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Tech

'Boomerang,' a New Instagram App, Stitches Photos into One-Second Videos

And you thought Vines were short.
Rachel Pick
New York, US
Image: Instagram

Efficiency in communication has been a hallmark of the internet since someone typed the first "LOL." That practice has trickled down from text to video, from Instagram's 15-second video cap to Vine's 6-second loops. Now Instagram is launching Boomerang, a free app that stitches together photos to make a one-second looping film.

experimenting with Boomerang pic.twitter.com/ukdjBg6lbe
— rachel pick (@rachel_pick) October 22, 2015

The app is extremely simple: one button takes a burst of ten photos from either the front or rear-facing camera, which are then combined as single frames of a micro-video. The videos are automatically saved to your phone as four-second-long clips, which are just the same second looped four times, and there are options to share on Facebook and Instagram. That's it. The final product is more of an animated image, like a GIF. The app is also reminiscent of Cinemagram, another app that was popular a few years ago.

With Boomerang, Instagram adds to their stable of standalone apps, which include Layout and Hyperlapse. And like the others, Boomerang seems designed to make better and more varied content for the moneymaker: Instagram itself.

Boomerang is available for both iOS and Android.