Comparison

Spectre Camera vs Paneo

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

Head to head
About

Spectre Camera

This app uses AI to create stunning long exposure photographs, making it easy to capture professional-quality shots. Remove crowds, create light trails, and achieve silky smooth water effects effortlessly.

Highlights
  • AI-powered long exposures
  • Crowd removal
  • Light trail creation
  • Silky water effects
  • Live Photos and video support
  • Automatic scene detection
Read full description

Apple iPhone App of the Year, 2019 Introducing Spectre, from the makers of Halide, one of the top camera apps in the App Store. Spectre uses AI to help you make amazing long exposure photographs. Spectre can remove crowds, turn city streets into rivers of light, make waterfalls look like paintings, and much more. Until now, it was difficult to take long exposures: from keeping the camera steady to guessing the amount of light you need. Spectre takes care of all of that! WHAT YOU CAN DO • MAKE CROWDS DISAPPEAR: Spectre helps take photos of crowded, touristy places. Simply set a medium or long duration and take a shot to erase the crowd from a location. Capture the those special moments like you remember them. • RIVERS OF LIGHT: At night, AI scene detection automatically switches modes to draw beautiful light trails, for stunning nighttime city photography or light painting. • GORGEOUS WATER: Capture waterfalls, ocean waves, fountains and more with beautiful ghostly water. LIVE PHOTOS AND VIDEO Spectre’s intelligent computational shutter takes hundreds of shots over the span of a few seconds, and saves them in an accompanying live photo. That means you can pick a different frame as your photo, apply live-photo effects, and even use the long exposure as a live-wallpaper! ENDLESS SMARTS Spectre is a packed with powerful technology from by the team that brought you Halide. From machine learning-based scene detection to computer vision aided image stabilization, Spectre is jammed full of impressive technologies to get the best possible image. DESIGNED FOR HUMANS Spectre is meticulously designed. Its dark UI is gentle on the eyes when you shoot at night. Gorgeous glowing highlights infuse it with a unique style. Custom typefaces and iconography combined with unique, smooth controls make it as tactile and delightful as an actual physical camera. Like its sister app Halide, the app is easily usable with one hand, even on the largest iPhones. HIGH-TECH SHOWCASE Build with the latest tech, Spectre isn't just a long exposure camera — it’s the cutting edge technology showcase of one of the App Store’s foremost camera apps, Halide. Here’s just a few of the latest technologies that we use in Spectre: - DCI-P3 Wide Color Pipeline - Live Photos - Metal Graphics Acceleration - Tripod Detection - Siri & Shortcuts - AI Stabilization - Machine Learning & CoreML - Computer Vision COMPATIBILITY: Spectre’s smart Automatic Scene Detection requires iOS 12. AI-based stabilization features are available on iPhone 6S and later.* For the best experience, we recommend iPhone 8 or later. On iPhone 6, Spectre captures in lower resolution. ABOUT US We’re Ben and Sebastiaan, two friends living in the San Francisco Bay Area that love building fantastic apps for photography. We hope you love Spectre! We’d love your feedback to make it even better or any reports of bugs you run into. You can always contact us directly via email: support@halide.cam, on our Twitter: @halidecamera or Instagram: @halideapp Don’t forget to share your amazing results by tagging them with #SpectreShot so we can share them on our growing social media accounts!

About

Paneo

Transform wide panorama photos into engaging videos perfect for social media sharing. Easily create videos in the ideal format for platforms like Instagram Stories, capturing the full essence of your landscape shots.

Highlights
  • Create videos from panorama photos
  • Share directly to Instagram Stories
  • Customizable video settings
  • Export in perfect social media format
Features
Read full description

Joey went on a school trip to a wonderful place. During this time he took a lot of photos with his iPhone, but he also took some panorama photos to fully capture the essence of the landscape. After taking all these photos, he wanted to share them on social media, and maybe even share them as Instagram Stories, but unfortunately the panorama photos are too wide for that format. Fortunately, Joey had Paneo installed, an application that allowed him to share panoramas as videos in the perfect format for Instagram! FEATURES • Create fantastic videos from your stunning panorama photos • Share the created video directly on Instagram stories with the correct format • Choose settings to create the perfect video for your tastes

Screenshots

Spectre Camera4 screens
Paneo3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Paneo at 4.9 against Spectre Camera's 4.3. Paneo also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and review sentiment (75% vs 46%). Spectre Camera's advantage is ratings volume (2.4K vs 33). On price, update cadence and ads 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. Spectre Camera sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Paneo asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Paneo holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Spectre Camera has 2.4K ratings behind it against 33, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 46% of Spectre Camera's written reviews are positive against 75% of Paneo's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Spectre Camera ships an update every 3 months, Paneo every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Spectre Camera versus Paneo: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSpectre CameraPaneo
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (2.4K ratings)4.9 (33 ratings) — better
Positive reviews45.8% of reviews75.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2.4K — better33
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 6 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationPaidFree — better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS16.011.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size12 MB21 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLux Optics IncorporatedGianpiero Spinelli

Customer experience

Spectre Camera

All ratings2,408 ratings
Positive83.5%
Neutral3.7%
Negative12.7%
Written reviews437 reviews
Positive45.8%
Neutral10.8%
Negative43.5%

Paneo

All ratings33 ratings
Positive97.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative3.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive75.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative25.0%

Bugs and requests

Spectre Camera

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Crashes and freezes on some devices
  • Compatibility issues with older iPhones
  • Focusing and stabilization problems

Requested features

5 requests
  • Longer exposure time options
  • More manual control over settings
  • Raw image format support
  • Apple Watch remote support
  • Improved low-light performance

Paneo

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Spectre Camera

One-time1
  • Spectre Pro$4.99
None

Paneo

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Spectre Camera free?
Spectre Camera is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Paneo free?
Paneo is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Spectre Camera or Paneo?
Paneo is rated higher. Spectre Camera averages 4.3 out of 5 from 2.4K ratings, while Paneo averages 4.9 from 33 ratings.
Do Spectre Camera or Paneo have ads?
Neither Spectre Camera nor Paneo shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Spectre Camera or Paneo?
Spectre Camera ships an update every 3 months, and Paneo every 6 weeks. Most recently, Spectre Camera was updated on October 19, 2026 and Paneo on October 14, 2026.

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