Instant, the popular Polaroid app for the Mac, has finally come to iPad

If you've used Instant: The Polaroid Maker on the Mac, and/or you're just a Polaroid fan with an iPad, then I think you'll love this new iPad app from ThinkTime Creations.

Instant brings back the magic of the iconic Polaroid instant camera to your iPad. At the touch of a finger, users can shoot a new picture using the camera on the iPad or select an existing one from their photo album, apply an authentic Polaroid-like filter, add Polaroid class border and write text on it, thus, compose a classic Polaroid instant photo.

Instant app mimics the workflow of a real classic Polaroid instant camera, with realistic visual and sound effects. Upon selecting or shooting a photo, an "undeveloped" dark Polaroid film slides out from the bottom of the camera on screen. Slowly the film is developed and the final picture unveils.

The app comes with 30 unique vintage style photo filters, with 10 of them closely mimicking the effects of various classic Polaroid films. Each filter is adjustable in strength, vignette and emulsion artefacts, adding even more realistic Polaroid look. Users may also add text to their Polaroid photo, selecting from 10 handwriting style fonts. Text can be freely resized, rotated and moved around by finger gestures.

The Instant app for iPad takes full advantage of the large and gorgeous high-resolution iPad screen. Multiple Polaroids photos can be placed on screen at the same time, each can be rotated and moved around freely.

The Polaroid photos can be saved to your photo library and easily shared via Email, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr and/or Instagram.

App Store Link: Instant: Polaroid Instant Photos for iPad; Price: £1.49/$1.99/€1.59

Comments

[Shawn]

For an iPad ONLY app, it seems silly to offer an Instagram export option.

[Nat]

I just bought it but it majorly distorts my images (squashes them). The cropping doesn't at all like the video to me, it just distorts the images into the frame very roughly.

The effects look nice, but not a lot of point when it just mangles everything.

[Editor]

Hi Nat, that's odd, as all my test images looked fine, even those shot on my DSLR.

[RP]

Hi Nat, this is RP, one of the developers of Instant for iPad. We want to apologize for the issue you are experiencing. The issue only happens with photos taken by other iOS6 devices. (The app was first submitted long before iOS6 was released).

The good news is we have fixed the bug and submitted an update to Apple. Hopefully it will get approved soon.

Thank you for your support!

[Joost]

Just downloaded and tried the Instant app.

Although the app looks nice and the results can be quite pleasant, it's very disappointing.

The UI looks nice but isn't very intuitive and therefore feels clumsy.

Unlike other photo apps, Instant uses only 1/3 of the screen real estate of my iPad 3 when taking or editing photo's. What a waste!

The app doesn't even know whether my iPad is in landscape or portrait orientation. What a shame!

The squashing issue happens also with photo's taken with my iPad while on iOS 5, and even with photo's taken with REAL camera's. What a disaster!

That's € 1,59 for testing the app. I want my money back!

[Editor]

@Joost, this is really odd, as I've tested the app on my iPad 2 running iOS 5.x and and have experienced none of the above problems. I've taken photos with the iPad camera via the apps interface, loaded both square format (already cropped) and regular photos taken with my iPhone 4, and even loaded photos taken on my Canon DSLR and Fuji X10, and all have loaded and saved without any issues. As for the apps interface, it seems fine to me, and is very much like the Mac OS X version. I for one am happy with the app, and felt it was worth every penny of my £1.49 :-)

[Derek]

Mimics the workflow of a classic Polaroid instant camera?

Isn't the just push the shutter button and wait for the photo to develop? Why would we want to wait for the photo to "develop" on an iPad?

[Editor]

@Derek, this is no different than iPhone apps like ShakeItPhoto that make you wait while they develop the image.

[Nat]

Thanks for replying RP, however the image squashing is happening with photos taken on iOS 5.

@Derek, you can speed up and slow down the "develop" time for what it's worth.