It’s been a long road, but Snapture, the pro iPhone camera application, has finally gone legit. We have covered the app since it was born 18 months ago into the then tumultuous sea of jailbroken iPhone apps, way back before the app store existed.

Now that third-party developers finally have access to the inner workings of the iPhone, Snapture Labs has at last been able to make the application official, and yesterday it went live in the App store.

The application brings the features of the jailbreak, or hacked, version to the store for $2 (the launch price), and we can see it becoming rather popular. Snapture offers a 5x zoom and pan, using the familiar pinch gestures, it will shoot bursts of up to three frames and even gives a level aid to get the camera straight and avoid droopy horizons.

The application also lets you view and delete photos from within it, rather than having to switch to the Camera Roll as you do with Apple’s version.

Bowie Gai, Snapture Labs CEO, told us that the move from outsider to legitimate developer was inevitable. “No smart businesses would alienate any potential customers,” he said “If we had a choice, we’d go both AppStore and Cydia.”

This isn’t possible, due to Apple’s terms, but it seems that the “cult following of Snapture fans” is willing to switch to the iTunes store-bought version. Within 18 hours, Snapture had hit number 29 in the paid app charts and is now at number 23 and rising.

Despite this, Gei still misses the Cydia store, one of two repositories for applications on jailbroken iPhones. As well as less competition (around 1000 apps against the 85,000+ on the iTunes Store), developers “can actually pay Cydia a nominal fee to be featured on the front page. This way a small time developer can get noticed, build brand, iterate and become a household name in the iPhone world.”

And while it seems that being a “household name” amongst people willing to hack their iPhones may not be such a big deal, the figures tell a different story. In its various non-official incarnations, Snapture has made it onto half a million devices.

Snapture isn’t the only developer to cross over from the dark side. Twinkle, the Twitter client, switched over, and Tap Tap Revenge started life as Tap Tap Revolution for jailbroken iPhones.

Is Gai hopeful about repeating his success from within the Apple Empire? With a user-base of 500,000, his marketing is already taken care of. But for most developers the problem, as with everything on the internet, is getting seen. “The chance of you making a million dollar one trick pony app is nil,” Gei told us. “More likely than not, a small time developer is considered lucky if the AppStore revenue can cover the development costs.”

Product page [iTunes]

See Also: