Instagram is merging the way people see pictures in place of videos. Instagram announced earlier today that it is releasing a new app for the Android and iOS platforms that helps create GIF-like images by stitching together a series of pictures taken from the phones camera.
The app has been named Boomerang – a right choice of word – that describes exactly what the app is intended to do.
Unlike Apple’s Live Photos that captures audio while also looping pictures, Boomerang creates a typical GIF image without the audio. The app does the job by taking up to 10 pictures when the users click on the capture button.
The pictures are then magically stitched together to create an image that seems like a one-second video. The app even allows users to play the video in reverse, along with changing the orientation from portrait to landscape. The created videos can be shared on Instagram, and other social networks almost instantly.
The app is available starting today on both Android and iOS app stores.
A plus point of the app is that users do not have to create an account or be logged in with their Instagram account.
The app has an interesting story behind its development. It was created by a group of developers who are part of Instagram’s Android team. The app was liked and shared by Instagram employees and soon turned into a rage within the company.
It broke through the doors of the top executives, who decided to launch the app as a full-fledged product. The company hopes that the app creates a similar ripple outside the walls of Instagram and turns into the next must-have application on a mobile device.
Instagram has chosen its applications rather carefully, be it Hyperlapse and Layout, which were its two stand-alone applications till the launch of its third stand-alone app Boomerang.
