Red Pop for iPhone – Kickstarting at the Wrong Time?

Laurent Ho
13 years ago

Red Pop is one of those products, you never really thought you would need it until you seen it. My first impressions of the prototype was pretty good and I was starting to think this might actually be useful for a lot of iPhone users. It’s got a cool practical name, very recognizable and almost an instant winner with over 500 backers and over-funded by 200% on Kickstarter. Then alas but not totally unexpected, came Apple and they decided to spoil this bag of fun…

“We, at Beep Industries, would love your help to ‘bring the button back’ with a new product we’ve made called Red Pop – an iPhone 4 accessory that adds a big, red, juicy camera button to your phone.” – Written by Red Pop @ Kickstarter

Why You Should Back “Red Pop” Project

As a hobby photographer myself, the phone camera is one of the few useful devices for capturing candid moments and I can tell you that there are a bazillion times I missed a good shot trying forever to touch so lightly on the iPhone just so that the pictures come out sharp. No amount of camera apps can solve this problem, except in app stabilizers do help but to limited results. Here is why I think the Red Pop is a good idea:

Bigger is Better – Touching to take picture stinks and we all know it plus the fact it looks totally weird and unnatural when we do that. We still want that camera-ish big clicky button, and that trusty old location where you know you gonna get a good shot, nice and steady.
Better Grip – Camera manufacturers seldom get the grip right and when they do, it’s always a good thing. Red Pop makes the iPhone a little bigger and wider with it, making the iPhone ergonomically better to handle throughout. Better grip = sharper pictures. Period.
Simple & Fast – The Red Pop has to be simple and fast to use, and these guys know it. It comes with a free app that fires up as soon Red Pop is connected. I can’t remember how many times I need to look for the camera app icon and waiting eons for it to load. Red Pop instantly solves that problem: Twist, Push, Pop as they say it.

Why You Should NOT Back “Red Pop” Project

A little more than 24 hours ago Apple announce a few new stuff at WWDC: iCloud, iOS 5 and OS X Lion. So what’s this gotta do with Red Pop? Quite a bit, let’s take a look at iOS 5. Over 200 new features installed for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, but look closer at the new camera features and you will find the Red Pop “Killer”… well sort of:

Camera App on Lock Screen – You can now access the camera app right from the lock screen, increasing the accessibility instantly but I doubt it allows us to choose which camera app we want this shortcut to use. Somewhat a deal-breaker considering the popularity of camera apps like Instagram and Camera+.
Shutter Button on Volume Up – Apple listens and decided to transform the volume button into the shutter button when the camera app is in use.
Additional Features – Grid lines, pinch to zoom, single tap focus and exposure locks plus the ability to iCloud your photos to other devices are awesome, giving camera app owners a run for their money.

Honestly I would have backed Red Pop up if not for iOS 5, not because I think iOS 5 would really change iPhoneography but I would like to test it first before actually backing up Red Pop (but then that wouldn’t make sense since the Red Pop project has only 24 days left and iOS 5 won’t be release till September).

Here’s the deal, call me a cheapskate or whatever but iOS 5 camera improvements looks pretty good to me so I’m just gonna wait it out for now and if it still doesn’t cut, I’ll get Red Pop… that is if it’s still publicly available then. (Oh wait, there’s iPhone 5…)