PhenakistoScope vs A«iD
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
PhenakistoScope
Create captivating animations by rotating disk images. Capture new images or import from your library, then fine-tune frame count and playback speed before exporting your creations as movies.
- Rotate disk-shaped animations
- Shoot new disk images
- Select images from photo albums
- Adjust frame count
- Adjust animation speed
- Export animations to movie format
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“PhenakistoScope” can rotate a disk-shaped animation. You can shoot a disk image or select it from Photo albums, adjust the number of frames and speed, and export it to a movie.
A«iD
This app synthesizes video in real time, reacting to audio input. It offers a modular chain of effects to manipulate visuals, allowing for custom masks and intricate distortions. Create unique, psychedelic visual experiences inspired by vintage video synthesizers.
- Audio-reactive video synthesis
- Modular effects chain
- Customizable masks (SVG, PNG, PDF)
- Real-time feedback and distortion
- Color manipulation and remap
- CRT phosphor and DV tape emulation
- Edge detection and raster effects
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A«iD is an audio-reactive video synthesizer inspired by Eric Siegel's legendary EVS Electronic Video Synthesizer from the 1970s. ——— THE CHAIN ——— Modules process the video signal in real time. Stack them in any order, tap to open controls, drag to reorder, long-press to bypass. GEOMETRY SOURCE — Generate a synthetic shape and composite it over the signal. Circle, diamond, bar, cross, ring, triangle, hexagon — or load your own SVG, PNG, or PDF as a custom mask. Position, size, hue, and edge softness are all independently audio-modulatable. FEEDBACK — Route the processed signal back into itself. Pinch and rotate on the canvas to control zoom and spin in real time. KEYER — Unified luma and chroma key in a single module. Cut foreground from background by luminance or isolate a color as a matte. Tap the eyedropper to sample any color directly from the screen. Pairs visually with COMPOSITE in the chain — the signal knows where it's going. COMPOSITE — Layer the processed chain behind a clean camera cut using luma and chroma mattes simultaneously. COLOR MATRIX — Rotate, invert, and cross-channel the RGB color space. Strange colors guaranteed. HUE LFO — Oscillate the hue channel at tempo-synced rates. Psychedelic pulsing locked to the beat. PHOSPHOR DECAY — Emulate CRT phosphor persistence. Past frames linger like burned afterimages. BURN ECHO — Additive frame echo that saturates toward white. Motion leaves a scorched trail. DV TAPE — Analog dropout and compression artifacts from the era of consumer DV camcorders. HALATION — Film halation glow on bright areas. Warm blooming on highlights. CHROMA SMEAR — Horizontal chroma bleed and compression fringing. SCAN DISPLACE — Rutt/Etra-inspired raster displacement. Each scanline shifts horizontally by audio frequency content mapped to vertical position — bass warps the bottom, treble the top. The entire frame becomes a spectrum warp field. EDGE OUTLINE — Sobel edge detection with colored glow, inspired by Stephen Beck's Direct Video Synthesizer. Flat areas go dark; edges light up in the chosen hue and bloom outward. COLORMAP — Remap luminance to color. Five palettes: Thermal (heat vision), Psychedelic (full hue rotation, classic Siegel PCS), Phosphor (P1 green CRT), Ice, and Neon. Every pixel's brightness becomes a new color. RASTER BEND — Distort the scan lines. Warp the geometry of the image itself. MIRROR — Fold, flip, and tile the frame into kaleidoscopic symmetry. TILE — Repeat, scale, and rearrange the frame in a grid. POSTERIZE — Reduce color depth. Hard edges, flat planes, screen-print aesthetics. TRANSFORM — Rotate, scale, and reposition with full affine control. CHANNEL MIX — Blend and cross-route RGB channels independently. ENCODER — NTSC-style composite encoding. Color bleeding and luminance separation. ——— AUDIO REACTOR ——— Every knob can be wired to the live audio signal. A»iD listens constantly and extracts amplitude, bass, mid and treble bands, beat phase, BPM, onset triggers, and spectral centroid. Seven LFOs run at BPM subdivisions. Open the Patch Bay to wire any source to any parameter in any module. Stack multiple sources on one knob. Set amount and polarity per patch. ——— RANDOMIZE ——— Shake the device (or hit the die) to randomize the whole chain. Palette Lock freezes hue and saturation through dice rolls. Sleeper Mode locks each module's bypass state — sleeping modules stay asleep, active modules stay awake. Everything re-rolls around your intention. ——— SYNC & CONTROL ——— ABLETON LINK — Lock BPM and beat phase with Ableton Live, AUM, Loopy, and any Link-compatible app on your network. MIDI — Auto-learns CC from any wired or Bluetooth MIDI controller. Long-press any knob to assign. OSC — Receive /aid/ messages from TouchOSC or Max/MSP over Wi-Fi.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: A«iD at Free against PhenakistoScope's $4.99. A«iD also leads on ratings volume (5 vs 1). PhenakistoScope's advantage is update cadence (daily vs every 8 days) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 17.0). On rating, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases 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
A«iD is free to download; PhenakistoScope costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for PhenakistoScope against 5.0 for A«iD. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: A«iD has 5 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
PhenakistoScope ships an update daily, A«iD every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | PhenakistoScope | A«iD |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 5 — better |
| Update frequency | Daily — better | Every 8 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 17 MB | 68 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Masayuki INOUE | JOEL CHRISTOPHER RAKOWSKI |
Customer experience
PhenakistoScope
A«iD
In-app purchases
PhenakistoScope
No in-app purchases
A«iD
No in-app purchases









