Through adding text, Instagram-style filters, and nifty drawings, this app aims to bring your iPhone-captured images and movies to life. But is Glaze just another editing app for iOS? Let’s find out.

Price: $0.99 (£0.79)
Version: 1.0
Size: 45.1 MB
Platform: iPhone and iPad
Developer: Ryan Stephen

Glaze promises iPhone owners an “incredibly comprehensive way to make your content shine,” and it aims to do this through making photo editing features easier to use than ever before. Yet, despite the low price point, users of this application could end up disappointed.

The app lets photographers either import images or shoot new ones, before presenting them with a range of editing options. Perhaps the best among these is text addition. Glaze can add text onto photos using three different styles (either plain text, a bubble in the corner, or a bubble along the bottom of the screen), and you can switch between each style with a simple swipe. Changing the font is easy, too – there’s a bubble icon along a menu bar at the top of the UI in Glaze, and here a range of different fonts (including colors and text sizes) are available to choose from. You can also type in your text using the same interface.

Unfortunately, beyond this feature, Glaze. offers little else of particular interest. The same menu bar lets users add filters to the image, but there are only five presets to choose from. As such, you’d still be better off visiting the free-to-download Instagram app for a more comprehensive range of filters.

At the same time, users can adjust the background of their text bubble, but the six options here to choose from aren’t overly impressive. Also, the overall effect is tacky and rather like a Snapchat picture – something you’re happy to send off and have disappear into the ether, but not the kind of photography you’d like to print off and hang on the wall.

If you are pleased with the result and would like to share your Glaze-created image or video, it’s possible to do so using the iOS sharing menu (which the app fully supports). Usefully, “projects” can be saved in Glaze and returned to at a later date, and the app allows users to pick up right where they left off.

However, the bottom line with this application is that it’ll likely be too simple for most iPhone users to appreciate. There are just too many limited presets – three preset text bubbles, five filters, and six text backgrounds – for any degree of individuality to seep in through the editing process. And because of this, using Glaze to edit photos can feel more frustrating than rewarding. The app’s price is great, but a simple App Store search will yield many more comprehensive (and free) alternatives.