AI camera app · Product designer + iOS engineer · Co-founder

Aurascope:snap, score, share, compare

An AI camera for self-expression, social, and play. Point it at people, places, pets, or things and get an aura title, score, and place in your Orbit.

10K+ users · 150+ five-star reviews · #3 Product of the Day

10K+

Users

150+

Five-star reviews

Product of the Day on Product Hunt

500+

Signals behind each aura score

iPhone-first · SwiftUI + OpenAI · March 2025 to July 2025 · Favs HQ

Point it at people, places, pets, or things

Aura title, score, and a place in your Orbit. Then the camera roll, the collection, and rank.

Screens

Catalog of scanned objects with titles and scores — Result catalog from real scans

Explore feed of shared aura scans — Explore feed

Find friends and invite flow — Find friends

Decisions

Capture first, then social.

Camera-first home with shutter and library

Capture

Open to camera, value in seconds

Problem: Accounts, tutorials, and paywalls buried the first useful moment.
Solution: V1 was live camera only. Viewfinder, shutter, result in the same session.
Result: #3 Product of the Day.

AI output

Make the inference readable

Problem: An opaque score is easy to ignore.
Solution: Aura title, score, visual treatment, and a place in the catalog.
Result: 150+ five-star reviews, playful rather than clinical.

Photo library

Listen, then open the camera roll

Problem: Live capture left out the photos people already cared about.
Solution: Upload from the photo library. Same path as a live snap. Shipped in 1.2.
Result: For many users, library scans became the path they returned to.

Collection

Orbit as the personal catalog

Problem: A single score fades.
Solution: A spinning ring of scans, with invite and share on the same surface.
Result: Orbit became a signature of the product.

Social

Friends, profiles, and rank

Problem: Single-player scanning was fun, then plateaued.
Solution: Friends, public profiles, Explore, and daily and lifetime leaderboards.
Result: Capture first, then social.

Learning

What I would change now

Problem: Sign in with Apple only. Phone sign-in came about a month later.
Solution: Map retention and messaging before locking auth.
Result: Invest earlier in the account and re-engagement path.

Want the full story?

Happy to walk through capture, the library pivot, and the social layer live.

Let's talk