Instagram, the app that turns your smart phone photos into painfully trendy retro snaps, is out now for Android.
The hugely popular free app has been a staple of Apple's iOS platform for some time, with over 27 million registered users. Now it's finally made the jump to Google's robot-powered OS, enabling Android fans to be every bit as hip as iPhone owners.
For the uninitiated, Instagram uses your phone's camera to apply old-school filters to your snaps, simulating the Polaroid and Instamatic aesthetic of yesteryear.
The app only gives you a square to work with, so all your photos come out looking decidedly boxy, but that's in keeping with the retro snapper the app emulates. Once you've applied a filter and taken a photo, Instagram lets you upload your snap to your social network of choice.
The Android version appears to be missing the tilt-shift feature found on iOS, which lets you blur out select bits of your photo.
There's no denying Instagram lets you capture some lovely snaps, with a vintage look that's painfully charming. But I can't help but feel that our digital photos will already look rubbish in 30 years' time, without the need to make them look like they were snapped in the 70s.
I feel like we're cheating ourselves out of the opportunity to look back and say, "Oh the quality of this photo is so 2012, I can't believe we ever thought 8 megapixels looked good!" Before, presumably, hopping onto a space motorbike and flying to the moons of Jupiter.
Are you an Instamatic fan? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.
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Comments 7
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anonymous 4 April, 2012 11:30
Megapixels =/= Quality. Example: Mars Rover, courtesy of NASA. You can count the grains of sand individually in this... 1Megapixel camera. Optics make all the difference.
anonymous 4 April, 2012 11:30
Yawn. Nothing instagram does that you haven't been able to do better with other android apps for a long time now.
anonymous 4 April, 2012 11:42
..Or iOS apps for that matter, and we could follow it back to PocketPCs if we wanted... but it's small, FREE, portable, and convenient. The other day I took a beautiful picture of a butterfly on a thistle as I was walking along the sidewalk. If I hadn't had the ability to grab my phone out of my pocket and snap that photo in under 5 seconds, it would never have happened. So yeah, my 3.2MP camera was fine for that. And can be edited :-D has a lot more information on the camera and how/why it works, explaining the difference in the varied sizes of pixels on the CCD etc. to make it more understandable for the common man (like me).
Scools 4 April, 2012 12:25
Not really useable on the HTC Desire... its a 16mb download and you can't move it to the SD card. Unless you have a lot of free space on your Desire (with its measly 150mb of internal space) which would mean you would have very few other apps, then it is unlikely you will be able to install it without getting the dreaded 'you are running out of free space..'
Come on Instagram, let us move it to the SD card!
anonymous 4 April, 2012 14:02
@Schools it's a "measly 150mb" unless you know how to get all the crap they put on the phone off of it that you don't want. Everything can be hacked but i don't know you so sorry. Do your own homework and figure it out like i did. I freed up another 100 so w my SD card it's not too shabby for an older smartphone IMHO. Anyway back on topic I still don't understand why people want these programs on their phone to begin with. There are so many others out there that are MUCH better and do a whole lot more than just put a filter on a picture if that's all this does. It certainly will save it larger and in another shape besides a square that can be used in multiple places. Guess I'm old school in that thinking. I like being able to use pics for more than one thing especially when they are tiny. making them larger as we all know makes them fuzzy because there isn't enough pixels in the resolution when the photo is originally taken. I guess until I understand the purpose of these photo apps being on phones I will remain old school and keep mine on the computer where I can not only manipulate it but SEE it too
ace9988 5 April, 2012 01:47
The app needs to support the feature to move it to sd card, no point having apps2sd if the app doesnt have that functionality to run off the sd card
anonymous 6 April, 2012 17:03
im agree with him. the company that made this app. i talked with them weeks before the first one publish. and they dont give a f***k about android users. i really dont understand what's the point to port it to Google Play. and it's knowen the most of android Os phones dont gotta 1GB phone memory. then why been mean and ignore them just for get "headlines" that company make me sick. and also the screen cut from the pic dosnt match android System. it's like they did haf a work. i uninstall it from my phone and hopeing the publish an updated they let it APP2SD. if not.they would lose me and alot of ppls in the time. i want to delete my account from there but i can't cuz it dosnt let u. then i stop updated there