By Graham K. Rogers

I have scores of apps that manipulate the images I take with the iPhone camera adding digital effects to the digital images. And those digital photographs I take with my Nikon DSLR cameras can either be edited digitally on the Mac or transferred to the iPhone where some apps allow me to change them: digitally of course.

Not many people using the newer types of digital output and the effects possible have much experience of monochrome CRT (Cathode Ray Tube). In my childhood the world as seen through television was all black and white and shades of grey. Some days we had added lines and snow depending on interference. Lines were more evident with the 405 line system (quality improved when 625 was brought in).

Do I miss this? Not at all, and yet the occasional foray into classics now only available on YouTube (such as Quatermass and the Pit) bring back the essence of what viewing was like.

So when I saw an outline (Tom Warren, The Verge) of an app that reproduces an image by use of a real analogue camera (in Sweden), I just couldn't resist this. The very pointlessness of such an app and its output (at least in one way of thinking) would perhaps change the original image -- with a bit of help from our friends -- into an example of Art.

Yes, I know I am stretching the idea a bit, but in my armoury of iOS filters, editors and effects there is nothing that is able to produce such an odd yet interesting image format as InstaCRT. Ah, but only if I could get it to work.

On the Developer site where there is a video, a FAQ and an explanation of how it works, along with a number of examples that have already been created.

The app interface milks the monochrome idea: it is all in shades of black, grey and white. The cost is $1.99 and the process of developing an image using the app is part of its charm. As well as the iPhone camera, users may select an image from the Photo Album. I use the word, "develop" deliberately as the image is not instantly available, but needs to be sent away for processing and is then returned, albeit in under a minute.

At least, that is the theory. I first tried with some photographs in the Photo Album of the iPhone, but each time, when the spinning wheel stopped, there was nothing to see. I also tried using the iPhone camera, but had the same result. I would have accepted one or two failures out of a batch of, say 10 images sent, but a failure rate of 100% is not what I want, especially from a paid-for app.

As well as the FAQ, there is a disclaimer on the site which is not all that encouraging:

The concept of InstaCRT is built on 80s electronics that might blow up and make the app useless. We don't have any spare parts laying around which means there's no guarantee the app will work. But having said that we've had it up and running for more than six months (during beta testing) without a problem and we hope that it'll keep on running forever.

I sent email to the developers and had a reply within a couple of minutes: "We know some images get back all black but usually it works if you retry. We're working hard on an update that will hopfully deal with this."

The speed of the mail and the comments were encouraging, so I tried some more. I tried resetting the iPhone. I deleted the app and downloaded it again into iTunes, I tried landscape, I tried portrait mode. I tried the iPad. I tried shouting.

I was about to upload a fairly negative review (this one is not wholly positive of course), but stopped myself: wait until morning. Before going to bed, I turned off the wifi which is not usual for me. In bed, I had an idea: 3G.

I used an image from the Photo Album and sent that to Sweden. That one did return. I tried a couple more before sleep: one failed, but one was OK.

In the morning, with the wifi now on, I tried again and there was total failure each time, but I also noted the wait time had gone from 1 minute (sometimes 2 - 4) and was now shown as "about 1 hour". However, after a short time, the black screen appeared as before with each image I tried.

I turned off wifi on the iPhone and sent a photograph using 3G. Although the time was shown as about an hour again, there was no black screen and the connection was maintained.

I expect that the main problem is this end and could be linked to the ISP settings. As local users are aware, Thailand does not have the best connections in the world: there may be some form of cut-off working here when I use the wifi and broadband connection. The 3G is with another company, so their connection would have different settings and perhaps takes a different route out of the country.

I am genuinely disappointed as I had hoped to have a more full use of this brave attempt at using older technology for a novel form of output. Such a persistent rate of failure (on both iOS devices) leaves a question concerning my location, where the Internet is not always blazingly fast.

The results I have are not brilliant in terms of photographic output, but this is such an unusual way to produce images that I am willing to wait and see. I hope that the connections improve and that more reliable output is available to me.

Perhaps the extra use this met after leaving beta has been enough to put the old tech in overload. A shame that.

Update - Confirmation and Clarification

I gave InstaCRT a bit more of a try-out while shopping. At a large mall on the western side of Bangkok, I tried a couple of images with the app: one from the camera and one from the Photo Album.

The time for image return was given as 4 minutes in both cases, and both were successful. Although DTAC provides wifi for customers in some malls, this is not one of them.

Once home, I again tried to make a connection using wifi and the process failed. I turned off wifi and used 3G: instant success. At least there is a sort of consistency, perverse as it is.

I hope it is clear that although I was initially disappointed in the results I had using the app it is probable that the reasons for failure (0% success) here are down to something at the ISP. With a number of tries using 3G, the success rate is far higher. Other users have reported occasional black images and with the way the system has been cobbled together from old technology, the occasional failure is easily forgiven.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.