Camera+ boasts 8M copies sold in two years

Camera+ gets the bonus of selling its 8 millionth app on the same day as its second birthday. Quite an achievement in the face of other popular apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic, especially when the company has publicly refused VC funding and offers of acquisition.

The company's founder John Casasanta wrote in a blog post today that over the past two years, Camera+ has been approached by several companies looking to buy, including Adobe, Zynga, Google, and Twitter. Camera+ declined every time because of the company's goal to retain its independence. It also turned down its first round of VC funding because it "didn't like the direction the investors were trying to push us in."

Here's more of what Casasanta writes in the blog post:

We greatly value our independence and in all cases, we've fended the suitors off and chosen to remain independent. Fiercely independent. We have a ton of things we want to accomplish here and working for some conglomerate or having bean-counting investors breathing down our necks simply isn't the way for us to achieve them.

The proposed Facebook acquisition of Instagram fueled a lot of ridiculousness in the industry and the number of zeroes that've come-up in these negotiations has been insane. These offers have been tempting...extremely tempting in some particular cases. Now I know how that old-timey chap felt with the snake and the apple or whatever.

Will the failure of the Facebook IPO change the climate here going forward? Possibly. But it doesn't matter...we didn't build this company with the intention to flip it. We're in it for the long-haul and we're committed to building a real business that makes great apps, not on selling-out. We're doing more than fine on our own and we'll continue to do so on our own. Again, fiercely independent.

This popular camera replacement app, by developer Taptaptap, costs 99 cents, is only available on iOS and gives users a host of features that aren't available with other major photo apps. Some of the options include touch screen exposure and focus, digital zoom, timer, and several different effects, borders, and filters.

Casasanta also alluded to a new update to the app in coming weeks, which he said is "going to make many of you very happy." The codename for the forthcoming release is "Darkroom."