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606 'Instagram' stories September 2011 - April 2012
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Instagram is a social media service owned by Facebook for sharing photos and videos. Instagram launched in 2010 exclusively as an iOS app and didn’t come to Android and the web until 2012.

Facebook acquired Instagram in April of 2012 for $1 billion. Facebook also offered to buy Instagram’s closest competitor Snapchat back in 2013 for $3 billion.

In June of 2017 Instagram shared that it reached 250M daily users, surpassing its rival Snapchat by almost 100M. It also has over 700M total users.

Instagram has been criticized for taking popular features from Snapchat such as face filters, stories, and stickers. The company also has plans moving forward to introduce more business focused features.

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‘Snapseed’ iOS app now Retina-optimized in v1.4

Avatar for Élyse Betters Apr 19 2012 - 12:28 pm PT
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The “Snapseed” iOS app updated to version 1.4 today.

Apple’s 2011 iPad App of the Year now supports the iPad Retina Display, iOS 5.1, Instagram, Center Focus magic, and more. For those unaware, Nik Software develops Snapseed. According to the company’s press release (PDF) new features also include:

[…]the ability to open photos directly into Instagram and additional language support for Brazilian Portuguese and Arabic. Several popular filters within Snapseed have also been updated. The Black & White filter has been updated with new conversion  algorithms and color filters for even higher quality results. The Center Focus filter has an added feature to control brightness at the center and at the edges of an image.

Go install the improved $4.99 app available at the App Store now. The current version requires iOS 4.2 or later and has a 5-star rating.


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Official Spotify iPad app leak surfaces, might unveil next week

Avatar for Élyse Betters Apr 16 2012 - 12:20 pm PT
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A leaked image of Spotify’s official iPad app surfaced today.

Swedish technology consultant Statigram posted a purported picture of the app’s beta version on Instagram (link now redirects). The caption simply read: “It’s getting closer!”

The above screen capture depicts an iOS Twitter-like user-interface, with play options located along the bottom and a Search bar on the left side featuring icons for What’s New, Inbox, Playlists, and Friends.

Last Friday, Spotify sent invites for a special announcement in New York City for April 18, and current rumors indicate the app might unveil at the upcoming press event.

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So much for Instagram defections, displaces its buyer Facebook as No. 1 iOS App

Avatar for Élyse Betters Apr 11 2012 - 6:59 am PT
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O.K., here is another Instagram story, but now its about the iOS app landing the No. 1 free app spot in the App Store for the first time—despite much media attention on the subject of it selling out to Facebook.

Hipsters everywhere donning their skinny jeans took to Twitter to post one last heavily filtered image, while threatening to delete their Instagram accounts after news broke earlier this week that social network giant Facebook bought the app for a cool $1 billion.

Many tweets and reports even detailed how to keep Instagram photos from Mark Zuckerberg’s acquisitive hands through export services like Instaport.me that essentially leave users free and clear to erase the Instagram app from their smartphones.

The public’s warning now seems empty, of course, as Instagram itself used Twitter this morning to announce its sudden surge in popularity. It looks as though the intense press scrutiny only encouraged the iOS app to soar up the charts. Meanwhile, its new parent company does not even sit in the top 25 free apps in Apple’s App Store.

[tweet https://twitter.com/#!/instagram/statuses/189845445458132992]


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Instagram v2.1: Apple’s 2011 ‘App of the Year’ has new UI, notifications, filter, and enhancement feature

Avatar for Élyse Betters Feb 11 2012 - 12:50 am PT
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Instagram, Apple’s 2011 “App of the Year,” just released an update to its iOS application that includes a sleek user interface, tappable notifications, a new filter, and an enhancement feature.

The app is a free photo-manipulator that allows users to snap pictures, apply hip vintage filters, and then share their edited images through a built-in social network. Users can also share their creations through other services, such as Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr.

The newest version allots a much-needed facelift and provides a more modern appearance than the previous variant by displaying an overhauled header and menu buttons (as seen in the image to the right).

“We’ve simplified the look of Instagram,” announced the San Francisco-based Company in a blog post.

Perhaps most important: Instagram now asks users if it is O.K. to upload contacts to its servers—not wanting to become the next Path.

More screenshots are available below.


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Instagram releases v2.0 with overhauled camera UI, high-res photos, and real-time filters

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Sep 20 2011 - 10:18 am PT
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Instagram has released a huge update today with Version 2.0 in what they’re calling one of the “largest revamps” to the app’s core camera technology since it launched. Along with a UI overhaul, the app now supports images with a resolution up to 1936×1936 on the iPhone 4 (in your camera roll, not on Instagram), in comparison to the 612×612 prior to the update.

As part of a brand new camera UI, the most impressive feature is the new “live filters”. They’ve taken the old filters and rewritten them to be “200x faster”, allowing you to instantly apply effects in real-time within the camera UI. The image above shows off the new UI, but you can go here to learn exactly how all the new elements work. Oh, and you can also now enable and disable borders on every filter.

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