Instagram Launches Layout Collage App

Popular image sharing app Instagram, has just launched a new app called Layout. The new app is designed to help users create image collages before sharing them on their social networks. Layout is initially only available for iOS on iPhone. It won’t be long before Android receive their version though, according to the Facebook owned company, the Android version will launch “in the coming months.”

The new Layout app allows people to choose approximately nine photos from their device’s image gallery or take a fresh series of images to use, and they can then be arranged in a variety of different layouts. You can manually resize them or mixed them around until you are happy with the look.

You can then share images directly to Instagram and Facebook or save them to the iPhone’s camera roll. You can even share it to other apps including Dropbox, Flipboard, Google+ and Snapchat. Due to recent hiccups between Facebook and Twitter, users cannot upload directly to their favourite microblogging service.

If you want to Share Layout collages to Twitter, then you need to save them to the camera roll then post to Twitter separately.

There is a growing popularity from third-party apps to provide this kind of service for users and there are numerous other apps available to choose from; Pic Collage, Photo Grid, Framatic and LiPix.

It looks as though Instagram has been following the trend for collage images and has taken the initiative to jump on board and create the Layout app for people. The company explained the decision to create Layout, in a blog post that announced the new app: “From imagining mirrored landscapes to sharing multiple moments from an entire adventure, we’ve seen these kinds of visual storytelling happening on Instagram and we’re inspired by it.”

Instagram may collect data regarding the use of Layout to ascertain if it remains a standalone app or whether they will integrate the its features into Instagram and Facebook apps respectively.

It isn’t the first time that there has a been a standalone product, which has emerged from Instagram; Hyperlapse, the timelapse-video app, was released back in August of last year.

[Image via tjournal]

SOURCE: The Guardian