Hasta La Gadget!

Instagram v2.0.1 removes suckage, adds features

Instagram has relented, and another update to the Lomo-tastic photo-sharing app fixes many of the awful tweaks forced upon users in v2.0. While fans of the high-contrast B&W “Gotham” filter will be disappointed, the folks at Instagram have fixed almost everything else with v2.0.1.

First, though, there are some new features. These pertain to location, and geotagging. If you use a photo already in your iPhone’s camera roll, the location stamp of the original photo will be preserved, and Instagram will suggest nearby places based on that location.

Second, if you geotag a photo taken with Instagram, and have the app set to save photos to your camera roll, the resulting saved file will be tagged. This lets you browse all those photos on a map in the Photos app. The locally-saved photo is geotagged whether or not you choose to share location data when you post, which is pretty neat.

Now, onto the fixes. The first thing you’ll notice is that the infinitely scrolling filter list has gone, replaced with a proper static list as in v1.x. That will save a lot of frustration. Tilt-shift still doesn’t have an adjuster to set the sharpness of the blur’s cutoff, but this transition has been softened somewhat.

The Earlybird and Brannan filters have been fixed. According to the Instagram blog, these were “accidentally altered” in v2.0. No word on the emaciation of XPro II, but the team is “working hard on bridging the gap between old and new versions of [some] filters.”

These are welcome changes, and it’s good to see Instagram is listening to our complaints. I found v2.0 so awful that I reverted to the previous one (v1.19.9). From what I see so far, v2.1 is as good to use as the original, only with those great full-resolution saved files. Welcome back, Instagram!

What’s New in V2.0.1 [Instagram Blog]