Review: Instamap for iPad

Instamap for the iPad is an Instagram client for your iPad. It is a new and interesting way to view all of your photos available in your Instagram feed as well as the subscriptions you make in Instamap.

Instamap first begins with a quick and easy login to access your Instagram account. From there you are presented with a tutorial page to show you the basics of the app and how to navigate it. I appreciated this because sometimes it does take a minute or two to get up and running with a new app but this led me on with a good start. Once you have dismissed the tutorial you can browse the three main sections of Instamap which are subscriptions, my stream, and popular photos. In subscriptions you can subscribe to locations around the world or tags that people have added to photos. Once you have your subscriptions you can view them all on a map similar to the map in iPhoto on the Mac, or just a simple stream of all the pictures. In My Stream you can view all of your photos and all of the photos of the people you follow in the stream or on the map. Then last there is popular photos where you can view the more popular photos on Instagram on the map or in the stream.

Another thing significant to me about Instamap is that you can actually open the photos. Unlike on Instagram you can actually press on a photo to enlarge it, view its description, add a comment, or like it. This is nice because you can actually see some of the details in the photos. One last thing about Instamap is that it has an interesting way of refreshing. I have seen billions of pull down to refresh but this one takes the cake because when pulling down on any of the streams you will see a rainbow stripe that when pulled down far enough a vintage camera will pop out from the back and flash the screen to refresh your feed. This is something small I appreciated nothing much but a new spin on pull down to refresh.

Overall I enjoyed Instamap, it fills a niche that the iPad didn’t have before. Being able to view instagram posts somewhere else other than my iPhone is nice, especially on the iPads screen. I would suggest this app for any one who loves or just uses Instagram and it is well worth the $1.99 price tag. Try it out and let me know what you think of it in the comments!

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