When Instagram is not enough

Ok. So now that Instagram is released for Android, everybody is using it. Every time you look at your Facebook wall all your friends and your friends’ friends and your friends’ friends’ friends have posted their meals sepia filtered, uploaded urban landscapes as if we lived back in the 60s and your own parents have fired a barrage of pics at your childhood toys, their last trip souvenirs and every cloud which allegedly has a fun silhouette. It’s like if when everything’s Instagramized, real life had too saturated colors. When you’ve looked up the most #insane, #unbelievable and #strange tags (if #wakeuppics and #strangetrees say something to you, your case is beyond hope, though). However, it isn’t enough. You want something more, something you can brag to discover before anybody else. By the way you’ll find a bunch of new ways to show off your creativity.

It’s told that a third of the Web are cat pics, another third is adult content and the last third is left for everything else, including important stuff. Catagram is focused on the first third. It works on Instagram where you will meet a community of users who upload pics of their lovely felis domesticus. If you’re a cat-lover, a feline friend or were a Smilodon in your past life, here’s your app. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait for Dogagram, Iguanagram, Marmotagram or any other Petagram to come.

Hope Poster plays with a very specific filter to recreate the very well known Obama’s poster in any way you want. ¿Wanna have a portrait of  Fluffy your yorkshire dog as if it was running for president of the Canine States of America? Do it. Take a self pic of yours in white, red and blue to cheer a close friend? C’mon, do it, too. Give a familiar portrait a 2008 feeling? Easy. Well, maybe we can’t say that possibilities are endless, but if it comes from an easy and free app, there’s nothing against giving it a go and explore new and banal uses for Hope Poster.

Because life isn’t still. Halfway Instagram and Youtube, here’s GifBoom. Easy and fast interface, a nice range of options and absolutely awesome results. Of course, animated gifs aren’t anything not discovered before, but it’s really appreciated the chance of having an app to create them at the moment we take the pics and edit them on the go. For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, gifs also bring a new whole world of artistic and funny options both for your artistic restlessness and your more comical face. However, if you aren’t befriended with the gif muses, you can always have a look at the previously uploaded gifs by other uses to catch a few ideas.

We’ll end this entry with Photo 360º. It doesn’t bring a new idea either, but an awesome and as powerful as easy and fast app instead. If you feel creative, don’t stick to a “simple 360º pic” and let your imagination fly away. 360 degrees pics are better to share than to be printed, so this app focuses on sharing your creations through an URL. Nonetheless, don’t forget that practice makes expertise, so don’t miss the chance to train your photographer eye, learn the basics of photography and how to give them a nice 360º twist. We are in an era where everything deserves to be immortalized by our Android devices, so is there a better way than 360ing them all?

Now, displaying an odd association of ideas, we can let Anna talk about hedgehogs or visit www.AndroidZoom.com, read a review or two and see where the “related apps” column leads you.

Peter , EiC and compulsive cat photographer.