Instagram for Android

My little Android buddy is excited. 

Pink hibiscus

So Android finally has its version of Instagram. The ever popular iPhone app made its way on Google Play early this morning. I find it to be impressive for a first release. I ran into a few force closes here and there but nothing too serious that would have an effect on user experience.

If you haven't heard about Instagram, it's a wildly popular app that originated on Apple's App Store. This app enables the user to apply various filters to photos while connecting users through various social networks. The networks included are Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Foursquare.

Although Instagram is a well made first release, I find it to be nothing more than an iPhone port. Instagram's user interface does not match the slickness found in Android's UI. It just feels out of place. Perhaps the developers should've made it with an Ice Cream Sandwich theme in mind.

Sunset in Hawaii

One of the bugs I discovered was quite annoying. Whenever you take a photo, the photo automatically shows up under your gallery. For example, when trying to take the "right" angle, if you don't get it on the first try, subsequent photos will be saved. I found myself deleting 19 useless photos from my album.

Another thing I found quite annoying was the fact that Instagram crops your photos. If you choose a photo from your gallery, you need to crop it. Thus degrading image quality. If your photos are anything but squares, you will need to crop the photo.

Aside from these minor problems, Instagram provides a great user experience. The social integration alone makes this app stand above other camera apps. Though, if you want more control over ISO, zoom, saturation, tint, etc., I wouldn't toss out your Vignette or Camera ZoomFX apps just yet.