Hands On With Twitpic, the Latest iOS App to Offer Photo Editing and Filters

The Twitpic app is a new option for snap-happy iPhone owners. Image: Christina Bonnington/Wired

Mobile device users already have plenty of photo editing and filter apps to choose from: Instagram, Hipstamatic, Camera+, and Snapseed are just a few. But apparently the world needs one more — or at least that's what Twitter photo upload service Twitpic is hoping, as it finally released its own iOS app on Monday.

Twitpic has made it easy for Twitter users to post photos to the social platform since it was founded in 2008, but the service never really expanded beyond its supporting cast member role. So, when Twitter adopted a built-in photo uploading service for tweets, third-party photo providers like Twitpic likely (and rightly) decided to move on to greener pastures.

And so we have the Twitpic app. Is it worth your time?

Twitpic mixes photo editing, filters, and a social component in the form of an in-app timeline. If you're one of those staunch anti-Facebook types, it could be a viable alternative to Instagram, which is now a Facebook property.

There's just one hitch: All your Twitter follows will also need to start using Twitpic if the whole social aspect of the app is to have any meaning.

When you first open up Twitpic, you sign in to your Twitter account, and then you're taken to your Twitpic timeline, which collects you and your Twitter followers' recent uploads.

Once you've snapped a photo (or grabbed one from your camera roll through the shutter button centered at the bottom of the app), you can immediately tweet it as is, or click "Add effects" to be taken to the photo editor. There you can add filter effects, enhance photos with one of four scenes (Auto, Night, Backlit or Balance), crop the image, and adjust its orientation or brightness.

Twitpic offers more robust editing features than Instagram does, but not as many as you'll find in heavy-duty photo editors like iPhoto or even Camera+.

I found the cropping tool to be a little difficult to use — it doesn't support multitouch, which feels a bit unnatural on a device that supports it. As I dragged my fingers to adjust the crop, I sometimes accidentally moved the entire image rather than the cropped area. You adjust photo brightness through an analog-style dial: Flick right to increase brightness, left to reduce it.

If you want to get artsy, there are 10 different filters, many of which will look familiar to Insta addicts. Vivid is a bit Lomo-like; Concorde, an Ansel Adams-worthy black and white; Strato, Nashville's counterpart. Unlike Instagram, Twitpic offers a soft focus filter, much to the joy of bumpy-skinned, duck-lipped, self-portrait-obsessed teenagers everywhere.

To aid with Twitter-size caption posting, the app counts down from 140 characters so you know when you're approaching the limit.

When you click on a photo in your timeline, you can see how many people have viewed it (as with the Twitpic uploading service). You can comment on other people's photos, too, but the experience isn't nearly as smooth as on Instagram: You have to click the photo, click the comment bubble icon in the corner, and then your comment posts as a tweet.

If you regularly use Twitpic to upload images to Twitter, it's certainly worth giving the Twitpic app a download. If you're a die-hard Instagram user, though, the lackluster social features won't give you any reason to switch.

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Original Page: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/twitpic-ios-app/

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Regards,

Derik Chan