Instagram 2.0 Launched to App Store, Adds More Filters and High-Resulution Photos

Instagram, a  free photo sharing application designed for use on Apple iOS device just release its 2.0 version, which includes a bunch of new features along with a complete upgrade to Instagram’s camera with a brand new technology layer. Instagram definitely is the best photo sharing app on iOS, which even got its most famous fan, Justin Bieber several months ago. The teenage pop singer previously posted his very first photo on an Instagram account, and according to Photorank.me, he garnered more than 1,700 followers in his first hour of using the service.

As the best photo app on iOS, Instagram is truly amazing, as an Android user even I want to have one in my cell phone just don’t know exactly when they are going to bring the fantastic app to the Android market. The San Francisco- based company currently only has four employees, and it has attracted close to five million users to its iPhone-only service within eight months. The most importantly, Instagram is steadily growing, adding about a million users a month.

This version gets four of them: Rise, Amaro, Hudson and Valencia. These new filters are the result of a collaboration with popular Instagram user @colerise, which serves as an interesting example of utilizing a passionate user community to influence the core functionality of a popular mobile app.

The most noticeable change in version 2.0 is the Instagram camera. Now, every photo-related action — applying a filter, adding the tilt-shift effect, rotating the photo — has been compressed into a single view, which you can see as you shoot. By clicking on the new top bar, Instagram users can toggle photo borders on and off, adjust flash settings, rotate the camera and apply tilt-shift with pinch-to-zoom gestures. On the bottom bar, users can grab a photo from the camera roll or tap the eye icon to preview filters in real time through the lens, before snapping the shot.

Instagram-obsessed photo-takers will also notice the addition of four new filters: Amaro, Rise, Hudson and Valencia. The filters were created by popular Instagram iPhoneographer Cole Rise and represent his old-film-with-a-fresh-twist aesthetic. By the way, in version 2.0, the high-resolution photos are truly amazing, the startup now saves 1936×1936 resolution captures to the photo roll on the iPhone 4 (and 1536×1536 on the iPhone 3GS). Systrom sees the upgrade as adding permanency to shots, and making them appropriate for print publication.

The software accounts are free of charge, allows members to snap pictures with their phones and add visual effects that give images the classic look of photographs captured on traditional film and developed with chemicals. Then users can post their shots to their Instagram accounts or to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. They can also comment on other people's pictures and browse collections of prolific photographers

The app emphasizes simplicity. Users can choose from a variety of special effects to layer over photos, sharpening the contrast or applying a vintage, weathered look. Then they upload the photo to their Instagram feed, forming a river of pictures, not unlike a photo-only version of Twitter.
As on Twitter, users can follow others to see what they are posting. They can also tap to “like” pictures and comment on them, making Instagram a slimmed-down social network. People snap and post pictures of anything, like pretty wallpaper at a restaurant or artsy close-ups of their cat climbing on the bed in the morning, offering a behind-the-scenes look at their lives.

Instagram has managed to add seamless social integration to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, FourSquare, andTumblr. And it actually works, rather than a lot of apps which apparently have integration but crash all the time or don’t pull through full contacts or information. You can even use Instagram to check in on Foursquare with a picture. As well as being able to share your Instagram photo across a variety of social networks you can also share it on Instagram itself. This, combined with the ability to “like”, comment, follow, share and interact with people through Instagram makes it a social network in its own right – you can build an entire network around your Instagram photos.

Yes, there are other photo sharing apps on the market but what makes Instagram so popular is its simplicity. As Hilel Fuld pointed out in his blog about Instagram last year, not only can you easily share your Instagram photos on Facebook or Twitter in one simple step, but Instagram also figured out that while people like to create things,  even more than that they like to show them off – this is at the heart of Instagram’s success. Instagram lets you enhance your photo with up to 11 different possible effects, giving the user the option to make even the most simple picture look quirky, retro or gothic depending on your image, mood or style.

Part of Instagram’s early success can be attributed to a still nascent but very popular API that’s  being accessed by more than 2,500 applications. Webstagram and Flipboard are among the most popular. There are a growing number of third party applications coming into the market place though, like Carousel, a desktop Mac app that has all the Instagram features but allows you to make a near perfect replication on your desktop.