Comparison

iSky vs Lens

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

Head to head
About

iSky

Transform your surroundings into living art using your device's camera. Experience the world through the styles of famous paintings in real-time. Pause, play, and share your artistic creations with others.

Highlights
  • Real-time neural network style transfer
  • 5 famous painting styles
  • Live video pause and play
  • Share creations
  • Tap to change styles
Features
Read full description

iSky provides you a window into the world through the eyes of 5 different paintings: Van Gogh's Starry Night, Mosaic, Leonid Afremov's Rain Princess, Natasha Westcoat's Candie and Francis Picabia's Udnie. The app uses your iOS device rear camera, and applies realtime neural network style transfer of the camera scene. Neural networks are trained in PyTorch, and transferred to Apple's CoreML via an ONNX intermediary. Please note that performance may be slower on older Apple devices. - Tap the screen to alternate between 5 different painting styles. - Pause and Play live video. - Share with with everyone using the share button! Turn your world into art, and share it with the world!

About

Lens

Features
Read full description

Lens lets you shoot photos and videos with real-time visual effects directly inside the camera. Choose a look, see it instantly, and capture the final result without moving to a separate editor. Lens is built for creators, visual experimenters, and anyone who wants a more expressive camera on iPhone. Fully free to use All camera effects, photo and video capture features are currently available without subscriptions or paywalls. Create, record, and share without limitations. What you can do with Lens: • Shoot with real-time visual effects • Record video with effects applied during capture • Take photos with the active look • Preview the result immediately after shooting • Save or instantly share your content to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and other social platforms Built for social sharing Share in seconds without extra editing. Live effects while you shoot Lens applies visual effects in real time instead of adding them later in post-production. This makes the creative process faster, more direct, and more fun. Depth-based effects on supported devices On compatible devices, Lens uses scene depth to power spatial visual effects. Selected looks react to foreground and background separation for more dimensional results. Built with a fast rendering pipeline Lens is designed for smooth real-time performance, responsive controls, and fast switching between styles while shooting photos and videos. Designed for creative capture Use Lens for: • Short-form videos • Social content • Stylized portraits • Experimental clips • Visual studies and artistic shooting Fast camera workflow 1. Open Lens 2. Choose an effect 3. Shoot photo or video 4. Preview the result 5. Save or share instantly Key features • Real-time camera effects • Photo and video capture • Instant preview after shooting • Effect intensity control • Smooth zoom workflow • Depth-based effects on supported devices • Fast save and share flow Device support Some features may vary depending on your device. Depth-based effects require supported hardware. Privacy Lens uses camera, microphone, photo library, and speech recognition permissions only for app functionality.

Screenshots

iSky4 screens
Lens4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: iSky at every 3 days against Lens's fortnightly. iSky also leads on iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iSky ships an update every 3 days, Lens fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
iSky versus Lens: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriSkyLens
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.7 (3 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings3 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterFortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS12.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size23 MB7 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperUltralytics LLCVladislav Poliakov

In-app purchases

None

iSky

No in-app purchases

None

Lens

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is iSky free?
iSky is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Lens free?
Lens is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do iSky or Lens have ads?
Neither iSky nor Lens shows ads.
Which is updated more often, iSky or Lens?
iSky ships an update every 3 days, and Lens fortnightly. Most recently, iSky was updated on November 2, 2026 and Lens on October 31, 2026.

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