Instagram is a new camera app for the iPhone with a focus on social networking. The app offers some wonderful, lomo-like filters to make your photos not look so crappy. There are dozens of photography apps that do this well, so what makes Instagram special?
Sharing your photos through social networking is a huge part of Instagram. The app’s developer, Kevin Systrom, descibes Instagram as not merely a camera app, but “a community focused on helping you collect, organize, and share the images of your life from your mobile phone.” Instagram packages this community very elegantly. The look and feel is clean and fast, and there aren’t any gimmicks…
You have a feed of photos taken by other Instagram users you follow. When you open the app for the first time it prompts you to find friends on Instagram through Twitter and Facebook. You follow people and each user gets a profile and feed that is very similar to Twitter. You can comment on and “like” other people’s photos just like Facebook.
Instagram offers robust sharing control to other social networks. You can send photos taken within the app to Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr and Facebook. There is also Foursquare support built in for geotagging photos, but you can use Google Maps as well.
This app feels like Tumblr for photography. The icon is beautiful, the camera functionality is all there (you can use the front-facing camera with the iPhone 4), and the social aspect is inventive and pleasant. And best of all, Instagram comes at an unbeatable price – free.
Overall, I give it a rating of: ★★★★★
Go download Instagram for free in the App Store.
What do you think? Do you like the app?