Comparison

Nur vs specimen · renato.design

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

Head to head
About

Nur

This app captures photos with depth and gravity data using your iPhone's camera, ideal for photogrammetry processing on macOS. It supports guided and manual capture modes, offering enhanced results for 3D creation. Requires iPhone 12 Pro or later with a LiDAR sensor for full functionality.

Highlights
  • Guided capture mode
  • Manual capture with depth/gravity data
  • Depth and gravity information storage
  • Photo session browsing
  • Light and dark mode support
Read full description

Take photos with your iPhone for photogrammetry processing with a suitable macOS app. Requires a iPhone 12 Pro or later. Only devices with a LiDAR sensor are supported for guided capture mode. Features: - Takes photos in guided capture mode - Take photos with depth and gravity vector data in manual capture mode - Additionally stores depth and gravity information with photos for better results in photogrammetry processing - Browse sessions of taken photos - Light and dark mode support Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Creative Europe Media. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

About

specimen · renato.design

Read full description

specimen is a 3D scanning app for iPhone that treats the captured object as a specimen — worth describing, worth situating, worth demystifying. You point the phone at a thing. You walk around it. You flip it over. You capture the bottom. The app produces a mesh you can open in Rhino, Blender, or any 3D software. Witness describes what was captured in clinical language. A registrar's voice. Surface reads as glazed ceramic. Bottom not captured. Approximately fourteen centimeters across. Afterwords is six voices from the dead. Sōetsu Yanagi speaks on the beauty of humble objects. Walter Benjamin speaks on what scanning itself is — what aura means when an object is captured. D'Arcy Thompson speaks on the forces that made the form. Roland Barthes speaks on the detail that pierces the viewer. George Kubler speaks on where this object sits in its class. Vilém Flusser speaks on the gesture of capture. Concordance names the mechanism, not the marketing term. Light detection and ranging. Infrared pulses. Time of flight. Structured light. Photogrammetry. Triangulation. Exports in millimeters, Z-up — the Rhino-default design-studio convention. Switchable to inches for the truly stubborn or architects among you. Share a capture package as a .zip and AirDrop it to a Mac running the free specimen Companion for full-detail reconstruction Apple only exposes on macOS. Requirements: iPhone with LiDAR (iPhone 12 Pro or later Pro / Pro Max). Apple Intelligence–capable device if you want the voices to speak on-device; the app falls back cleanly otherwise. No cloud. No account. No credits. No subscription. Built for students and makers as a tool for contemplative work. specimen is part of renato.design, a creative research practice authored through Iterative LLM Co-Authorship — a collaboration between Phil Renato and Claude (Anthropic). Released as a research artifact, not commercial software. See the disclaimer in Settings → About for details.

Screenshots

Nur4 screens
specimen · renato.design4 screens

Verdict

The call

Nur and specimen · renato.design are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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

Nur ships an update every 4 days, specimen · renato.design every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 9, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Nur versus specimen · renato.design: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNurspecimen · renato.design
PriceFreeFree
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Update frequencyEvery 4 daysEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, Mac — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.0 — better18.1
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB2 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperdesignmaticPhillip Renato

In-app purchases

None

Nur

No in-app purchases

None

specimen · renato.design

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Nur free?
Nur is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is specimen · renato.design free?
specimen · renato.design is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Nur or specimen · renato.design have ads?
Neither Nur nor specimen · renato.design shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Nur or specimen · renato.design?
Nur ships an update every 4 days, and specimen · renato.design every 2 days. Most recently, Nur was updated on November 3, 2026 and specimen · renato.design on November 9, 2026.

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