This viral photo app killed my iPhone – and the pictures aren’t even that good

Seems like you can barely move for iPhone photo apps these days. Some are brilliant, some are good fun, some are perfect for editing on the go. And others are less so.

Designed by the director Rian Johnson (Knives Out, The Last Jedi) and his long-term cinematographer Steve Yedlin, the idea behind Chromograph is to give all your photos a ‘cinematic’ aesthetic.

There are tonnes of photo apps but this one went viral and took the top spot in the app charts within hours. The power of Hollywood. It’s particularly impressive when you think it’s not a free app – people were and are willing to put $13.99 of their own hard-earned cash to see what this is all about.

iPhone 18 Pro · f/1.8 · 1/900s · 6.9299998280517mm · ISO80

Now, I love taking photos on my iPhone and I’m a bit of a sucker for a retro vibe so I had to give it a go, and my feelings about it are, well… mixed.

The developers are so sure that you’ll love the way the photos look from this app that they even suggest you replace the native / default camera app with it. That’s a ballsy claim – but I’m afraid to say it’s total lunacy.

Now I’m not saying that the app is inherently bad, as such. Hey if you like this kind of aesthetic it’s kind of fun. But on the other hand, I also read someone describe it as ‘interminable sludge’ and well, that’s also a pretty fair summation too.

iPhone 18 Pro · f/1.8 · 1/210s · 6.9299998280517mm · ISO64

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