Roll is one week old, and keeps on rollin!
Hello Roll fam.
Honestly… blown away by the love, feedback, and overall vibes this past week. Didn’t expect this.
A few updates that are now live, all coming straight from you shaping what Roll becomes:
You can now choose your Roll size (1, 6, 12, 24) — most requested by far in our feedback survey.
UI tweaks (bigger icons, crank works on both sides, easier to reach)
Landscape mode
Push notifications when your rolls are ready
Fixed camera roll permissions so it doesn’t bug you every time
Improved download and share workflows.
What's next?
Partnered up with my best friend John Joumaa — Imaging & Color specialist in the VFX world. He’s obsessed with making your memories look unreal but still real (No Generative AI involved!). Expect better filters, better output, better everything. We’re calling him Head of Output Memories. Ha.
We’d love to bring collaborative rolls to life. Since Roll doesn’t store your content in the cloud (by design), we’re carefully thinking through how to make this happen safely.
Roll is a passion project and will always be free. If you’re enjoying it, you can always buy me a coffee (or a beer). We also truly value App store reviews, it's the best way for you to help out spreading the word!
Cheers and, let the good times Roll fellas!
Replies
this feels like a very community driven update. I like how most changes clearly came from real feedback instead of assumptions.
@deangelo_hinkle the roll size option is a nice touch 🙂 giving people control usually makes the experience feel more personal.
@deangelo_hinkle @henry_lindsey Landscape mode sounds small but actually makes a big diffrence in usability. I often avoid apps that force one orientation.
Roll
@deangelo_hinkle @henry_lindsey @lakeesha_weatherwax Yeah a few UI tweaks were necessary to support both orientations.
@deangelo_hinkle @lakeesha_weatherwax @claude_piche Right!!!
@deangelo_hinkle @henry_lindsey the focus on non generative output is interesting. Keeping things real instead of synthetic could become a strong identity for the product.
Roll
@deangelo_hinkle @henry_lindsey glad you like it! I also think different roll sizes for different types of use cases make sense!
What will be your go to size?
@deangelo_hinkle Push notifications for ready rolls is smart. I usually forget to check apps unless they remind me at the right moment.
Roll
@deangelo_hinkle @shawn_idrees that one felt like a just do it for me! It's the "surprise it's ready" moment!
@deangelo_hinkle @shawn_idrees @claude_piche UI tweaks like bigger icons and better reach might seem minor, but I know from experience they improve daily use a lot.
Roll
@mathew_chang Bigger icons was released today!
Roll
@deangelo_hinkle Roll is all about building a community! We will always carefully listen to user feedback and ensure we deliver value that is wanted while keeping our vision of the product.
Love the focus on privacy-first design + tactile UX the no cloud angle is a real differentiator right now. Collaborative rolls will be tricky, but if you crack that without breaking trust, that's your breakout feature.
Roll
@prince__kumar love that you think it's our differentiator, we believe this too. Your memories should be yours, period. What you do with them once developped is up to you.
Collab rolls without cloud is tricky/impossible, so it comes down to transparency + giving users the choice if/when cloud is involved and explain the why.
I'm curious, have you played with the app yet?
@claude_piche super stoked to hop on this project!
film emulation is not an easy task and has already been nailed by great companies, but this is not what Roll is about; it's about having fun and balancing modern QoL of digital with the nostalgic and tactile experience of shooting film.
while my day job requires me to focus on extracting the best possible quality out of camera sensors, this project is a breath of fresh air and hopefully a way to experiment with bespoke processes I always wanted to try.
for those interested, I have a curated selection of my actual real film rolls that I developed a few years ago that are free to download and use: https://unsplash.com/@johnjoumaa
fee free to share what makes shooting film special to you. is it the feel? the look? the imperfections and limitations?
✌️
The app has such a soulful vibe. Push notifications for when photos are ready is a useful detail that often gets overlooked. It is great that the project remains free and is built on passion.
Roll
@avabrooks Glad you're liking it and thanks for the kind words!
Love the iteration speed here feels very listen → ship → refine in the purest form. The privacy-first constraint (no cloud storage) is actually a strong design boundary, but collaboration will be the real hard problem to solve without breaking that core promise.
Roll
@hassan_ismail_rebe
Totally agree. The constraint is kind of the feature right now.
Collab is definitely the tricky part, but I think there’s something interesting in exploring ways to share without turning it into another cloud-based feed.