advertisement
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Reddit

SA gets Bolt, Instagram’s Snapchat competitor, first

The old adage says that a picture is worth a thousand words and perhaps that’s the reason that silicon valley has gone bananas over the likes of Snapchat’s self-destructing images. Meet Bolt, it’s the first new app to come from Instagram and is designed to give the same sort of instant, image and video-based, ephemeral messaging that is offered by Snapchat in the hopes of cashing in on the same users that favour Snaps over text.

South Africa, Singapore  and New Zealand were chosen as the initial test countries because, according to TechCrunch, Instagram has said that “they all have high Instagram usage, deeply interconnected communities, high penetration of Android Ice Cream Sandwich, and speak English”.

As Instagram is owned by Facebook, Bolt is one of a myriad of messaging apps offered by the big, blur social networking giant which now include: Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram (with Instagram Direct) and, of course, Facebook’s own, recently launched image-based messaging app, Slingshot. Where Instagram is hoping to capture the market is in the fact that, according to its press release, Bolt has one major advantage over the competition, “Simply put, it’s the fastest way to share an image or a video.”

Instagram Bolt

Signing into Bolt is done using your phone number, like WhatsApp or Slingshot, and requires neither a Facebook nor an Instagram account to use. Bolt will then scan your contact book to find out who else is using the app and allows you to add them to a list of favourites, Where Bolt differs from the competition is that the app is designed to share images with only those who are closest to you and, as such, limits you to a list of 20 ‘favourite’ contacts that you can send messages to. The favourites list can be edited and rearranged at any time in the settings menu.

The circular profile pictures of your favourites hover at the bottom of the app, reminiscent of Facebook Messenger, and tapping on any of them will send a picture to that contact immediately – tapping and holding will send a video of up to five seconds. Images can only be sent to one contact at a time and cannot be shared from the Gallery or Camera Roll. The icons at the top of the display let you access the settings, overlay white text on the image before taking it, turn on the flash or switch to the front-facing camera of your smartphone. Shaking your phone gives you the option to delete a photo you’ve just sent although you have to be quick on the draw because the option disappears after a few seconds and doesn’t work if you take to long to press the delete option.

Unlike Snapchat, Bolt won’t notify you if someone takes a screenshot of your image but there is no native option to save the images within the app itself. According to Instagram, messages that have been deleted from a friend’s phone once they are done with them, will be deleted from the company’s servers within 30 days.

While Bolt does work as promised, and it is a great way to send photos quickly, it’s not that much quicker than any other messaging service and has plenty of competition in the space. That said, it is available to South African users and is free for both iOS 7 and Android 4.0 and above, so why not give it a bash and let us know what you think.

[Image – Instagram Bolt]

advertisement

About Author

advertisement

Related News

advertisement