Apple platforms, such as macOS, an operating system that doesn’t have an Obscura app. We wondered whether this is something up for consideration.

“I’m certainly not promising anything right now, but I have tried building it for the Mac using Catalyst and it mostly runs without issue,” McCarthy reveals. “The real work would be in making it feel more at home on macOS, so I guess we’ll have to see if we can find the time to make it happen.”

Obscura 3 and DualSense controller

(Image credit: TechRadar)

A surprising feature was the integration of controller support in Obscura 3. You could use a Dual Sense controller to take a photo if needed. We asked whether this was always intended and if there are further plans to expand this in the future.

“As I was working on the Apple Watch companion app, it occurred to me that it would be nice if there was an alternative for people who don’t have one. And I had a spare PS4 controller (in theory for playing more games on iOS, though I rarely use it) and I realized that could be a decent alternative,” McCarthy reveals.

“There’s not much functionality there right now, but we have plenty of ideas on improving this feature that just didn’t make the cut for launch.”

Finally, widgets are still being heavily used on iPhone and iPad devices, where you can place bite-sized information on your home screen without launching the app. For Obscura, this seems to be a natural step, especially for rated photos and shortcuts for launching different modes of the app.

We asked McCarthy whether this was something that they were considering. “Definitely. As soon as the launch chaos is over we’re going to start work on widgets, and we already have a few planned,” McCarthy continues. “Having access via the lock screen is a big bonus that widgets also provide. And given that we may never see an option to set third-party camera apps as the default, we have to take what opportunities we can get.”

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Leadership in times of crisis: three ways to build resilience
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There is no leadership manual for dealing with a once-in-a-century global health emergency—no script to guide what you should say to team members, customers, and stakeholders in your business. 

Right now, everyone’s leadership skills are being tested in ways we could have barely imagined a month ago. It’s not just a question of how resilient our organisations are and how quickly they can adapt to lockdowns and restrictions on travel. It’s a challenge to our resilience as human beings. 

When Stewart Butterfield, the founder of Slack, tweeted the story in recent days of how his business was responding to the Covid-19 emergency, he prefaced his comments with a simple introductory note: “I’m a human. I worry about my family and am deeply concerned about the millions whose jobs and health are at risk.” It was the right starting note.

I’ve always believed that great leadership is forged in the crucible of adversity, but great leaders are those who respond with empathy and vulnerability even when making the toughest decisions. We all need reserves of determination and positivity at precisely the moments those qualities are stretched thin.

Where do those reserves come from? Here are four ways to build resilience:

Own your resilience

Meet one of the most remarkable people I know, Debra Searle. She is a successful entrepreneur, author, and television presenter—and she’s been twice-honoured by the Queen for her achievements in her native UK and beyond. She has a mental toolkit that served her well through one of the toughest tests imaginable: rowing across 3,000 miles of ocean by herself in a boat built for two. 

Debra’s tips range from “running the movie”— visualise yourself confronting and overcoming the challenging times ahead—to choosing your attitude every day.

“This is the one thing I had a choice about,” Debra says. “Every day I made an attitude choice: I said it out loud. It had to be a positive attitude. Negative attitudes were banned on the boat.”

Keep communicating

Keep talking. Keep listening. Our team has been communicating openly on multiple channels as the coronavirus crisis has developed and after the decision to ask staff to work remotely. There are virtual meetings, recorded sessions, emails, and I’ve opened my schedule to anyone in the business to book time for a conversation. And those conversations have ranged from the current crisis, to our customer response, to just having a laugh about our home office hijinks.  

The most important message is how to embrace the ‘“new normal’” for the entire team. We all need to prioritise and support our family during times like these. For some, the new normal might look like two working adults competing for internet bandwidth at home taking turns to respond to the cries of a toddler or two. For others, it might be taking care of at-risk parents or relatives. But whatever the new normal is for each colleague, there’s one thing they all needed to know from their leader: prioritise your family and your wellbeing. If anything has to give in life right now, let it be work.

When it's all done, reflect and learn

When this crisis abates—and it will in time—the temptation is for leaders to rush ahead without a backward glance. But part of resilience is learning lessons. Former US Navy SEAL Commander Mark McGinnis describes this as part of the “Corporate Battle Rhythm”—a full cycle of planning, briefing, execution and debriefing.

“After a mission, we come together immediately in a very hallowed environment where there’s no rank, no blame, no privilege, no seniority, and we sit down and talk unemotionally about the successes and failures of the mission.  It’s important to capture both,” he says.

“The successes because we want to continue to do things that are working and the failures because we can’t afford to make the same mistake twice. If we repeat mistakes in my world it has catastrophic results.” 

And the outcome of a SEAL team’s debrief isn’t just kept within the mission squad. The lessons are open to every SEAL, from the top to bottom rank. “I’m accelerating everyone’s experience, whether they’re going out and doing operations or not,” says Mark.

Take the time to reflect and hold a debrief; no two crises are the same, but there will be lessons to learn from your organisation’s response to Covid-19.

Lead as though your children are watching

In essence, times of crisis challenge leaders to be the best versions of themselves. I’m reminded of an idea that Sean Pederson of Trek Bicycles came up with a few years ago: “Lead as though your children are watching.” It’s great advice. And right now, if you’re reading this while you’re working at home, they probably are.

Alex Shootman is CEO at Workfront

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By forcing Bing on Chrome users, Microsoft is back to its bad old ways
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Come on Microsoft. You must know that no one likes Bing. Cramming it into a Spider-Man film in a bid to make it appear cool didn’t work – mainly because in a film involving radioactive spiders, superheroes and lizard people, the idea of anyone willingly using Bing rather than Google was the most unrealistic aspect.

In fact, I have a sneaky suspicion that the most searched-for term in Bing is “How to download Chrome”, as people use Microsoft’s Edge browser, which comes with Windows 10 and has Bing as the default search engine, to download Google’s Chrome browser.

I'd even wager that the user numbers for Bing compared to Google must be so small, they are practically an anomaly. More of a blip than a bing.

And Microsoft must know this. Which is why the company has been trying to foist its unloved search engine on us. Not only does Edge default to Bing, but using the search box in Windows 10 brings up Bing results when you search the internet, with no easy way to change it.

And even worse, it’s now emerged that Microsoft is planning to include a “Bing extension for Chrome” that will be automatically installed alongside a forthcoming update to Microsoft Office 356 ProPlus.

This will change the default search engine of Chrome from Google (or any other search engine) to Bing. Quite why Microsoft thinks that anyone using Microsoft Office 356 ProPlus would also want to have their search engine changed to Bing is beyond me. It’s come up with some old excuse about needing to use Microsoft search or whatever, but to be blunt, that’s no reason to forcibly change people’s search engines.

Microsoft Bing

With great power comes great responsibility

Instead, Microsoft wants people to use Bing not through choice, but through force. And while many people will change back to Google as soon as they’ve noticed that their search queries bring back Bing results, I’m sure Microsoft is banking on enough people not realising, or just sticking with it, victims of digital Stockholm syndrome.

In my view, this is a move that hearkens back to Microsoft’s shadier past where it has tried to force its products on users. Anyone who has used a fresh version of Windows 10 will know that if you use Edge (and Bing) to search from Chrome to download, you used to get messages popping up trying to dissuade you from doing so, and instead stick with Edge.

Not only was this annoying (and a bit desperate), but it was using an unfair advantage of having Edge being pre-installed in Windows 10.

Now, those little pop-ups and messages seemed to have calmed down a bit lately, and I was hoping that maybe Microsoft has learned its lesson. But if it does go ahead with changing people’s default search engines when they update Microsoft Office 356 ProPlus, then I fear the company hasn’t learned anything.

The bottom line is if Microsoft wants more people to use products like Edge and Bing, then rather than forcing people to use them, instead Microsoft should work hard to make those products better than the completion – so people willingly use those products, rather than being held hostage.

Microsoft has done better with its updates to Edge – but it’ll take a lot more to make me consider using Bing.

But tampering with my choices in an unrelated program just because I use another Microsoft product? I believe Spider-Man would agree that that goes against everything Uncle Ben stood for.

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