Xenon Powered Flash for the iPhone

Snapture Labs has announced their SnaptureFlash product, which promises to bring an external Xenon flash to the iPhone.

According to Gizmodo the SnaptureFlash adds 3/8-inch of length to the bottom of the phone and includes passive speaker amplification.


As far as hardware goes, it packs in a xenon flash, which can provide 50,000 lux brightness ( vs the 500 lux of an LED "flash"). It also has an additional LED bulb that can be used for video recording or a really dim photo flash. Unlike other flash products, it works directly with the Snapture software. Getting the timing down between the phone camera, Snapture app and SnaptureFlash was the trickiest part, according to Bowei Gai, one of Snapture Labs' founders.

Unfortunately, the SnaptureFlash only works with their own application or with jailbroken applications that support it. Official applications would have to break the App Store agreement to utilize the new device.

Gizmodo took some sample pics with the prototype indicating that occasionally it would pick up other light sources turning the image slightly blue.