App Day Saturday - Instagram

Happy Saturday! Because I originally started this blog out as a technology focused one and because I just bought an iPhone 4 and an iPad 2... I think it's time I make a series of posts called App Day Saturday. I'll be reviewing a new app for your Apple devices every Saturday. Some apps will work only on the iPad, some only on the iPhone and some can work on both. For those that can work on both, I will denote those apps with an asterisk (*). Otherwise, I'll specify.

For this first post, I'm going to review one of my favorite and most used apps.

Instagram - iPhone
Cost - Free

Instagram is a photosharing app for iPhone. Currently, you can have Instagram installed on your iPad, but when scaled to fit, the app becomes grainy. Instagram allows for you to share on your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous and Foursquare accounts. This is great for me, because I have all of the above. (With the exception of my Facebook, all the accounts are under kimberrleigh) You can create an account under a new username (I make mine all the same if I can). Once you get signed up, you can begin sharing!


Feed

Feed - The feed page is where all your pictures + who you follow appear. From here, you can like a picture(tapping the heart icon + like) or comment on it(speech bubble + comment). If you tap the three ellipsis it will prompt you to flag the picture for review as violating Instagram's Terms of Service Agreement.



Popular

Popular - The popular page shows you the most popular pictures taken by all the public users of Instagram. As you can tell, they are very artistic and awesome looking. I haven't gotten one of my pictures up there... yet.



Share

Share - The share page is the mecca of this whole app. From here, you can take a picture from your camera through the app or choose one from your Photo library. I recommend taking pictures from your camera (NOT through the app - you can't zoom or apply the HDR[if you have an iPhone 4]. You can turn the flash on or change which camera you're shooting from though) and then later posting them to Instagram. Once you've chosen a picture, you can apply any one of the following filters. (For an image representation of each filter, head over to Inspiredology for their blog post on all of these filters)



Filter selection page
X-Pro II
Lomo-fi
Earlybird
Sutro
Toaster
Inkwell
Walden
Hefe
Apollo
PopRocket
Nashville
Gotham
1977
Lord Kelvin

After you apply your filter, you can caption it (or not), post it to your multiple social media outlets (see above) and email. You can also Geotag your post, if you want people to see where you are in a creepy Foursquare kind of way (yes, I have Foursquare, yes I Geotag some pictures. Doesn't make it less creepy).



News

News - The news page allows for you to see what the activity of those that you're following have done (liked, commented) and you can also tap the 'You' tab at the top of the page to see all that you have liked and commented on.



Profile

Profile - As you can tell, you can do several things on the profile page. I'm pretty sure each item is self explanatory. There's finding friends(through social media outlets), inviting friends, seeing pictures you've liked, editing your profile and more.


All in all, Instagram is a great photo sharing app for iPhone (iPad if you'd like and don't mind a 2x scaled app). Aside from the "artistic" filters, you can connect and post your pictures on social media outlets. And at the price of FREE, you can't beat it!



Stay tunned for next week's App Day Saturday post!
All phone screen captures are courtesy of Apple/Verizon/Instagram