Instagram Debuts On Android

redletterdave writes "Popular photo-sharing app Instagram, which has been one of the most popular social start-ups despite only being housed on a single platform (iOS), was finally released onto the Android ecosystem on Tuesday. The app, which boasts more than 10 million users and plenty of ways to stylize and share photos, is available as a free download from Google Play."

Comments

Someone is going to create the ultimate social app

[crazyjj]

Soon, someone will create a social network app that limits posters to one short word, and/or one video of a douchebag face-planting into a tree. The public will embrace it with slavish devotion, every old fart on CNN will sign up for it in a desperate bid to show that they're still hip with the kids, and all subsequent public discourse will be reduced to exchanges like:

@ballz: Hey
@iluvvampires: Wsup?
@wolfCNN: Hello.
@hotgirl234: Yeah!
@Avenger938: Ha! [video of drunk guy running into tree on motorcycle]

Who cares

[GameboyRMH]

Hosted, proprietary, social-media-based photo sharing is hardly news for nerds. We have FTP, SCP, HTTPS upload, and we know how to configure it TYVM.

Re:Who cares

[GameboyRMH]

Probably should have said "uncontrollably hosted" instead of just hosted. Nothing wrong if you're hosting it yourself, or at least understand the privacy and control implications of someone else hosting it.

Re:Who cares

[Kenshin]

I have all of that at my disposal and know how to use it, and I used to host my own photos... but honestly, I'd rather not anymore.

Re:Who cares

[sootman]

Mark Zuckerberg didn't do anything that we "nerds" couldn't do, either, but he turns 28 this month and could buy Spain if he wanted to, and you can't.

Instagram got 10M users with one app on one platform. How many people follow any of your sites? It is indeed newsworthy. One thing we nerds need to know is what is going on in the tech world that our friends and family are asking and talking about--not just sticking our heads in the sand yelling "the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached!" like Grandpa Simpson.

Great!

[readandburn]

Now more people can post photos using those terrible filters!

Re:Someone is going to create the ultimate social

[vlm]

twitter? Is that you?

Re:Someone is going to create the ultimate social

[krept]

We're sorry, you've exceeded the character limit for this post.

Re:camera

[Hallow]

1) You don't matter.
2) It doesn't appear to support tablets with camera's for that matter anyway.

Re:Someone is going to create the ultimate social

[jeffmeden]

Youmustbenewhere.

Re:Why should I care?

[MrHanky]

It's a photo app that turns the images from your already crap phone camera into even worse photos in the style of a broken Polaroid camera, like all the other photo filter apps out there, but this one is tied to one specific web service. Basically, it takes shittier photos under worse terms.

Re:Just Installed It - Lets See What The Hype Is A

[gl4ss]

it's just a bunch of sw-filters on your pics and easy way to post them up.

Re:Wha...

[WillgasM]

The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another.

Re:Someone is going to create the ultimate social

[toriver]

Well you can take your character limit and sho

Glad I'm not the only one

[RobbieCrash]

That doesn't understand the appeal to this app. I've already got Vignette to do double the crappy hipster filtres that Instagram does; but Vignette gives me the option to customize and make my own.

Re:Just Installed It - Lets See What The Hype Is A

[BasilBrush]

Slashdot is just a blog with a comment section. How long have you been here?

Now if it only worked on more devices

[El Rey]

I've been looking to install this to see what all the hype is about and because the Facebook app I work on at work can integrate with it. Unfortunately it's not compatible with my device and from what I've been reading in the comments of the Android news sites it's not compatible with a lot of other devices as well (including tablets like Toshiba Thrive, Acer A500/A100, ASUS Transformer Prime and some HTC, Samsung, and Motorola phones as well).

Totally lame. I don't usually see this many device incompatibility complaints for new apps.

Here's the appeal, to answer your questions

[fiannaFailMan]

It makes mundane photos look more interesting. It makes interesting photos more interesting. Some pics lend themselves very well to the Instagram treatment and do have artistic* merit. It makes older people feel nostalgic for the days when photos actually looked like that. It's easy for Joe Average to share photos using it without having to set up their own web server, install Linux on it, get Apache running, install MYSQL, install Wordpress, etc. (I know I know, you can do all that stuff easily without having to use an app like this; well done you tedious fucking know-it-alls).

*Art, for the benefit of the naysayers, evokes an emotion. If a photo looks a certain way that makes you feel excited, nostalgic, happy sad or any other emotion, then it has succeeded in becoming a piece of art. It may not have any monetary value to the Tate Gallery, but among friends and family it can mean a lot.

So why don't you all take your stuck up "I'm too cool for this app" attitudes and your artistic illiteracy back down to Mommy's basement. You're like the guy who said "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." when the iPod came out. Where's he now and where's Apple now? Can you tell me that? Huh? Huh? Well? Can ya?

Re:Here's the appeal, to answer your questions

[Omestes]

It makes mundane photos look more interesting.

No, it makes mundane photos look like they were passed through filters.

It makes interesting photos more interesting.

No, it makes interesting photos look like they were passed through filters (and thus are less interesting).

Some pics lend themselves very well to the Instagram treatment and do have artistic* merit.

Yes, some do. But sadly most of them look like mundane pictures passed though filters.

...and do have artistic* merit... Art, for the benefit of the naysayers, evokes an emotion. If a photo looks a certain way that makes you feel excited, nostalgic, happy sad or any other emotion, then it has succeeded in becoming a piece of art

Is this all art is now? That is, in my opinion, rather depressing. Art, as a rule, also depends on a level of mastery, skill, technique, experience, and control. A crappy out-of-focus snapshot, taken on a crappy phone camera, and run through some quick pre-rolled filters doesn't really fit any of these. Yes, one or two people can probably do something great with it, but a majority of it is utter and complete crap (aesthetically). I don't really have the time to suss out the 1 beautiful work out of the 100 million boring LOMO HDR cats.

So why don't you all take your stuck up "I'm too cool for this app" attitudes and your artistic illiteracy back down to Mommy's basement.

... Wow. If you had a point, you pretty much rendered it irrelevant. I'm not too cool for squat, I just find it useless. I'm sorry I don't subscribe to your personal idea of "cool". Though, conversely, I rather doubt you subscribe to mine, so why don't you head back to your mother's basement? This is life... I don't agree with you, and that has no bearing on your own enjoyment of something, so why so defensive?

As for your Apple comparison... Er... You're comparing apples to oranges.

Why this matters

[Laserfuzz]

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
H. L. Mencken

Re:Why should I care?

[Naveen Gupta]

The community. No, I'm not referring to the *see-my-boobies-and-follow-me* or *awww-my-cat-is-sooooo-chweet* types, but hey, even ./ has fucktards, doesn't it? Honestly, the Instagram community (users), most of whom are normal people, taking normal pics, of normal places, events and things, have created an incredible collection of millions of pictures searchable via hashtags. Heck I, and many users don't even use Instagram filters or its camera to take pics and rather use some other app like SnapSeed/Camera+ etc. and use Instagram just as a sharing platform. So it's funny how all the fandroids are just trashing it just as a "filter-app"!

Re:I'm glad the only thing the Slashdot community.

[Swampash]

To misquote a movie I haven't even seen, "If you could have invented Instagram, you would have invented Instagram."

I use Instagram every day. It's fucking awesome.

And the developers didn't consider Android important enough to do an Android port until the iPhone app was just right.