Select a region
Image-sharing giant Instagram has made a play for the short video market by launching a new independent app Boomerang.
Despite Instagram already supporting the option to capture and share videos of up to 15 seconds, the Facebook-owned service has now stepped up and created a standalone app for even shorter clips – just a single second in this case.
The app plays videos backwards and forwards – hence the name Boomerang, and Instagram said in a blog post announcing the launch the aim was to up creativity when it came to photos and to selfies.
“Capture a friend jumping off a diving board, defying physics as she flies back and forth through the air,” said the post.
“Transform an ordinary selfie with your friends into a funny video. Get that exact moment your friend blows out his birthday candles, then watch them come back to life again and again.”
The app actually takes a burst of photos and them stitches them together in to the short clip, and works in both portrait and landscape orientation. Naturally, your clips can be shared to Instagram and Facebook too.
The app has already popped up on both iOS and Android app stores, and is free to download.
