Comparison

Annotable vs Kino

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Annotable

This app provides a comprehensive suite of tools for annotating and marking up images. It offers a wide range of customization options for common annotation elements and unique features like text highlighting on screenshots. The app supports various iOS system integrations for a seamless user experience.

Highlights
  • Common annotation tools (rectangles, text, arrows)
  • Customizable colors, sizes, and fonts
  • Blur and pixelation for obscuring information
  • Spotlights and Loupes for highlighting
  • Text highlighting on screenshots
  • High-resolution output
  • Support for all image types
Features
Read full description

Annotable is the most full-featured all-in-one image annotation tool. Featured by Apple in many places: ● Best of 2016 ● New Apps We Love ● Best Apps to Edit Your Photos ● Best Productivity Apps ● Best Utilities "I’ve finally found the best all-in-one image annotation tool for iOS – Annotable for iPhone and iPad." —— Federico Viticci of MacStories Features (many are free, some are unlocked with purchases): ◉ All the expected common tools: rectangles, ovals, arrows, lines and texts. ◉ Fully customizable: colors, sizes, outlines, fonts… ◉ Stylishly obscure private information with Blur and Pixelation. ◉ Or on the contrary, highlight something with Spotlights. ◉ If you really want to focus on a particular spot use a Loupe. ◉ You can even highlight text on screenshots of apps like Notes, Twitter, and Safari. It feels like magic, and can really save the day when you want to share a web page screenshot with some words highlighted but forgot to select the words when you took the screenshot. ◉ Fully support Action Extension, Photo Editing Extension, Edits Sync via iCloud Photo Library, URL Schemes, 3D Touch, Wide Color…Annotable utilizes your powerful iOS system to the extreme. Distinctions from many other similar Apps: ◆ All the results are high-resolution images. ◆ Not only screenshots but all images are supported. ◆ Large images can be directly annotated and do not have to be cropped.

About

Kino

Easily create cinematic videos with professional color presets and automatic motion smoothing. Offers advanced manual controls and LUT import for experienced filmmakers. Learn filmmaking with free lessons.

Highlights
  • Cinematic color presets
  • Automatic motion smoothing
  • Manual camera controls
  • Focus peaking and waveform
  • LUT import and Instant Grade
  • Free filmmaking lessons
Read full description

Make great video easy! Kino lets you just press record and create cinematic video with color presets created by expert filmmakers—no edit required. Plus, with “AutoMotion,” the app automatically creates that smooth "film look" you see at the movies. Shoot great video with no film school required. Are you an experienced filmmaker? Kino includes all the features you need to shoot like a Pro, such as a full manual mode, focus peaking, color waveform, audio meters, and more. If you’re experienced in color, you can import LUTs quickly and use the same powerful Instant Grade feature to output video with baked in LUTs. Regardless of your skill level, Kino adapts to your needs. Pick your experience level when setting up the app to dial things in your way or go with recommended, simple settings. The beautiful, simple interface shows only essential things, while keeping powerful features under thumb’s reach. INSTANT GRADE Kino comes packed with pro color presets by experts like Stu Maschwitz, Sandwich Video, Evan Schneider, Tyler Stalman and Kevin Ong. With one tap, you can shoot video with cinematic, film-like color by selecting a Grade preset. With Instant Grade, you don’t have to apply it later or do any editing steps: Kino just saves the processed video for you, ready to share. LEARN ALONG Getting started with video? The Kino team has a free series of lessons prepared you can dive into right away to learn filmmaking with the app. Start out with our simple recommended settings and enroll in a lesson plan to get lessons emailed to you that are easy to follow and let you unlock every feature of the app to use for making better videos. PRO TOOLS Kino’s simple interface does not mean it lacks in powerful pro tools. Start out with automatic exposure with EV adjustment and AE and WB lock, or drop into full manual mode with shutter speed, angle and ISO adjustment. Compose a shot with the grid with built in level, check exposure with the RGB waveform, and pull focus with focus peaking. Kino can store your recordings in Files instead of Photos for better and easy shot management, and even features a screen lock to prevent inadvertent taps messing up your shot. Set custom recording settings (like 4K 60FPS Apple Log ProRes422HQ on iPhone 15 Pro) or get started with presets for flexibiltiy. BEAUTIFUL INTERFACE Thoughtful touches are abound in Kino: from a screen-wide telltale ring to show you are recording, to beautiful custom typography throughout with our own bespoke fonts, Kino balances beauty and simplicity with flexibility and control for users of any skill level. AUTOMOTION Get cinematic motion like in feature films. Introducing: AutoMotion. Kino biases exposure towards a 180° shutter speed by default. If you land in this sweet spot, and available light supports it, the ‘Auto’ label turns green — showing you are in the sweet spot for great cinematic motion. Bright day out? Pop an ND filter on your iPhone and don’t worry about adjusting manual settings: Kino will take care of prioritizing shutter angle so you can just shoot and get great results. LUT FRIENDLY One of the powerful aspects of Kino is being able to download new looks from your favorite creators or your own making. Author .cube LUT files in Pixelmator Pro, Davinci Resolve, or other apps (up to 33x33) and open them in Kino with a tap. TRULY PRIVATE None of our apps gather or collect data, or analyze your videos and photos. We believe the most important thing a camera can be is private. CREATOR SPECIAL Are you a creator or filmmaker and want to get started with or love using Kino? Get in touch with us to get our ‘Creator Kit’: see the Kino website for more details. When sharing your work, tag it #shotwithkino so we can feature it online. Thanks for making it this far! Kino is made by friends — Ben Sandofsky and Sebastiaan de With, with the help of Katie-Rose Summerfield and Doug Broussard. We made this app with love and care and we hope you love it.

Screenshots

Annotable4 screens
Kino4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Annotable at Free against Kino's $9.99. Annotable also leads on review sentiment (75% vs 49%) and device support (3 vs 1). Kino's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 8) and chart position (#23 vs unranked). On rating, ratings volume, ads and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Annotable is free to download; Kino costs $9.99 up front. Annotable sells 8 one-off in-app purchases. Kino asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Annotable against 4.7 for Kino. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 955 and 2K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 75% of Annotable's written reviews are positive against 49% of Kino's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Annotable ships an update every 2 months, Kino monthly. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 12, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Annotable versus Kino: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAnnotableKino
PriceFree — better$9.99
Rating4.6 (955 ratings)4.7 (2K ratings) — better
Positive reviews75.3% of reviews — better49.3% of reviews
Number of ratings9552K — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsMonthly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases — betterPaid
Best chart rank—#23 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS16.6 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size9 MB48 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer凌 王Lux Optics Incorporated

Customer experience

Annotable

All ratings885 ratings
Positive91.8%
Neutral3.2%
Negative5.1%
Written reviews190 reviews
Positive75.3%
Neutral5.8%
Negative18.9%

Kino

All ratings1,944 ratings
Positive92.9%
Neutral2.1%
Negative5.0%
Written reviews467 reviews
Positive49.3%
Neutral12.8%
Negative37.9%

User reviews

Annotable

From 955 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Game changer
  • 🚀 Excellent—the built-in iOS markup features pale in comparison
  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 👍 Fantastic!
  • 👍 Amazing App

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Blur broken ios26
  • 🔒 Can't undo
  • 💰 Paid app, free version is worthless
  • 💰 Everything is locked behind a pay wall
  • 💰 Extremely frustrating to use

Kino

From 2K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Simple and intuitive UI
  • 🎨 Great color grading presets
  • 🚀 Responsive and clean interface
  • 💡 Instant grading/LUT application
  • 👍 Cinematic video quality

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes and freezes frequently
  • 🐛 Buggy manual controls (shutter, ISO)
  • 🐛 Audio issues (sync, quality)
  • 🐛 Inconsistent video recording
  • 🐛 Limited LUT/filter options on older devices

Bugs and requests

Annotable

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Blur broken ios26
  • Can't save edits on iPad Pro, 14.5.1
  • In-App Purchases do not work
  • Loss of work
  • App freezes occasionally on iPad

Requested features

15 requests
  • Open the app directly to the camera
  • Save images to the app, not to my phone or make a specific folder to save Annotated images
  • Make a Mac version
  • Add insert photo option
  • Add flexible pointers lines
Show 10 more
  • Add an eraser
  • Add undo/redo action buttons
  • Add crop
  • Add a way to adjust transparency of fonts for watermarking
  • Add rotate image
  • Add a way to draw solid boxes with a color of your choosing
  • Add a way to adjust text size
  • Add a way to center the text
  • Add a way to insert and resize images
  • Add a way to make shapes a solid color in addition to outline

Kino

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Crashes on launch
  • Video recording issues (frame drops, black screens)
  • LUT import failures
  • Unresponsive touch controls
  • Inconsistent performance on older devices

Requested features

9 requests
  • Tap to focus/expose
  • Bluetooth shutter control
  • Anamorphic desqueeze
  • Custom preset settings
  • External mic support
Show 4 more
  • Geolocation tagging
  • Batch processing
  • Orientation lock
  • Improved EXIF metadata

In-app purchases

8 purchases

Annotable

One-time8
  • Color Customization$1.99
  • Text Highlighter & Redaction Tool$1.99
  • All Obscuration Styles$1.99
Show 5 more
  • Blur Tool$1.99
  • Spotlight Tool$1.99
  • Loupe Tool$1.99
  • All Text Styles & Fonts$1.99
  • All Features$9.99
None

Kino

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Annotable free?
Annotable is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Kino free?
Kino costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Annotable or Kino?
Kino is rated higher. Annotable averages 4.6 out of 5 from 955 ratings, while Kino averages 4.7 from 2K ratings.
Do Annotable or Kino have ads?
Neither Annotable nor Kino shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Annotable or Kino?
Annotable ships an update every 2 months, and Kino monthly. Most recently, Annotable was updated on November 11, 2026 and Kino on November 12, 2026.

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