Comparison

LapseSmooth vs Captioner

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

Head to head
About

LapseSmooth

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LapseSmooth repairs one specific problem: unwanted global exposure pulsing in an existing time-lapse or video. Choose a video or run the built-in demo. LapseSmooth reads the temporal luminance curve on your device, shows where brightness changes from frame to frame, and creates a smoother copy only when the analysis is confident. Before exporting, you can: • inspect the original luminance curve • compare the measured curve before and after correction • play the original and corrected videos with synchronized audio • drag a synchronized wipe across both versions • share the corrected copy without changing the source file LapseSmooth is deliberately narrower than a general video editor. It does not promise to remove moving LED bands, rolling-shutter artifacts, localized lights that really turn on and off, intentional scene changes, or compression defects. When a persistent lighting change makes automatic correction unsafe, the app stops instead of forcing an unreliable export. Processing stays on your iPhone. LapseSmooth does not require an account, upload your video, or overwrite the original.

About

Captioner

This app adds animated, word-by-word captions to your videos directly on your device. Choose from numerous styles, customize fonts and colors, and edit text for perfect synchronization. It supports on-device translation and preserves your original video quality.

Highlights
  • Word-by-word animated captions
  • Fifteen customizable caption styles
  • On-device speech recognition and translation
  • Editable caption text
  • Preserves original video resolution and frame rate
  • Private by design, no account needed
Features
Read full description

Captioner adds animated, word-by-word captions to your videos, entirely on your device. Drop in a clip, pick a style, fix any word, and export a new video with the captions burned in. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it's free. WORD BY WORD Captioner listens to your video with Apple's on-device speech engine and keeps the moment every word is spoken, so the word being said lights up as it's said. Perfect for Reels, Shorts, TikTok and any video watched with the sound off. FIFTEEN STYLES, ALL YOURS TO CHANGE Highlight boxes, outlines, karaoke colors, pops, typewriter reveals, boxed subtitles, and single-word styles that show only the spoken word. Every style's font, weight, size, case, colors, outline, shadow and animation can be changed. Use San Francisco in sans serif, rounded, serif or monospaced designs, any font on your device, or a font file you add. Save your own styles and make one the default for every new video. PUT THEM WHERE YOU WANT Drag the caption in the preview, or set a vertical position and left, center or right alignment. Vertical 9:16 and widescreen 16:9 videos each remember their own spot. FIX THE WORDS Every caption is editable next to the preview. Split a line before any word, merge two, delete one, or rebuild from the original recognition. Punctuation, title case and curse words are simple toggles. TRANSLATE Turn the captions into Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and dozens more with Apple's on-device translation, keeping them timed to the original speech. YOUR VIDEO, UNTOUCHED Exports keep the original resolution and frame rate, and the audio is copied exactly as it was. H.264 by default, HEVC if you prefer. Already have an SRT or WebVTT file? Use it instead of transcribing. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Speech recognition, translation and rendering all happen on your device. Captioner has no account, no analytics and no tracking. The first time you caption a language, the system downloads Apple's speech model for it; after that it works offline. Captioner for Mac adds batch queues and watched folders that caption and export videos automatically.

Screenshots

LapseSmooth3 screens
Captioner4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Captioner at none against LapseSmooth's 1. LapseSmooth's advantage is iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads 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. LapseSmooth sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Captioner asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
LapseSmooth versus Captioner: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLapseSmoothCaptioner
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (3 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—3 — better
Update frequency—Daily
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB9 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperArthur BorgesStephen Robles

In-app purchases

1 purchases

LapseSmooth

One-time1
  • LapseSmooth Export Pass$5.99
None

Captioner

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is LapseSmooth free?
LapseSmooth is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Captioner free?
Captioner is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do LapseSmooth or Captioner have ads?
Neither LapseSmooth nor Captioner shows ads.

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