Instagram fun on the iPad

If your new to Instagram, it’s a Social Image service where people share up images they have taken via their mobile devices, mostly iPhones. There are other ‘similar’ services but most of those have Web site access to upload and view images. Instagram is all about being mobile. They do have an API that others can call so you may see more people offering ways of viewing the Instagram photos from friends your following.

We love the ability to snap a picture with our iPhones, add some old fashion photo effect with it within the Instagram app then share out. It gets quite addicting to share and see what others are sharing from images taken from where they are.

The Instagram app is ‘for’ the iPhone but will run on the iPad. That is to say, there isn’t a iPad version yet so you will be using the app in 2X. Which is just fine for keeping the whole experience simple. For iPad owners, both models can upload images from their built-in photo area and the iPad2 can upload images taken with either of it’s cameras.(Ip0522 has no relationship to iGoiPad, just someone we follow)

Other than just being able to see the images on the larger screen, we have all experienced much faster loading of the pages on our iPad. We would have thought speed was based on Internet access speed, but there appears to be some tie to processor speed too.

For a different view of the Instagram users your following, you can add Instagram as a ‘Section’ in the free app, FlipBoard. By using FlipBoard, you see a variety of images on a single page. Tapping one take you to a larger view of the image and a link to jump directly to Instagram’s site. We mentioned before that Instagram does not support seeing images on their Web site, they do offer links directly to a single image though which FlipBoard takes advantage of.

For many images, the Instagram filters are not enough to get the full effect of them through. Some images present better by being able to tune and use advanced image tools like Photogene. The large size screen and speed of the iPad makes adjustments to images much easier. As well, Photogene and like apps offer ways to get rid of those little bits of the image that you may not want to share.

Photogene may be beyond what you need and yet you can’t get the effect with the simple Instagram filters, for those times there are apps like Camera+. Like Instagram, there isn’t a iPad version of Camera+. But, the iPhone version run in 2x is very speedy and adds a ton of tuning possibilities to sharpen the sky, make the buildings pop and show off areas of your photos that may have been lost in the original.

Since Instagram only allows square photos, you usually have to move and size within Instagram while in the edit/upload process. Both of the above options are nice for cropping the image to a square and turning from there so you know exactly what you will upload prior to being in the process.

Share
, ,