Bolt is a new app designed by Instagram aiming to take the crown of temporary photo sharing King from Snapchat. After attempts from Facebook and other competitors, Instagram is starting a real offensive with Bolt in an attempt to take some of Snapchat’s customers away.
The app has begun a soft launch in New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa to help iron out a few of the cracks before a worldwide launch very soon.
A spokesperson for Instagram told The Verge, “We're going to other regions soon, but are starting with handful of countries to make sure we can scale the experience.”
When you first download Bolt you’ll have to sign up, which we are told is pretty simple, and it’ll ask for your mobile phone number. It’ll also want you to take a selfie for your profile photo and then you’ll be thrown directly into the camera to start taking shots.
It offers a feature where you can write on your photos before sending them but you can’t actually draw on them this time around. It also works by you pressing on your friends face, not a camera shutter button. The photo disappears right away meaning you’ll probably send your first image without you even knowing.
Facebook released Slingshot a couple of months ago but it hasn’t exactly taken off. The premise is similar to Snapchat but you have to unlock each individual message you receive by replying to the person who sent it. It’s all just a bit more complicated than Snapchat’s simple premise.
It’s not certain when the US or UK will be getting access to Bolt but it’s probably not too far away. What is certain is we are all getting a little bored of these Snapchat competitors. In our opinion the ship has kind of sailed here, if you’re into sending images to your friends, ones that delete themselves, you’ll be on Snapchat and unlikely to stop.
Just give it up guys.
by jamesp via Featured Articles
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