Cameron’s Blog

At last count, there are 8 applications for the iPhone whose main feature is to display a white screen. More surprisingly, almost half of these apps want money to do what they do. I have not tried these ones, as I don’t believe that a flashlight app is worth even $1 (however if the developers of any of the paid flashlight apps want to give me a copy of their app, I would be willing to include it here ). Below, in order of when I tried them, is my verdict on the free flashlight apps for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Light, by Erica Sadun ★★

Light is very light on features. Ok, so it has no options whatsoever. It comes in the colours of white, white, and white, which can be changed by doing almost anything. This app has been removed from the app store.

MyLite, by DoApp ★★★★★

MyLite has by far the most features out of the apps I tried, with a slider to choose any colour you like, a brightness slider, and “Strobe”, “Trippin’”, “Police”, “Fire Truck”, “Caution Flare”, “Traffic Light”, and “Rock Concert” modes. Strobe mode flashes whatever colour you have set at speeds 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 seconds. Trippin’ mode cycles through all the colours at the speeds shown above. “Police”, “Fire Truck”, “Caution Flare”, and “Traffic Light” modes flash through the colours red and blue, red white and blue, yellow and white, and red yellow and green respectively. “Rock Concert” mode displays a realistic lighter on the screen.

Flashlight, by John Haney ★★★★★

Flashlight is much easier to use than MyLite, without particularly limiting the features. You can change between 5 preset colours and 1 custom colour (set through the menu) by swiping left and right, and can change the brightness by moving your finger up and down. By tapping on the screen you can access a menu where you can choose between “Strobe”, “Trippy”, “Emergency”, and “S.O.S”. “Trippy” flashes between a random colour and black, “Emergency” flashes white, red, and blue, and “S.O.S” flashes SOS in morse code. Flashlights’ strobe mode can flash faster than myLite, however you do not know exactly what speed it is flashing at due to the speed being set via a slider.

SOS Flashlight, by Volker Funke ★★☆

SOS Flashlight has 3 colours to choose from: white, red, and green. Its main feature is that you can turn on SOS mode, which (surprisingly) flashes SOS in morse code. Unfortunately this mode crashes the app when enabled (for me). All these options are available through a menu. When I installed the new version, I had to restart to make it work.

FiatLux, by AbySoft ★★★☆

FiatLux can display 4 different colours (white, red, green, and blue), as well as a colour changing “Trippin’” style mode. FiatLux can also “dim” the light by lowering the contrast. The menu where these options are located sports lovely clipart, also seen in the icon.