Optic Illusion press kit

Contact: John Haney — john@appsfromouterspace.com

Fact sheet

App	Optic Illusion — Classic illusions, revealed.
What it is	72 optical illusions in seven categories, every one with a direct explanation of the effect. 33 of them respond to input and 14 animate on their own, so you can change an illusion and watch the trick break down.
Category	Entertainment
Price	Free. No in-app purchases, no subscription, no ads.
Platforms	iPhone, iPad and Mac
Requirements	iOS 26, iPadOS 26 or macOS 26
Released	August 18, 2026 · Version 1.0 · Rated 4+
Privacy	No accounts, no ads, no third-party SDKs and no cross-app tracking. The one thing that leaves the device is an anonymous count of which exhibits get opened, kept in the developer's own iCloud container
App Store	https://apps.apple.com/app/id6797143310
App page	https://appsfromouterspace.com/apps/optic-illusion/
Developer	Apps From Outer Space, LLC — one-person studio, St. Louis, Missouri

About Optic Illusion

33 of the 72 illusions in Optic Illusion respond to input, and 14 animate on their own. Cover the Cornsweet edge with a toggle and two panels become one gray. Swing the camera around Sugihara's cylinder and its square rim reads as a circle.

The collection runs to 72 exhibits in seven categories. Every one carries a direct explanation of the mechanism. Free, no in-app purchases, no ads, for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Key features

33 of the 72 exhibits respond to input. A toggle covers an edge, a slider lays one shape over another, a drag turns a camera.
14 animate on their own, each behind a warning that names the effect before it plays.
A direct explanation for every exhibit, written for curious humans.
No accounts, no ads, no third-party SDKs, and nothing that follows you across other apps or websites.

Quotes, attributable to John Haney

"A still illusion just sits there. Being able to swap around or change it to see how the trick breaks down gives a deeper understanding of the effects."

"The illusion is only half the fun. The other half is finding out which specific part of your visual system is responsible, and that's the part nobody bothers to write down."

"Knowing exactly how the trick works has never once stopped it from working. That's the part I find genuinely strange. You can read the explanation, understand every step of it, look back at the picture, and your eyes carry on lying to you."

Q&A

How many illusions are there? 72 at launch, sorted into seven categories: Motion (13), Geometry (15), Depth (12), Contrast (12), Color (10), Form (5) and Attention (5). They range from the very familiar, such as Müller-Lyer, the Café Wall and the Hermann Grid, to figures described only recently, including Takahashi's curvature blindness (2017), Kolås's color assimilation grid (2019) and the scintillating starburst (2021).

Which ones are interactive? 33 of the 72 carry a control: a toggle, a slider, a drag or a tap. Cover the Cornsweet edge and two panels become one gray. Slide one Jastrow arc onto the other. Swing the camera around Sugihara's cylinder until its square rim reads as a circle. 14 of them animate on their own.

Does it collect any data? One thing. The app counts how many times each exhibit is opened and writes that to the developer's own CloudKit container, so he can see which illusions people actually use. What leaves the device is a random per-install identifier, an exhibit name and a number. No account, nothing read off your hardware, and nothing that survives deleting the app. There are no third-party SDKs, no advertising identifier and no tracking across other apps or websites, so there is no App Tracking Transparency prompt. The privacy label declares Usage Data, Product Interaction, unlinked to your identity.

Is it safe for people sensitive to flicker? Some exhibits do animate, and a few genuinely flicker, including reverse phi, phi motion and Benham's top. Every one of those sits behind a warning screen that names the exhibit and asks before anything plays, and the warning can be switched back on from the gallery toolbar after it has been dismissed. Several other exhibits are high-contrast repeating patterns that some people find uncomfortable even standing still. Anyone with pattern sensitivity or photosensitivity should know what they are looking at going in.

Is there an Apple Vision Pro version? Not in this release. visionOS is not part of this launch.

Who made it? John Haney, Apps From Outer Space LLC. He shipped one of the original App Store apps in 2008.

Images

Every image below links to its full-resolution file — save any of them individually, or download everything as a zip. Screenshots are raw device captures with no frames or captions.

Optic Illusion on iPhone: the Penrose Triangle rendered as three grey beams meeting in an impossible tribar, with the viewpoint control set to Impossible view, with the teaser and explanation below. — 1320×2868 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPhone: the Penrose Triangle with Turn the camera selected, the figure sprung open into three separate beams that plainly do not meet, with the teaser and explanation below. — 1320×2868 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPhone: Rotating Snakes, nine static wheels of black, dark grey, white and light grey segments on a grey field that appear to drift although nothing is moving, with the teaser and explanation below. — 1320×2868 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPhone: Adelson's Checker Shadow, squares A and B marked on a checkerboard crossed by a cylinder's shadow, above a control offering to join them with a bar of the grey they share, with the teaser and explanation below. — 1320×2868 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPhone: Negative Afterimage, a colour-reversed flag in cyan, black and orange with black stars and a fixation cross, above a control that swaps it for a blank white field, with the teaser and explanation below. — 1320×2868 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPhone: Scintillating Starburst, concentric wreaths of short white arcs on black whose aligned gaps produce bright rays that are not drawn, with the teaser and explanation below. — 1320×2868 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPhone: Kanizsa Triangle, three black notched discs on a pale field producing a bright triangle whose edges are not drawn, with a control that turns the notches outward, with the teaser and explanation below. — 1320×2868 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPhone: Your Sensitivity Curve, a Campbell-Robson chart whose stripes narrow to the right and gain contrast downward, the inverted-U boundary where they vanish drawn by the viewer's own vision, with the teaser and explanation below. — 1320×2868 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPhone: the gallery list, exhibits shown under the Motion heading with their category labels, one row each. — 1320×2868 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPad: the Penrose Triangle rendered as three grey beams meeting in an impossible tribar, with the viewpoint control set to Impossible view, the exhibit list sectioned by category in the sidebar alongside. — 2064×2752 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPad: the Penrose Triangle with Turn the camera selected, the figure sprung open into three separate beams that plainly do not meet, the exhibit list sectioned by category in the sidebar alongside. — 2064×2752 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPad: Rotating Snakes, nine static wheels of black, dark grey, white and light grey segments on a grey field that appear to drift although nothing is moving, the exhibit list sectioned by category in the sidebar alongside. — 2064×2752 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPad: Adelson's Checker Shadow, squares A and B marked on a checkerboard crossed by a cylinder's shadow, above a control offering to join them with a bar of the grey they share, the exhibit list sectioned by category in the sidebar alongside. — 2064×2752 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPad: Negative Afterimage, a colour-reversed flag in cyan, black and orange with black stars and a fixation cross, above a control that swaps it for a blank white field, the exhibit list sectioned by category in the sidebar alongside. — 2064×2752 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPad: Scintillating Starburst, concentric wreaths of short white arcs on black whose aligned gaps produce bright rays that are not drawn, the exhibit list sectioned by category in the sidebar alongside. — 2064×2752 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPad: Kanizsa Triangle, three black notched discs on a pale field producing a bright triangle whose edges are not drawn, with a control that turns the notches outward, the exhibit list sectioned by category in the sidebar alongside. — 2064×2752 PNG

Optic Illusion on iPad: Your Sensitivity Curve, a Campbell-Robson chart whose stripes narrow to the right and gain contrast downward, the inverted-U boundary where they vanish drawn by the viewer's own vision, the exhibit list sectioned by category in the sidebar alongside. — 2064×2752 PNG

Optic Illusion on macOS: the Penrose Triangle rendered as three grey beams meeting in an impossible tribar, with the viewpoint control set to Impossible view, the exhibit list in the sidebar and the explanation beneath. — 2880×1800 PNG

Optic Illusion on macOS: the Penrose Triangle with Turn the camera selected, the figure sprung open into three separate beams that plainly do not meet, the exhibit list in the sidebar and the explanation beneath. — 2880×1800 PNG

Optic Illusion on macOS: Rotating Snakes, nine static wheels of black, dark grey, white and light grey segments on a grey field that appear to drift although nothing is moving, the exhibit list in the sidebar and the explanation beneath. — 2880×1800 PNG

Optic Illusion on macOS: Adelson's Checker Shadow, squares A and B marked on a checkerboard crossed by a cylinder's shadow, above a control offering to join them with a bar of the grey they share, the exhibit list in the sidebar and the explanation beneath. — 2880×1800 PNG

Optic Illusion on macOS: Negative Afterimage, a colour-reversed flag in cyan, black and orange with black stars and a fixation cross, above a control that swaps it for a blank white field, the exhibit list in the sidebar and the explanation beneath. — 2880×1800 PNG

Optic Illusion on macOS: Scintillating Starburst, concentric wreaths of short white arcs on black whose aligned gaps produce bright rays that are not drawn, the exhibit list in the sidebar and the explanation beneath. — 2880×1800 PNG

Optic Illusion on macOS: Kanizsa Triangle, three black notched discs on a pale field producing a bright triangle whose edges are not drawn, with a control that turns the notches outward, the exhibit list in the sidebar and the explanation beneath. — 2880×1800 PNG

Optic Illusion on macOS: Your Sensitivity Curve, a Campbell-Robson chart whose stripes narrow to the right and gain contrast downward, the inverted-U boundary where they vanish drawn by the viewer's own vision, the exhibit list in the sidebar and the explanation beneath. — 2880×1800 PNG

App icon — 512×512 PNG. The zip includes 512 and 256 renditions.

Download the press kit (zip)

Contact

John Haney — john@appsfromouterspace.com

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