Instagram Review: This App is 2011′s #1 iPhone app for a reason…
| App Name: | |
| Platforms: | iPhone OS |
| Publisher(s): | Burbn, Inc |
| Version Reviewed: | 2.0.5 |
| Genre(s): | Photography |
| Release Date: | Updated November 11, 2011 |
| Price: | FREE |
| Download |  |
If you’ve been paying attention to anything Apple related this week (my guess is that since you’re reading this blog, you probably have), you’d know that the annual iTunes Store Rewind awards have been announced, and at the top of the list for app resides the ever-popular photo editing software: Instagram.
We here at App Chronicles understand that most of you probably already indulge in this app, but for those who might be unaware of the wonders it brings, we thought we’d give it a thorough run-down.
All you need to enjoy Instagram is an iPhone, an email address, and a password.
As photo editing/sharing apps go, this one makes the process dead simple. You can take a photo from within the app, or choose from your iPhone’s library. Once you’ve found the not-so-perfect shot, you can then move on to the editing process, wherein that photo can come a little closer to perfection.
It’s the editing process that sets Instagram apart, really. You can apply a number of effects to your photo, ranging from simple black and white (Inkwell) to plenty of other hipster-ish vintage overlays. You also have the ability to apply a tilt-shift effect to your photo, which has quickly become one of the most popular on the app.
Applying the filters is as easy as the push of a button, either in post or in real-time as you’re taking the picture, which gives you a nice preview of what your photo might look like before you take it.
Once you’ve found the look that’s perfect for your particular photo, you have a couple of choices: keep it for yourself, or share it with the rest of the world.
And when I say share, I mean it. Instagram supports pretty much any social network out there you can think of, and makes uploading almost as dead simple as editing.
- Flickr
- Tumblr
- Posterous
- Foursquare
As of right now, these are the supported networks you can share your photos to, so sharing your masterpiece with the world isn’t difficult by any means. In case you are a little shy or private about a certain photo, you can easily choose which network, if any, you want to load that specific photo to. So if you only want your friends on Instagram, or maybe just Facebook (or perhaps all of the other networks), to see what you just created, you are given that capability. It’s this ease of sharing that separates Instagram from other vintage photo-editing apps, like Hipstamatic. For me, I’m especially fond of Instagram’s integration with Foursquare, as it gives me the opportunity to not only check-in at a certain site, but document what I was doing there as well.
Something else that’s really great about this app that I touched on briefly before is that Instagram is in itself a social network. You can follow friends or various other artists/celebrities (á la Twitter), and see what kind of photos they’ve taken in your “Feed” tab. You’re also given the ability to comment and/or “heart” (similar to Facebook’s “like” function) the photos of your friends or people you follow. By participating in this sort of communal environment, every photographer can collaborate and take pointers from each other, creating a unique learning and sharing experience.
If you’re not sure who to follow, you can always jump to the “Popular” tab, and you’ll be given a rundown of which photos on Instagram are currently the most…well…popular. I’ve spent many hours of my life perusing through this list, finding random people who I think have a particularly wonderful or unique photographic eye, and started following them. Now I by no means consider myself an even competent photographer, but because of this interaction with the other users of the app, I have learned countless lessons on lighting, angles, and effect layering. I’d like to think that it has at least helped me to grow as an amateur photography hobbyist.
If I there were any sort of “cons” to Instagram, it would be that after applying your desired filter, you lose a little bit of image quality to said photo. It’s not a major degradation, but it’s necessary to allow the filter to be placed on the photo in the first place. Also, if you’re uploading a previously taken photo from your iPhone library, you’ll have to scale it down to fit into Instagram’s size restrictions. Aside from these nitpicky things though, I can’t find anything else wrong with it.
Instagram is perhaps the most simple and easy to comprehend photo editing app on the iTunes market. And it’s free! You can’t really beat that combination.
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