Pros:
-Incredibly simple to use
-Don’t have to have photos in order to stitch
-Add photos all in one go
-Watch the building of the Panorama as it’s created
-Save to photo album is quick

Cons:
-No advanced options
-Alignment isn’t always dead on
-No cropping ability
-Resolution of panorama is low
-Only one resolution option

3.6/5

Autostitch is the only application in the App Store that gives the ability to stitch multiple rows of photos in any orientation in creating your panorama, meaning you don’t just get the normal one row, 360 degree view that Pano or the Panorama apps produce.

I was completely taking off guard when I found how utterly simple it was to use the application! Literally you “select & stitch” that all you do, no take one photo, stitch, take another photo, stitch, etc.

On the main screen you navigate to your photo album and tap to select photos, they don’t have to be in any particular order. The application will then load it into app (bottom half of screen) once that is complete; you can tap the “stitch” button. If there are photos you want to remove, just tap on the photos in the bottom pane and confirm that you want to delete it.

There is a progress bar at the bottom that I found quite accurate and you can watch you panorama build right in front of you.

Once the panorama is complete, it might be odd shaped, but you can crop it later via Photoshop or GIMP- one of the options that is really lacking. At this time you can also zoom in to view the stitching and if you want to replace a photo, you can go back and go through the process again.

Once you are satisfied with your result, it’s time to save the photo

Click on image to see the full resolution image.

Here are some tests (4) that I conducted with the app

1) 4 “rows” of photos, 360 degrees horizontally:
I tool 57 photos and had it stitched into the photo below. Each iPhone (3GS) photo has a resolution of 2,048 x 1,536 (~1000kb each). The photo that I ended up with is 2,406 x 831 (784kb). So my end result is nearly smaller than the initial size of one iPhone photo – not cool. Test Grade: C-

Click on image to see the full resolution image.

2) 3 Rows of photos, 100 degrees horizontally:
Now the photo below, I took a total of 19 photos taken at the same resolution (obviously), ending result was a 2,350 x 851 photo – just as large as the previous panorama with less photos. I assume that the application is capping the size of the photo to reduce the RAM usage. Test Grade: C+

Click on image to see the full resolution image.

As In the first test photo I captured about 100 degrees vertical by 360 degrees horizontal, while the second one is only about 30 degrees vertical by 100 degrees horizontal. I am not a fan of this at all.

3) “Normal” one row panorama:
The app did a good job at just creating a single row panorama Test Grade: B

Click on image to see the full resolution image.

4) “Really bad photographer” panorama
I decided to take a number of shots that were taken diagonally, horizontally & vertically. The result I was very pleased with: Test Grade: B-

Click on image to see the full resolution image.

At first, I thought this app was amazing, but after doing a thorough analysis of the app through the tests, I wasn’t happy with the results. I expected a little more on the resolution side of things. As a reference point, the photo below was created using the Panorama App – its resolution is 3,004 x 832 by combining only 5 iPhone photos, considerably better resolution over the Autostitch app.

Click on image to view full Resolution

If you are someone that’s likes taking panoramas occasionally or would like to get into taking panoramas, this is a nice app to start with; however, if you are a photography kind of person, this isn’t the best app – namely due to the resolution issue, it’s just too low to do anything “more” with it.

Overall I found this application to be groundbreaking on the iPhone, even if it is not the first Panorama application to come to the App store market – it has raised the bar for other Panorama apps. The application is simple enough for anyone to use. My main complaint is the lack of cropping and picking of resolutions. I assume rendering into a larger resolution would eat up the RAM, but it would be a nice option, especially for the 3GS users. I noticed a lot of blurry areas in my pictures – this is caused by one of two issues – 1. I took a blurry shot or 2. The photo blending didn’t work out to well. Two bucks is a good deal for this tiny, yet powerful app.

Tips on Taking Panoramas with this app

• If using the 3GS, try to set the exposure on a foreground object (which initially appears darker) or vice versa
• If using the 3GS, try to focus on the furthest object, such as the horizon. Obviously this can’t always happen especially if you are following the point above.
• Try to hold the iPhone as steady as possible in low light situations

3.5/5

Pros:
-Simple application to make panoramas at an affordable price
-Merges and corrects exposure fairly well.
-Uses a third of a picture for stitching, less photos to complete your panorama.

Cons:
-Can only take up to 6 photos to merge.
-One set resolution
-No button to take another panorama. Must exit & re-enter app.
-If the app crashes, then you loose everything.

When you first began the application the screen will represent the
camera.app on your iPhone/iTouch, except, it will have instructions at the top (if holding horizontally). You can take the first picture by pressing the green button. If you tap “cancel” then you can enter portrait mode. It will then ask you if you want to use the photo (basically a confirmation). You can choose to “use” or “retake.” You then take the next photo. And you keep doing this until you have taken the right amount of pictures or your have taken 6 photos.

After the first photo has been taken a third of the previous photo at about 30% opacity will appear on the screen to help you line up your next picture that you are going to take.

Pano overlaps the images by about a 1/3 of the image when combining them. After taking 6 photos (or less) the app will automatically merge the photos into a panorama. This might take anywhere from 1 – 5 minutes depending on the complexity of the panorama.

Once it is done merging, you will see “Done” screen and you can also view “Pano Tips;” however, the link takes you out of the app and into the Safari.app.

At anytime while taking photos you can tap cancel to bring up a menu that will allow you to create the panorama with the previous photos you have taken (less than 6), Quit Pano, or Resume shooting.

Here is a panorama taken with the app. The photo was taken on the Baylor campus in Waco, Texas. Click on to view full resolution of the image.

And another example from my recent trip to Rome, Italy.

More screen shots & panoramas created by this app can be found here.

Pros:
-If you iPhone happens to crash or you do not want to render the
panorama at that moment, you can exit and return to the app to create
the panorama.
-Multiple resolutions
-Uses 1⁄2 image overlap, reducing stitching errors.
-Add photos to either side of your panorama

Cons:
- “Main” screen can be annoying if you are trying to take the panorama
in a hurry.
- Uses 1⁄2 image overlap which means you must take more photos to make
your panorama.
-After taking a photo, the photo will appear to be misalighned, but when testing, the photos appeared to stich without flaw- conclusion: ignore.

$9.99

Panorama works in much the same way as Pano, but has several more features.

When you first begin the application you can choose whether you want to take the panorama in landscape or portrait orientation.

After that the process of taking pictures is the same as in doing it with Pano, however, there is one extra step.

After taking each picture, you are brought back to a “main” screen in which you can add a photo to either side of you panorama and also remove certain photos if you feel you have done something wring. And of course you have the option to start over. What is especially nice about this screen is you have a small preview of the panorama. As you add photos, the screen will only show a portion of the panorama, but you can scroll it on the screen to view the rest of it. Once you are done, you select “done” and you have the option to select from several resolutions – 600×420, 800×560 or 1200×840.

I always choose the largest resolution as I like to have it in it’s fullest form, however, the larger the resolution the longer the processing time. I think the longest it has taken me to process a
Panorama (over 360 degrees) is about 7 minutes.

Here is a panorama taken with the app. The photo was taken in the Vatican in Rome, Italy. Click on to view full resolution of image.

Tips while using the apps:
Pano & Panorama – Hold down the green camera button then aligning the iPhone to take the picture and the let up on the button. This allows you to more accurately take the picture rather than tapping on the button as this may move your iPhone when trying to accurately position the camera.Also for other to view your panoramas. I recommend using CleVR. CleVR is an online panorama hoster and viewer. Two of the panoramas below (in the Panorama section) can be viewed using CleVR and even more links to others at the very bottom.

Click on the Panoramas to view their actual resolution. (Caution: they are large.)

Pano Panoramas

On the Baylor Campus.

On my flight from Germany.

On the Baylor campus.

Panorama Panoramas

St. Peter’s Square: Rome, Italy || View with CleVR!

On the Baylor University campus.

At Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida. || View with CleVR!

Using CleVR:
St Peters Basilica
Epcot – Showcase Lagoon 1
Epcot – Showcase Lagoon 2

Cons:
-Inconvenient to create a new panorama right after the last one was saved.

$2.99

4.5/5

Holding the iPhone in a horizontal position you can take up to 4 pictures, then stitch them together as one photo.

When taking the 2nd through the 4th, the right side of the screen shows a transparency of the previous photo to help you line up the photo.

I was very surprised at the blending and exposure control in the program.

The panoramas are then automatically saved in the photo roll.

Here are a few panoramas I took yesterday.

The main problem I ran into was that after saving the first panorama, I had to exit then re-enter the application in order to take another panorama. Other than that, I really enjoyed running around taking panoramas.

Just as a reference I have been stitching panoramas together for some time now, including some that are Giga pixels in size (yeah, that’s a lot of Mega pixels.)To see one of the panoramas that I have created, click here. The image is fairly large…you’ve been warned

You can also see more panoramas that I have taken with the application along with more screenshots here.