Instagram, the service that describes itself as “a fast, beautiful, and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures,” is coming up on its one year anniversary. The service is also approaching the 10 million user mark.
Perhaps the even bigger news (at least for us as users) is that the 6-man team pushed out a major update for its popular iPhone app today. Instagram 2.0 offers a host of new features, including 4 new filters to help unleash your inner hipster…
A lot of users have already weighed in on the new design, which allows you to add in filters on the fly, and there seems to be mixed reviews. Some folks like the changes because they make sharing photos quicker, and others despise the new interface.
I actually like the new UI. With the old version of Instagram, it was a 4-5 step process to take a photo, add a filter, and post it. With Instagram 2.0, however, the filters can be applied within the photo capture screen. This speeds up the entire process.
Speaking of filters, the company added four more options in today’s update — Amaro, Rise, Hudson and Valencia. I don’t think I used half of the ones available in the first place, but you can never have too many filters.
The update also brings the ability to save pictures in high resolution 1936 × 1936 format, which is a huge improvement over the old 612 x 612 limitation. If you want to try it out, you can download the new version of Instagram from the App Store.
What do you think of the new update?