Metapho 2.1.2 Release Note

Version numbering could be arbitrary sometimes. Many things have been changed under the hood for this huge point update.
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Memory footprint

Memory usage for an app extension is very constrained. For an app extension handling images like Metapho, it is easy to be killed by OS and fail to launch, unless the app extension manages memory usage carefully.
A JPEG file stores its metadata in the head. If Metapho Action extension gets the location of the file, there’s no reason to load entire image data into memory. Just reading head section for metadata would be sufficient. By doing this, Action extension can show a very large image like this. Similar stuff also applies to sharing. Now, Metapho exports metadata modified file in a memory efficient way so that you can Safe Share a huge image in Action extension.

Film Mode

Cameras made by Fuji Film have special custom metadata, Film Mode. It seems like that dozen of film simulation modes are valuable metadata for Fuji Film camera owners. After digging into custom note section of the photo and studying camera manuals, I could extract Film Mode and put it on the camera info section.

RAW and iCloud Photos Library

Apple says iOS and RAW are not very friendly. In the host app, Metapho tries to get RAW assets if they are available locally or on the iCloud Photos Library. In the app extension, iOS Photos app sometimes gives the app extension RAW, sometimes JPEG. If only JPEG is available in the Photos app, the app extension uses provided JPEG and will not try to retrieve underlying RAW.

DNG support

iOS 10 lets capable devices capture in RAW. The result is DNG, Adobe digital negative file format. Unfortunately, iOS does not have DNG decoder and just treat it as a small thumbnail. Metapho reads DNG metadata and at least shows original pixel size of the image. It’s not possible for now to edit or share an original size image directly from a DNG file in Metapho. If you really want to handle DNG in iOS you should convert DNG into JPEG first, using DNG develop apps like Lightroom or Camera+.

Small changes and fixes

  • Metapho ignored a photo’s orientation when it showed pixel dimension info. For a portrait photo, EXIF width is actually height. Now the app swaps height and width for rotated orientation.
  • Sometimes Map View got confused and gave us wrong compass icon. Not any more.
  • Reports 0.303030303 shutter speed as 1/33s not 1/30s.