Instagram has begun rolling out a brand new app called Bolt. After the app’s name and icon recently leaked, Bolt has become available for download in the New Zealand, Singapore, and South African App Stores.
Bolt is basically a direct competitor to Snapchat, as it’s designed to send photos and videos to friends that disappear after viewing.
Using toys, camera tricks and a keen sense of story, the photographer delights Flickr and Instagram fans with movie stills. But the movies don’t exist.
The Scotsman grew up a discerning cineaste with a taste for the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future and Ghostbusters movie franchises, but his greatest inspiration — in film and toys — was Star Wars.
“I could probably track my interest in toys via Star Wars,” Larner says. “When I was a kid in the early ’80s, I was completely swept up by the original Kenner 3.75-inch range. Then, in the ’90s, the remastered movies came out along with whispers of the prequels so the Star Wars toy range was reintroduced, so that caught my interest again. However, it was when Lego had the bright idea of making Star Wars Lego sets in 1999 that I really got sucked in and I haven’t looked back since!”
Instagram has accidentally leaked that it’s planning to launch a thunder strike against Snapchat with a new “one tap photo messaging” app of its own called Bolt.
A banner announcing the new messaging app was accidentally posted for some users on Android to see last night, but was taken down about 15 minutes after it appeared. The Free link button on the banner directed users to the Google Play Store, but the page was not available.
Merek Davis is not a coder. The developer never even made an app before 2013. Yet on his first iOS at-bat, he hit an App Store grand slam with Mextures, his photo-editing app that quickly became one of the top photo apps of the year.
Mextures is like Photoshop for your iPhone, only easier to use. The app’s editing tools and formulas let you tweak and re-tweak pics, adding light leaks, textures and color gradients that can turn even your crappiest pics into something majestic.
It’s a bona fide hit, with some of the most-followed names on Instagram using Davis’ creation. But it almost never happened.
Now he wears jeans, enjoys lavender-scented bubble baths, drinks Johnnie Walker whisky and sings a song about his tomato allergy.
No longer a member of the Galactic Empire guard, Eric serves as muse to British photographer Darryll Jones, a self-described 39-year-old child who has turned his fondness for toys — especially Star Wars action figures — into a Force on Instagram.
“I have always loved toys,” said Jones, a food and lifestyle photographer who does work for the Tesco supermarket chain when he’s not taking pictures of toys. “I recall quite vividly setting up little dioramas in my room or in the garden and playing out the scenes in my mind, imagining that the little plastic figures could come alive.”
Instagram was the golden standard for not only sharing, but shooting mobile photography in its early days. But since then, more complex tools like VSCO Cam and Camera+ have come onto the scene. Nowadays, getting the perfect photo isn’t often as simple as just tapping a filter.
Today Instagram is releasing a big update in an attempt to tap into the evolved state of iPhoneography it has been missing out on. New editing tools are being added that let you adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and more.
Cole Rise has nearly one million followers on Instagram and the hottest new photography app in the App Store. He also made seven of Instagram’s built-in filters, which explains where the name for the “Rise” filter originates.
His app, Litely, is less than a month old with over 3 million downloads. Considering he was one of the first 100 people on Instagram, he really gets mobile photography and where it’s headed. During our conversation, Rise goes behind the scenes of Litely’s development, shares his influence on Instagram during its early days, and gives some great advice on how to take better pictures.
Bart van Olphen thinks he can conquer your fear of cooking fish if you’ll just give him 15 seconds.
The seafood chef from Amsterdam uses Instagram’s relatively new video feature for Fish Tales, which is probably the world’s fastest cooking show in this golden age of refined eating.
“People really like the simplicity of the recipes,” van Olphen told Cult of Mac. “You really can learn how to cook in only 15 seconds.”
Cooking shows have been simmering since the early days of television, with pioneers like James Beard and Julia Child unraveling the mysteries of the kitchen. With the emergence of the Food Network in 1993, the format boiled over into a ratings bonanza, turning chefs like Emeril Lagasse and Rachel Ray into celebrities. Now YouTube is home to dozens of shows featuring entrepreneurial cooks seeking to cash in on the foodie craze.
There she saw a photo of her father standing proud in his cap and gown on graduation day, an aunt sitting poolside during a swim meet and a happy couple cutting their wedding cake. The imprint those pictures left on LaCour Niesen lies at the heart of her @savefamilyphotos project on Instagram, where she curates a collective history. She invites people from around the world to send her a digital copy of a cherished family photo and brief story that, in many cases, gives the photo its emotional muscle.
“The treasure is not just the photo but the story that comes with it,” LaCour Niesen told Cult of Mac. “I believe stories are the currency of our past, present and future. Without them, we are bankrupt. Our family photos trigger those stories. They are like glue that holds my story — and our stories — together over time.”
Throwback Thursday, Facebook and Instagram have made personal blasts from the past a weekly — if not an hourly — ritual. The web is awash in fuzzy Polaroids, vintage Kodachromes and black-and-white snaps, uploaded by individuals with hard drives full of memories and shared by everyone.
What if we lived in a world where you could pay for your food by sharing it on Instagram? Some would call it hell on earth because of how our Instagram feeds are already overwhelmed with such pictures, but that kind of attitude could be starting to change.
A new pop-up diner in Soho, London called The Picture House is letting its customers pay for their meals in exchange for posting a pic of it on Instagram with the hashtag “BirdsEyeInspirations.”
I have a personal Instagram filter that protects my eyes from all the cute pet pictures. But now and then, a dog or cat slips through. One pretty pooch in particular — an Alaskan husky with arresting, ice-blue eyes — has me looking forward to her daily adventures in rural New Hampshire.
Stare into the eyes of Bella, and you’ll get a glimpse into the heart of her owner, photojournalist Cheryl Senter.
“There is total love in every image that I take of her,” Senter told Cult of Mac.
They were visiting colleges and he wanted it to be a “daddy-daughter” weekend. But the prolific, award-winning photographer gets anxious when he is not creating, so there was a point in the trip when he commandeered her iPhone, downloaded Hipstamatic and started making pictures.
As soon as he returned home, he purchased his own iPhone and it wasn’t long before the news photographer began making pictures for the first time that were truly about him.
His Instagram feed, a body of street photography images that grows larger by the day, has more than 19,000 followers. He loves how Instagram allows him to send pictures directly to people waiting and wanting to see them.
By now you’ve heard all about the catastrophic Heartbleed bug and how it has siphoned passwords, credit card numbers, emails and other data to the vampires who would drain all of us dry. From your love life (OKCupid) to your tax returns, there’s a lot at stake.
Since 66% of web servers are vulnerable to the bug, that means you’re faced with only task more fun than decluttering the garage: changing your passwords.
To help you on your password resetting chores, we’ve compiled the best tools to make the process as quick and painless as possible. Also, they’ll sync your new passwords to your iPhone — all in under 10 minutes. Leaving you time to watch Silicon Valley again. You’re welcome.
Here’s how:
Each week we pull the best Apple-related gadgets from the Cult of Mac and collect them here for your perusing pleasure.
Fotobit is a 4.25 x 4.25-inch frame designed for wall-mounting your Instagrams. It’s modular, so you can slot the frames together to cover the wall with an Insta-mural, and the frames themselves are a handsome matte black or white. But there’s more.
Instagram has added a new “Lux” filter to its iPhone app, letting you “strengthen or soften your photos with a custom slider.” The slider affects the contrast of your image, but it does in in a way that actually looks good.
I love the press-to-shoot feature of Instagram’s video mode: it stops you from making one long boring take to fill up that eight seconds or however long it is that you get. But maybe you want to make a boring one-shot clip, or you’re planning on making the world’s shortest remake of Hitchcock’s Rope. Whatever, this neat trick from Photojojo is for you.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll change your iPhone’s wallpaper on a regular basis to keep things fresh, but finding a good one isn’t always easy. At least that was the case — until Wallgram came along. Wallgram isn’t just another photo bank full of images; it uses Instagram photos uploaded by your friends to create beautiful parallax wallpapers.
One of Instagram’s biggest faults is that it lacks an official iPad app. And it doesn’t look like the Facebook-owned service has any plans for Apple’s tablet in the near future.
Many third-party apps have attempted to offer a viable iPad experience for Instagram, and I’ve tried most of them. I haven’t found one that I actually want to use regularly until I tried Flow, a new iPad app for Instagram that was released today in the App Store.
If you’ve been looking for the best way to use Instagram on the iPad’s larger display, look no further.
Jolicloud, the Norwegian Dropbox alternative that doesn’t have to secretly give your data to the U.S. police state whenever it’s asked, has made available a beta version of its v2.0 web app. And it’s pretty amazing. Up until now, Jolicloud was very similar in intent and execution to Dropbox: a folder that’s everywhere.
Now, though, you not only get online access to your Jolicloud folder, but to all your other internet accounts. Including Dropbox.
UPDATE: Facebook has now confirmed auto-playing ads will rollout this week. See the update at the bottom of this post.
Facebook’s auto-playing video ads, which first appeared on iOS last week, will be seen by all users on all platforms later this week, The Wall Street Journal reports. You’ll see them on your desktop as well as your mobile devices, and they will play automatically as you scroll through your timeline.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, and maybe into the 1990s (I spent much of that decade drunk, so it’s all a little hazy), there was a phrase that could turn even the toughest and most sociable of us into terrified, dread-filled jellies. You would be invited to a friends house for drinks and maybe dinner, to celebrate their successful return from a trip to the furthest corners of the world.
You’d be all set, happy to see them and spend some time chatting over drinks, and then the words would come. “There will be a slideshow.”
In the times of film, this meant a darkened room, a humming projector and lots of very dull commentary. And after dinner, it was almost impossible to stay awake.
Which brings me to the new The Projecteo Gift Set, which is either an awesome modern-day take on the slideshow, or a way to get revenge on your show-off friends from decades past. It could even be both…
At an event in New York City today, Instagram announced Instagram Direct, a new feature that allows users to share private photos and videos with their friends and loved ones. It will be baked into the existing Instagram app for Android and iOS with an update that’s rolling out today.
This time on the CultCast: pro television editor and motion graphics artist Mike Gaines tells us the pros and cons of Apple’s new Mac Pro. Plus, Darth Vader has an iPhone 4; Apple makes your face your password; new patents tell a tale wireless charging for your Mac and iDevices; and we pitch our favorite new apps on an all-new Faves ‘N Raves!
Have a few laughs and get caught up on each week’s best Apple stories. Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below adventure begin.
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Instagram does photos on mobile better than anyone else. They also recently added video to that mix, but it doesn’t look like Instagram is going to stop there: rumor has it they are getting into messaging next as well.