FAQ: questions about The Time Travel Camera

A filter repaints a finished picture. A decade starts earlier. It decides how many pictures a second the camera took, how soft the lens was, what colors the film or the sensor could see, how the grain or the tape noise sat on the image, how the frame wobbled and how the print faded afterwards. The app runs every frame through ten stages in that order, and gives the sound the same treatment. Each decade has 12 video technologies and 12 photo styles, so the 1980s alone go from an early VHS camcorder to a copied tape. How it works.

Think of each take as one cartridge or one tape. Three minutes is the length we chose so that a take is a short film you can actually send to someone, and the editor works to the same 3:00 limit. When the counter reaches 3:00 the display says TAPE FULL, and you press DONE to develop it.

It also rhymes with history, though that isn't the reason for it: a 50-foot Super 8 cartridge ran about 2½ minutes at 24 frames a second and about 3⅓ minutes at 18. Home movie makers learned to plan their shots around the end of the roll.

You can shoot as many takes as you like. Inside one take, REC and pause as often as you want: the parts are stitched into one continuous clip when you press DONE.

The app is free to download and you can start shooting right away. Some features will be part of an optional paid upgrade; the App Store page will list them. There are no ads. Every video you save to Photos or share ends with a 2-second card: "MADE WITH / TIME TRAVEL CAMERA™ / Free on the App Store", set in the type of the decade and rendered through the clip's own look. It doesn't count towards the 3:00 of the take. Photos, and clips that stay in the app's LIBRARY, don't get it.

No. There is no sign-up, no cloud and no server: the app has no network code at all, so it works the same in airplane mode. It collects no data and has no analytics or tracking. Your clips stay on your iPhone until you save or share them. Privacy in full.

The small dial to the right of REC, from 1 to 12. It sets how strongly the decade shows: grain, softness, flicker, weave, color bleed, tape noise, fading. At 7, where the camera always starts, the look is exactly as written for that technology or style. Below 7 it fades towards a clean picture; above 7 it grows, up to 1.6 times at 12. It never changes the color response, the frame rate or the shape of the look, and it never adds a defect the look doesn't have. DEGREE explained, with examples.

Any iPhone with iOS 17.2 or later. The look engine works hard on every frame, so we recommend iPhone 12 or newer. On older models the app still runs, and ABOUT shows the line "Performance is not guaranteed on this iPhone."

No. The Time Travel Camera is made for iPhone only, held upright like a camcorder. There is no iPad, Mac or Android version.

Yes. Tap FLIP or double-tap the viewfinder. Every decade works on both cameras. In CINE the LIGHT button becomes a screen light, a white border around the viewfinder; in STILL the flash becomes a white-screen flash. MIRROR SELFIE in MENU › SHOT decides whether selfies are mirrored (it is on by default).

Every video the app makes is a 24 frames-a-second file, so it plays everywhere. Slower historical cadences are reproduced inside that file by holding frames: at 16 fps two frames out of three are new and the third repeats the last one, so you see 16 different pictures a second. Your clip keeps its real duration, so people don't scurry. Cadences faster than 24, such as 30 fps video or 60 fps phones, can't be added, and those technologies play at 24. More on frame rates.

Every other stop on the dial is a decade someone lived through. The 2030s are a guess about the next one, with its facts written as possibilities ("may", "might"). Today it renders as the cleanest decade on the dial: most of its looks add only light sharpening, compression or noise reduction, which makes it a good place to compare everything else against.

Yes. Open the LIBRARY and tap IMPORT, pick a video from your photos, then choose the decade, technology and DEGREE and tap DEVELOP. A video longer than 3:00 gets a trim bar so you can pick up to three minutes. The new clip keeps the original's audio as it was, and the original in your Photos is never touched.

In the app's LIBRARY, on your iPhone. Nothing goes to a server. To keep a clip in your photo library, open it and tap SAVE; the first time, iOS asks for permission to add to Photos. Clips that are only in the LIBRARY are deleted with the app, so save the ones you want to keep. MENU › SYSTEM › STORAGE shows how much space your clips use.

Not over the picture. Saved and shared videos end with the 2-second end card. Separately, the last half second of each developed clip carries a small cream badge in the corner with the year and TIME TRAVEL CAMERA™, the decade signature; you can switch it off in MENU › LOOK › DECADE SIGNATURE. Photos are saved without either.

The camera has its own clock, like a real camcorder. If someone set it by hand, it keeps running from the date they chose. Open MENU › LOOK › CLOCK and tap LIVE to follow the phone's clock again, or set any date you like with the ADJUST dial. Also note that a few styles are defined by a date imprint and print one even with DATE STAMP off; switch DATE STAMP on to control it yourself.

Yes. Say "Hey Siri, record a 1990 clip with Time Travel Camera" or "take a 1960 photo with Time Travel Camera". The same two actions are in the Shortcuts app, so you can put them on the Action button. Name a decade by its year, such as 1990 or 1990s; a year like 1962 isn't a decade on the dial. Siri can start the camera only when the phone is unlocked and you have already allowed the camera and the microphone; otherwise it opens the app on that decade.

PERIOD, the default, puts your voice through the decade's recording chain, from a wax cylinder to a camcorder microphone, with the hiss, crackle, hum or motor of the medium underneath. SILENT removes the voice and keeps only that background, the way a silent reel still has its mechanism. From the 2010s on, SILENT is true silence. ORIGINAL keeps your iPhone's audio untouched. Period sound.

In STILL mode every photo is a print, and its shape and border come from the STYLE you chose: a card mount in the 1890s, a deckle edge in the 1940s, a slide mount, a booth strip of four, an instant-film frame. That's why the FORMAT button only works in CINE. Prints and paper.

Yes. Open a clip and tap EDIT. You can trim and reorder segments, add clips of the same format, a title card, an end title, a caption and a music track from your Files. The whole edit can be up to 3:00, and it takes the decade and look of its first clip.

The take is closed and kept. The viewfinder tells you why ("Recording saved: the call came in"), and the clip develops when you come back. If the app was closed in the middle of developing, the takes wait under RECOVERED TAKES at the top of the LIBRARY.

English. The labels on the camera body, such as REC, DONE and DEGREE, are engraved in English like the controls of a real camera.

The camera, to see; the microphone, to record sound (you can shoot without it); and, the first time you tap SAVE, permission to add to your photo library. It never asks to read your whole library: IMPORT uses the system picker, which hands the app only the video you choose.

DEGREE multiplies the defects a look already has. A 2020s phone video has very few, so even at 12 it stays nearly clean, while an 1890s reel at 12 becomes very rough. Pick an older or a worn technology if you want heavy wear.