Comparison

A«iD vs (d)effect

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

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.

About

(d)effect

This camera app applies unique, real-time visual effects directly to your photos and videos as you capture them. It offers a variety of artistic filters, allowing for live previews and immediate saving without any post-processing steps. All processing is done on-device, ensuring your content remains private.

Highlights
  • Live filter rendering on viewfinder
  • Real-time photo and video capture
  • Stackable and adjustable filters
  • On-device processing for privacy
  • Variety of unique artistic filters
  • Random effect generation
Features
Read full description

(d)effect is a camera that shows you the effect before you take the shot. Every filter renders live on the viewfinder at full frame rate — no preview, no "apply" step, no waiting. What you frame is what gets saved. THE FILTERS • Riso Print — RGB plate misregistration and grain, like a badly aligned risograph • Dither — 4×4 Bayer ordered dithering, the look of a 1-bit screen • ASCII — the frame rebuilt from coloured glyphs on black • False Color — channel crushing and hue cycling • Halation — the bloom that film gets around highlights • Posterize — hard tonal banding • Exclusion — a solid hue blended straight through the image • Low Res — chunky pixellation that scales with the shot • Slow Shutter — a real exposure change on the camera, so the motion blur is genuine rather than faked Stack them. Adjust contrast, brightness and saturation on anything. Hit Random when you want the machine to decide. PHOTO AND VIDEO Shoot stills or record video with the same effects, with audio, in 4:5. What the viewfinder showed is what lands in your library — filters that are sized in pixels scale with the image, so the saved file matches the preview. YOUR SHOTS STAY YOURS Everything is processed on your iPhone using Metal and Core Image. Nothing is uploaded, stored on a server, or looked at by anyone. There is no cloud gallery and no server-side processing — captures go straight to your own Photos library, into a "(d)effect" album the in-app gallery reads back. We hold one piece of personal data: the email address attached to your sign-in. You can delete your account, and it, from inside the app. — (d)effect is free while in active development — every filter unlocked, no ads, no subscription. If something breaks, tell us at support@d-effect.com and we'll fix it.

Screenshots

A«iD4 screens
(d)effect4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: A«iD at 100% against (d)effect's 0%. A«iD also leads on rating (5.0 vs 3.0) and update cadence (every 8 days vs every 2 weeks). On price, ratings volume, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

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

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

A«iD holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 2 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 100% of A«iD's written reviews are positive against 0% of (d)effect's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

A«iD ships an update every 8 days, (d)effect every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 7, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
A«iD versus (d)effect: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterA«iD(d)effect
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (3 ratings) — better3.0 (2 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews — better0.0% of reviews
Number of ratings3 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 8 days — betterEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.2
Further details — not scored
Size68 MB6 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJOEL CHRISTOPHER RAKOWSKIJoao Campagnolo

Customer experience

A«iD

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

(d)effect

All ratings2 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative100.0%

In-app purchases

None

A«iD

No in-app purchases

None

(d)effect

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is A«iD free?
A«iD is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is (d)effect free?
(d)effect is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, A«iD or (d)effect?
A«iD is rated higher. A«iD averages 5.0 out of 5 from 3 ratings, while (d)effect averages 3.0 from 2 ratings.
Do A«iD or (d)effect have ads?
Neither A«iD nor (d)effect shows ads.
Which is updated more often, A«iD or (d)effect?
A«iD ships an update every 8 days, and (d)effect every 2 weeks. Most recently, A«iD was updated on October 7, 2026 and (d)effect on October 2, 2026.

Other comparisons