Back in the early days of the App Store, Apple was a little more lenient with apps that looked like Polaroids — the classic square SX-70 and slightly wider Spectra films. Polarock is one of those apps.
Polarock is back. Let me save you a dollar. Avoid Polarock.
It’s a Polaroid instant photo style app with several filters, but there’s so much wrong with it, Polarock was horrible even when photo apps were brand new.
The instant print frame ratio is annoyingly off. It has the signature Polaroid tab, but the frame shape is just a little taller than the square SX-70 prints.
It hasn’t been updated in three years and isn’t stable on the latest iPhones or iOS. The app crashes frequently on an iPhone 4S and crashes 100% of the time for me when importing images from the camera roll. It works fine on an old 2G or 3G running iOS 3, however.
The app saves at an unusable 320×461 output. That’s unusably low resolution even when the 2 megapixel iPhone 2G was the top of the line.
First released back in November of 2008, it got a few quick updates before its last release, version 1.3, on December 30, 2008. It was finally removed from the App Store in the middle of 2010 before unexpectedly showing up again today in the App Store. It’s not a new app or a long-awaited update of the old one. Maybe it’s a server glitch. It’s now so unstable on a new iPhone, I don’t know how this app was allowed back in the App Store with a “Compatible with …” label. Regardless, then or now, Polarock is an app that’s best forgotten about again.
For Polaroid photos, ShakeItPhoto by Banana Camera Co. is the app to get, not this one.
Polarock is $0.99. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 2.1 or later.
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