For a long time now, people have been talking about the lack of support for certain corporate and social apps on the Windows Phone ecosystem. In the case of Instagram WIndows Phone apps have long been available to view other people’s Instagram uploads, but nothing was available to enable uploads from Windows Phone devices until the release of Instagraph by Venetasoft. The main issues people had with this new offering was that it acted as more of an expansion of Windows Phone sharing functionality as it only supported tweaking and uploading of images, but no viewing and commenting functionality. This meant that the Windows Phone user community had to install two apps; one for uploads and one for viewing and commenting on already uploaded images. Although it has not yet hit the Windows Phone Store yet, Venetasoft have promised a merge of their Instagram upload service with the very well spoken of Metrogram Instagram viewing and commenting app.
Shortly after the merger announcement word hit the web that a new contender was to hit the Windows Phone Store in the from of Itsdagram and was in private beta testing. The good news for those wanting choice is that the contender has hit the Windows Phone Store today, all be it in paid for beta form, beating the originator to the punch.
One major differentiator in the Instagraph/Metrogram merger and Itsdagram is that whilst Instagram circumvented the lack of Windows Phone API support by creating a Azure based proxy upload via a bank of Android devices using there official API support, the developers of Itsdagram hacked the official API to enable direct uploads. Although the direct upload option provides a quicker upload speed, the slower proxy method offered by Instagraph should be more safeguarded against Instagram updating the official API to counter the hack.
In our experience with the app. Uploading images is as easy as tapping the camera button in the bottom soft bar, selecting an image to upload, adding a caption if required and tapping the tick. Unlike Instagraph there are no limitations on the maximum number of uploads per day. The one negative for us was that commenting on images only seems to be possible, at present, from the home screen, meaning that we were unable to tap on an image in a persons’ Photos view and open it for comment or respond to a comment on our own.
Verdict
If you are one of the many Windows Phone users desperate to be able to upload, view and comment images on Instagram from a single app, then the day has come in the form of Itsdagram beta with a price tag of £1.29 lighter, bringing it in 20p cheaper than the current upload only Instagraph offering. We are unsure at present if the Instagraph/Metrogram merger will increase the price of the combined app as Metrogram is currently free, but the viewing and commenting interface is more capable and fluid on Metrogram and the upload capability on Instagraph permits image manipulation pre upload. If you are prepared to wait we would suggest checking out the Instagraph/Metrogram hybrid app when it appears and see how it compares with any improvements made to Itsdagram at that time.
