Instagram - Twitter for your photos

iPhone has been one of the best innovations of all times. Thanks to Steve Jobs and the App Store. It deserves a good credit to the way communication on mobile has been redefined.

The sheer power and magic of apps on iPhone has taken it to the next level. Let’s not forget the ecosystem it has built for our beloved developers to write an app and at the same time, make money off it!

Apple allows 70% of revenues from the store to instantly go to the seller of the app, and 30% go to Apple.

There are more than 250,000 third-party applications officially available on the App Store. Android marketplace, for that matter is chasing it, fast!

Earlier this week, I came across a yet another photo-sharing app called Instagram. At the first look, it sounded to be a yet another Flickr app clone or something that does nothing different than what the existing apps would allow me to do. Using it for 3 days, made me change notions and talk about it, here.

Instagram app has a several, Lomo-like ‘filters’ to add fizz to the shots the iPhone takes otherwise. On top of that, it has an icing of a social feature that allows you to share the pictures with Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Flickr and Tumblr. Not just that, the pictures get shared within the Instagram network too. Though the network doesn’t have too many friends of mine to see who’s sharing what, but with time, I am sure, the scene will change.

Its like you take pictures, where ever you go and share it across all the major social network with one central app. On top of that, it has the ability to communicate with the FourSquare API. What that means is, when you allow the picture to get a geo-tag, it intelligently updates your FourSquare account with the location as the pictures goes live!

You can lookout for your friends on Twitter, Facebook or even your iPhone contacts to see if they already use Instagram. If you find them, you may add them to the Instagram network and keep a tab on what, when and where are they sharing pictures from. You can add comments, explore the most popular images from across the people who are already using the app that could also let you gain more instagram followers and likes in return. Amazing, isn’t it?

Just a downside, you cannot save a picture if you happen to like it or wish to make it the wallpaper of your iPhone.

The user interface of the app is slick and easy to understand. You may not need to be a geek to know how it works. It is not an app which one would use and forget. You’ll probably set it to be your default hit when it comes to sharing the next “twitpic”. There are more than a dozen “filters” to apply and you can publish as many photos as you like, for free! The app supports 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4 phones.

You may want to check out the Instagram blog, or may want to know more about the founders and the way the idea of this app was conceived.

If you’re an iPhone user, do try this app and share your thoughts on how do you see this app being one of the best photo sharing apps, or as I said, the twitter for your photos! You may download it, right here for free!

Happy sharing!