Instagram launches instant pic app

The first separate product launched by Instagram, an instant image-sharing app called Bolt, becomes available in South Africa today – ahead of most countries in the world.

Today Instagram launched Bolt, a one-to-one visual messaging app for iOS and Android that lets users capture and send photos and videos to friends with a single tap.

“Simply put, it’s the fastest way to share an image or a video,” runs a company announcement.

Bolt is the first new standalone app from the Instagram team. It launches exclusively today in South Africa, New Zealand and Singapore.

“Mobile messaging is how people communicate today, but sharing an image still takes too many steps and too much time. Bolt was built to be fast and simple – it’s for communicating in that moment with people you’re close to, as quickly as possible,” according to the announcement.

Here’s how it works:

* Sign up with your phone number, no email address needed.

* Add friends to your “favorites” list

* With a single tap, shoot and send a photo or video.

* Add text captions if you want

* Reply directly to messages received, with a photo or text

* Once you swipe away a Bolt message, it’s gone

Instagram, a division of Facebook, which also owns WhatsApp, provided the following Bolt Product Overview:

* Standalone, one-to-one photo and video messaging app

* One tap to instantly capture photo or video, choose recipient, and send

* Optional text/captioning

* Sign up with your mobile phone number

* dd up to 20 contacts (“favorites”) to message 1:1

Availability:

* South Africa / New Zealand / Singapore app stores from July 30, 2014

* iOS (iOS 7+) and Android (Ice Cream Sandwich +)

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