{"id":238549,"date":"2026-05-03T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/03\/how-the-internets-favorite-squirrel-dad-made-a-hit-camera-app\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T09:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T13:55:08","slug":"how-the-internets-favorite-squirrel-dad-made-a-hit-camera-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/03\/how-the-internets-favorite-squirrel-dad-made-a-hit-camera-app\/","title":{"rendered":"How the internet\u2019s favorite squirrel dad made a hit camera app"},"content":{"rendered":"

How the internet\u2019s favorite squirrel dad made a hit camera app<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/tech\/921690\/dualshot-recorder-iphone-camera-app-derrick-downey-jr<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-03 09:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.theverge.com<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hyperbole to call DualShot Recorder an overnight sensation.<\/p>\n

It took only 12 hours from the time it was released to hit number one on the App Store\u2019s list of top paid apps. It was a surprise success \u2014 but what\u2019s even more surprising is the app\u2019s origin story: it all started with a cadre of friendly neighborhood squirrels and their favorite caretaker.<\/p>\n

Derrick Downey Jr. built a career on short-form videos documenting his interactions with the squirrels that visit his patio in LA. His Instagram and TikTok accounts each have well over a million followers (myself included) who know well the regular cast of characters: Maxine, Richard, and less frequent but affectionately named visitors like Hoodrat Raymond. Downey treats them to plenty of nuts, custom-built shelters, and trips to the local vet when emergency medical care is needed. It\u2019s delightful and about as wholesome as it gets.<\/p>\n

He was looking to spin up a series for YouTube, but he struggled to find a way to capture vertical and horizontal footage simultaneously. Other creators solve for this by using a special rig with two phones or cameras shooting at once, or by cropping the clip to both formats in post-processing. \u201cI tried going out and buying different devices and rigs and gimbals, and additional phones to set up to accommodate for that\u2026 but it became too taxing,\u201d he says. \u201cThe editing\u2026 all of that was too much.\u201d And cropping in post has drawbacks, too: the iPhone camera uses a crop of the full sensor when you record video. Taking a vertical 16:9 crop from the middle of that already-cropped frame means you\u2019re only using a small portion of the total sensor, losing a lot of resolution and limiting your framing options.<\/p>\n

Last year, he got the idea to try creating an app to solve the problem. He\u2019s not a software developer, and experimented with ChatGPT to try and vibe-code something. This was unsuccessful, so he put the project to the side. But earlier this year, something told…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How the internet\u2019s favorite squirrel dad made a hit camera app https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/tech\/921690\/dualshot-recorder-iphone-camera-app-derrick-downey-jr Publish Date: 2026-05-03…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":238550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/04\/Vrg_illo_squirrel_influencer.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C10.732984293194%2C100%2C78.534031413613&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iphone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238551,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238549\/revisions\/238551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}