A BeReal-style dual camera, without the feed

The appeal was never the daily notification. It was the shape of the picture. One frame that holds your expression and the thing causing it, so nobody has to ask what you were looking at.

What came attached was a social app: a two-minute window, a friends feed, and a post you could not take back easily. Plenty of people liked the camera and could live without the rest.

DualCapture is the camera part. Open it whenever you want, take the two-sided shot, and it goes to your Photos library. No account. No feed. No countdown telling you that now is the moment.

Photo mode captures both cameras from one tap and saves the selfie and the scene as separate images. Video mode records both lenses at the same time for as long as you hold the take.

That second part is where it goes past what a BeReal-style photo can do. A still tells you someone was at the concert. Thirty seconds of dual camera video tells you the song, the crowd noise, and the face they made when the riff came in.

BeReal has one layout: a small selfie window sitting over the wide shot. DualCapture has three.

Picture-in-picture works the same way, except you drag the selfie window wherever you want it. Split screen is the one to try next. It stacks the cameras top and bottom, or sets them side by side, and the divider is draggable, so the halves do not have to be equal. Give the view three quarters of the frame when the view deserves it.

A swap button trades the feeds, so the front camera can be the main shot instead. Set that, the layout and the divider before you press record, because all three stay fixed for the whole take.

One recording writes three files straight into Photos: the front camera alone, the back camera alone and the combined video. Premium's Dual Orientation setting, off by default, saves each camera as both a vertical and a horizontal video instead, so one take covers a Story and a YouTube upload.

Because the individual clips are saved too, a moment you shot casually can become a real edit later. Nothing is posted anywhere by the app, so what you share and when is a decision you make afterwards, in whatever app you would have used anyway.

The free version adds a DualCapture.com watermark and stops a take at 3 minutes. Premium removes both. Settings go up to 4K and 60 fps, though your iPhone model can hold them lower with two cameras running, and 4K needs Premium. A stabilization toggle covers the back lens when you are moving.

iOS 18 or later, and an iPhone with multi-camera support, which the App Store listing puts at iPhone XS, XS Max, XR and newer (we build and test for iPhone 15 and newer). The app is free to download and record with. Premium adds 4K, every layout, no watermark and no time limit, as a weekly, monthly or yearly subscription, or one lifetime purchase.

On iOS 26, Apple added its own Dual Capture mode to the Camera app for iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air, and it is also on the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone Duo. It is free, and it records video with a front overlay you can drag around. It has one layout, produces one file, and does not take dual camera photos.