Instagram lets you take photos with your iOS device, apply a few special effects and share them with family friends on its own social network - or via other social networks.

What can you do with Instagram?

You take your pictures, add a customized filter, and post it to Instagram’s community or through Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare or Tumblr. Through the Instagram app, you can give “likes” and give or receive comments on your pictures.

Instagram has a Facebook-style feed, in which you can view all the photos uploaded by yourself and the people who you follow on Instagram.

The latest version of Instagram for Android allows you to tag people in the photos you upload, in much the same way as you would with Facebook. This will then show up in their Instagram feed. Instagram supports geo-tagging so you can add your location and see where others took their uploaded pictures.

The best thing about Instagram are the filters included in the program. There are 20 to choose from (Lomo-fi, Earlybird, Lily, Apollo, Nashville, 1977...) with different color, brightness and lighthing effects. If chosen wisely, you can obtain really awesome results.

Is Instagram complicated?

The Instagram app is very easy to navigate. There are icons at the bottom of the interface which represent the different features of Instagram: the photo feed, photo/user search, photo capture, news feed (recent activity on the network from you and those you follow), and profile settings. When viewing pictures on your profile you can choose to display as a list or as a series of tiles for easy navigation.

The presentation of the photos themselves in the photo feed is very clear, and likes and comments are shown underneath each picture. You can like or comment on a photo with a single click of an icon. However, it's a shame you can't open images full screen (i.e. you can only ever see them within the feed).

Applying filters and retouching your photos in Instagram is very simple. You can snap an image through the app or choose one from your phone then view live previews of what each effect will look like. Cropping and editing effects are basic but easy to apply and preview. Unforunatley there's no 'Undo' feature though so if you make a mistake you have to start right back from before you started editing.

How does it perform?

So, is there a catch? The answer is unfortunately yes. Instagram saves photos at a maximum resolution of 600 x 600 pixels, which makes no sense since your iPhone or iPad's camera is capable of much better quality.

The verdict

The Instagram app makes it easy to apply fun effects to your photos and share them with your friends. Although it requires you to sign-up to share images, the possibilities of pictures are vast.