Ah, so the “leaked” banner ads in Instagram about a new photo-sharing app are apparently, true indeed. The Facebook-owned Instagram has just announced they are introducing their first stand-alone app called Bolt, but for now, it will only be available in three markets: New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa. It will reportedly make messaging photos to your friends easier by eliminating a few steps in the process.
While Bolt seems to have simplified the process, it also has complicated it as well. Instead of using your Instagram or Facebook account, you sign up through your mobile phone number. The app then looks through your address book and you will be able to put the people you message a lot on a favorites list. The Bolt camera doesn’t have the usual shutter button, but instead, your friends’ faces will serve as the sort of shutter. Their faces are on a scrollable row on your screen and if you want to send one of them a message, simply tap on their face to take a picture while a long press will allow you to take a video.
And just like a lot of photo and video sharing apps now, everything will self-destruct in a pre-set time. Your friend that you sent a Bolt to will receive a notification then have the option to swipe it away after viewing (and it will be gone “forever”, they claim), reply with a Bolt of their own or reply through text that will be put on a blurred version of the photo they got. If you think you made a mistake though, there is a “shake to unsend” option that will retrieve your message and will also give you the option to save the photo on your camera roll.
The app has several limitations though. You cannot upload photos from your phone, you can only send to one recipient at a time and there’s no report function, so your friends can send you NSFW photos even if you prefer not receiving those. And in a market that is slowly getting crowded with similar one-click sharing apps like Taptalk and Mirage and other ephemeral ones like Snapchat and Facebook’s own Slingshot, Bolt needs to have something really special to be able to make an impact in the market, not to mention the fact that there are several apps out there named Bolt. Their advantage for now? The marketing machinery behind Instagram and Facebook might just make you pay attention to the newest kid in the photo-sharing world.
VIA: Tech Crunch