Starmatic updated with high resolution support, and much more

This update has been a longtime coming, but finally Starmatic supports the much requested high resolution saves, along with other requested account management features.

So what's new in this update of Starmatic?

• HIGH-RESOLUTION: Pictures edited with Starmatic are now saved on your camera roll in High Resolution by default (2448 x 2448). Your filtered pictures will be more awesome than ever and are now suitable for high-quality printing.
• FIND TWITTER AND FACEBOOK FRIENDS: You can now easily find and follow your Facebook and Twitter friends who are already Starmatic users and who registered with Facebook or Twitter.
• MANAGE YOUR ACCOUNT: Change your username or modify your account.
• BLOCK FOLLOWERS: You can now block undesired followers.
• DELETE COMMENTS: You can delete inappropriate or undesired comments under your pictures. Just swipe on the comments you wish to erase.
• CUSTOMISE WHAT YOU SHARE ON FACEBOOK: Starmatic now takes full advantage of tighter Facebook integration with iOS 6 by enabling you to customise the text accompanying the pictures you share on your Facebook timeline (Note: you need to have enabled access to Facebook via your iPhone Settings to use this feature).

There are also many stabilisation and speed improvements and loads of bugs fixed, which include:

• Launching Starmatic is much faster
• The app no longer freezes in the Nearby section 
• Issues in finding people to follow from your contact list should no longer occur
• Your filtered pictures will now keep their geotags 
• You can customise your username when you register with Facebook

App Store Link: Starmatic; Price: FREE

Starmatic, an alternative to Instagram

"Starmatic, Rediscovering Photography"

With Facebook's reported plans for Instagram (advertising), many of its users have been looking for alternative photo sharing social networks to move to, so in this post, I'm going to take a brief look at just one of the alternatives, Starmatic, that recently won the FWA Mobile Award for cutting edge design. Now I should point out at this stage, that there are a number of alternatives, which include EyeEm, tadaa and of course the granddaddy of them all, Flickr, and you should also be aware that I am involved with the Starmatic team on an advisory basis, so some of you may not want to read past this point, but for those who do, then I will be as impartial as I can.

Starmatic has been created by a small French startup company, and is all about "iPhoneography" and "mobile photo" sharing, and who at time of writing have funded all the development themselves, which makes their achievements to-date very impressive, when you consider app development and storage costs.

When looking for a name for their app, one of the team members came across an old Kodak camera. Not knowing what it was, they did a quick online search and discovered it was from the famous Box Brownie range, and was called a Starmatic, and so the name was chosen, the app had a direction, and an old camera was reborn for todays digital world.

So, now you know a little bit about the apps background, lets take a look at the app itself. Once installed, launched and signed in/up to, you are presented with a nice simple and clean looking interface, that has links to your profile page, your feeds, featured photographers, photos captured and shared around you, an option to discover new images and photographers, as well as a button to launch the built-in camera app.

Starmatic features, a quick look:

• Profile: This has a really cool feature, where in addition to your bio, showing the number of photos you've uploaded/shared, the number of followers you have, and the number of people you are following, you can also personalise the header of your profile page with one of your photos. This is also the place where you can link Starmatic to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as use their new import tool, to import all your Instagram photos.
• My Feeds: This, as the name suggests is the place you see all the images shared by the people you are following, and like all social photo sharing networks, is the place you can like, comment on and/or share photos with the wider world. Now there is a feature here that I've not seen elsewhere, and that is the ability to "Repost" an image to your feed, making it is a great way to spread/share somebody else’s work.
• Featured: This section is curated by the Starmatic team, and shows the images they like (kind of like 500px editors choice), so no one can make it to the featured page, just by getting liked!
• Discover: Again, curated by the Starmatic team, this sections offers suggested members to follow, trending hash tags, as well as offering you the options to do your own searches and/or discoveries.
• Nearby: This simply shows any photos taken and share based on your current location.
• Notifications: This shows you who's following you, liked your photos, or more importantly, interacted with you, by leaving a comment.
• The Camera: In keeping with the original Starmatic, the camera part of the app natively shoots square format photos, however you can choose to import photos from the camera roll, which unlike Instagram, lets you natively import, filter and share full-frame photos. When you've taken or imported, and before sharing, you can auto-enhance, add some blur, or apply a filter to your image. The filters, which have all been uniquely created by one of the team (no off the shelf filter packages here), offer a much wider range off effects than those found in Instagram, and in my opinion are much nicer. Once you've enhanced and filtered your photo, it's time to title it, add a comment about it, and then save and share.

So, what's my view on Starmatic? With my bloggers hat on (not my Starmatic one), here are my likes and dislikes.

Likes:

• The user interface, as it offers quick and easy access to all the apps features.
• The curated sections. For me this cuts out all the crap, and no matter how many teens flood the system, their likes will not get them liked.
• The profile page, its unique and personalised.
• The ability to import/share full-frame images.
• The filter effects are some of the best I've seen in a free photo sharing app, but it's a shame they don't save at full-res (see dislikes below)
• Auto creation of Starmatic album in camera roll.
• Instagram import tool.

Dislikes:

• No full-res camera roll saves (so far).
• No ability to block followers.

Overall Starmatic is a solid performer, with a promising and growing community, that meets different demands, and whilst it will be compared with Instagram, EyeEm and tadaa, it's like comparing a mild cheese with a blue cheese, they're both cheeses, but they cater for different tastes.

App Store Link: Starmatic; Price: FREE

Twitter takes on Instagram and fails

On Monday/Tuesday (depending on your timezone) Twitter attempted to take on Instagram by adding photo effect filters and other editing options to its own Twitter app [App Store Link]. Sadly, this looks to be a failed attempt, as whilst the auto enhance and crop options work as expected, the 8 provided filters are of a very poor quality, being provided by the off the shelf effects provider, Aviary.

So what have Aviary brought to this app update? Well the ability to...

• Apply one of eight different filters to instantly add a new look and feel to your photos
• Choose a filter by comparing all your options in a convenient grid view or by swiping through each version
• Make your photos pop with balanced light and colors by tapping the auto-enhance wand
• Crop and scale to frame the action the way you want

So, if you were hoping Twitter could offer an alternative solution/option to Instagram, then think again. If you are looking for an alternative to Instagram, then my recommendation is to check out Starmatic [App Store Link], that offers far better built in filters, and now allows you to easily import your Instagram feeds, although does still lack full or high-res saves.

Paris Mobile Photography Week, Tribegram Photo Competition and Starmatic Giveaway

Organized by Tribegram, The Mobile Photography Week in Paris will be held from October 13th until October 21st. To celebrate this event, an international photo challenge is running from Sept. 24th until Oct. 19th. This photo competition is broken down in to six ategories, Landscapes, Street, Asbtract, Black and White, Selective Color (Sponsored by MacPhun Software ColorStrokes), and Portrait. The winners will be rewarded by our sponsors, and featured on tribegram.com and in the first issue of Tribegram's online magazine.

There are several ways to enter this competition, but one of those ways is via Starmatic. Starmatic is a FREE easy-to-use, yet powerful toy-camera app that offers an alternative photo-sharing experience to other similar community based, photography apps. To coincide with this competition, and for a limited time, the team behind Starmatic are making their premium 10 filter Starmachrome film, available for FREE.

How to enter the competition?

Download Starmatic [App Store Link] or one of the other supported photo sharing apps, then upload and share your photos via your chosen service, using the following # tags:

• For Portrait : Please tag #tribegram_portraitawards
• For Landscape : Please tag #tribegram_landscapeawards
• For Abstract :Please tag #tribegram_abstractawards
• For BW : Please tag #tribegram_bwawards
• For Street Photography : Please tag #tribegram_streetphotoawards
• For Selective colors : Please tag #ColorStrokes_ParisAwards

For rules and more information on the Paris Mobile Photography Week/Tribegram Photo Competition, head over to parismobilephotographyawards.com

Starmatic at LeWeb London 2012

ABOVE: A glimpse of the new Starmatic app.If you follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter, then last week you will have seen me post snippets of a new and yet unreleased photo app with sharing capabilities called "Starmatic", and last week whilst I was in London, I caught up with the team behind this new and potentially exciting app at LeWeb 2012. I should point out at this stage, that the creators of Starmatic are the same team behind Stampzz, so they know a thing or two about photo sharing, and that I was invited to LeWeb as their guest. I should also point out that I have been working on a consultancy basis with the team for the past 6 months, providing ideas and suggestions, some of which have found there way in to the new app.

So explanations and disclaimers out of the way, what is Starmatic? Well, as you will have probably guessed, it's a modern retro take and an old (and some may say iconic) camera from the Kodak Brownie family, that was around in the late 1950's and early 1960's, which sold over 10 million units during this time. This new app aims to bring an old snapshot camera to the modern snapshot camera we all have in our pockets, the iPhone, but with a modern twist, "social photo sharing".

ABOVE: Jean-Philippe EVROT, Arnaud de Lummen, Paul Saint Bris and Grégoire GAS.So who are the people behind Starmatic? As mentioned above, Starmatic is from the same French start-up team that brought us Stampzz, Arnaud de Lummen, Jean-Philippe EVROT, Grégoire GAS, and Paul Saint Bris. for anyone interested, Stampzz has been around since September 2011, and in development for months prior to its release, so whilst still classed as a start-up, in what is a young and fast moving market, they're not complete novices.

Well, that's about as much as I can share with you today about this app, as it's still in private beta, but what I can say is, the UI is beautiful (which should please many) and getting sleeker at every update, and the app could become a serious alternative to Instagram, for those who are looking for one.

To keep up to date with Starmatic's progress, keep an eye on their blog, which can be found at blog.starmatic.com (which I am assisting with), where you will also find the story behind the app, and if you're on Twitter, then you can also follow them @Starmatic.

P.S. Starmatic will be extending its beta testing program, so If you would like the chance of joining in, then follow them on Twitter @Starmatic, then ping an email to info@starmatic.com mentioning the iPhoneography blog and your Twitter ID, and who knows, you might just get one of the limited invites ;-)