Circa 1948 vs SoftFillLight
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Circa 1948
Explore a historically inspired, film noir-style city from the late 1940s. This immersive art app uses photorealistic 3D illustrations and audio to recreate two distinct Vancouver neighborhoods, offering a glimpse into urban planning and social divisions of the era.
- Extensive historical detail
- Period music and audio
- Film noir influenced conversations
- Historically accurate environments
- Real-time 3D engine
- Touch and gyroscope navigation
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“This trip to the past is a glimpse at the future” - TIME. Enter the shadows of a post-war North American city through this film noir inspired, historically based immersive art app. Requires iPhone 4S/iPad 2 and above. The first Real-time 3D art app to tell a story inspired by real events. An immersive experience created by internationally renowned artist Stan Douglas and the award-winning NFB Digital Studio. Through photorealistic 3D illustrations rendered from Douglas’ extensive historical research, Circa 1948 takes users to the late 1940s, Vancouver, BC, a young city in the midst of urban planning, but divided along lines of race and income. Eavesdrop on long lost conversations in two carefully recreated locations: an Old Hotel in Vancouver’s affluent west side, then squatted by homeless war veterans, or the muddy streets of ethnically diverse Hogan’s Alley in the working class east side, populated by racial minorities, gamblers, prostitutes and corrupt police officers. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada. Features - Extensive historical detail - Period music and audio - 44 film noir influenced conversations - Historically accurate props, architecture and landscapes - Open-source real-time 3D engine - Touch and gyroscope-driven navigation modes Supported Devices - iPhone 4S, 5, 5C and 5S - iPad 2, 3rd and 4th generation iPad, iPad Air, iPad Mini and 2nd generation iPad Mini.
SoftFillLight
Transform your phone into a professional lighting tool for photography and video. Adjust brightness, choose solid or gradient backgrounds, and utilize custom colors and presets for perfect shots. Hide the UI for a distraction-free light source.
- Adjustable brightness control
- Solid and gradient background lighting
- Professional color presets
- Custom color selection with HSV/RGB
- Saturation control
- Hideable UI for distraction-free use
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SoftFillLight - Professional Photography Light SoftFillLight transforms your smartphone screen into a high-quality lighting source. Features include: ■ Brightness Control Seamlessly adjust screen brightness from 0% to 100% with an intuitive slider control. Quickly find the perfect light intensity for any shooting environment. ■ Background Display Display solid colors or gradient backgrounds for consistent lighting effects. Use as a light source with various color temperatures from pure white to warm or cool tones. ■ Color Presets Built-in professional color presets optimized for different scenarios. One-tap selection for portrait, product photography, live streaming, and more. ■ Custom Colors Free color selection with HSV color wheel. Direct RGB value input supported for precise color matching, perfect for brand colors or specific lighting needs. ■ Saturation Control Fine-tune color saturation from 0% to 100%. Achieve optimal color expression from soft, muted light to vivid, saturated tones based on your subject. ■ Hide UI Hide control panel with a single tap. Use the entire screen as a pure light source without any UI distractions for professional shooting. ■ More App version info, usage guide, and feedback submission. Essential information hub for user support and product improvement.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: SoftFillLight at 5.0 against Circa 1948's 3.4. SoftFillLight also leads on monetization model (free vs paid). Circa 1948's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs every 6 months) and ratings volume (22 vs 1). On price, ads, in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
SoftFillLight holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Circa 1948 has 22 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Circa 1948 ships an update fortnightly, SoftFillLight every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Circa 1948 | SoftFillLight |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.4 (22 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 39.5% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 22 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Every 6 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1.9 GB | 45 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | National Film Board of Canada – Office national du film du Canada | QI YAN |
Bugs and requests
Circa 1948
Reported bugs
49 issues- Keeps crashing
- Barely works
- It would not load
- Crashed the first time I loaded it
- Stayed on the opening music and screen
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- Got endless loop instead
- Tough to run
- Can’t get the app to load reliably
- Goes into endless loop after introduction
- Hangs on story selection
- Screen turns black too often
- Occasionally crash
- Crash after selecting story lines
- Crash as you’re puttering about
- Crashes so often
- Occasionally crashes
- Crashed in the middle of the 3rd story
- New iPad crashes as soon as I select my story option
- All it does is crash
- Shut down and locked me out
- Crashes sometimes
- App crashes
- Intriguing idea but crashes
- Crashes a lot
- Doesn't work
- Runs sloppy
- Frame-rate suffers badly
- Crashing and glitching every 5 minutes
- No sound in Hogan's Alley
- No way to get instructions back or return to Home screen
- Very laggy
- App only runs inverted
- Takes long time to download
- Won't download
- Choppy, lags a lot
- Graphics are not smooth
- Won't load
- Makes me noxious
- App appears not to be built well
- Crashes every time after selecting location
- Runs kind of choppy
- Still not downloaded
- Still crashes but better
- Floating through walls
- Had to listen to the same conversations a few times
- Crash in the first 30 seconds
- Game would crash when trying to go into neighborhoods
- Can't get past the selection on the map
- Crashes (iPhone 4: IOS 7.1.1)
Requested features
7 requests- Update to fix loading and crashing bugs
- Take advantage of newer device resolutions
- More levels/floors to explore
- Add subtitles
- More content and surrounding communities
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- User options for controls and sensitivity
- PC-based site version
SoftFillLight
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Circa 1948
No in-app purchases
SoftFillLight
No in-app purchases
