Oggl updates

The past couple of days have been kind to Oggl users, and though perhaps the people who work for Instagram aren’t quite so happy.

Yesterday, Hipstamatic made Oggl user profiles available to be viewed on the web by typing oggl.me/ plus the account username (ie. oggl.me/TRJH1991). Like the app, photos are divided into ‘captured’ and ‘curated’ sections – the difference being whether you took and edited the photo yourself (captured) or it is someone else’s work that you wanted to bookmark (curated).

The big news of the past couple of days however came in the Oggl 1.3 app update. Drum roll please…

You can now import photos from your camera roll into Oggl!

Doesn’t that just go against everything Hipstamatic has done in the past? Is it selling out morally to compete with Instagram?!

This latest feature will divide opinion – Oggl and Hipstamatic Classic are becoming two very different apps. Hipstamatic will appeal to purists, those who think the skill lies in being able to get a good shot without editing effects afterwards. Oggl is more mainstream, and therefore has more potential to sell.

Oggl has been steadily moving towards this point I think – there’s obviously been a plan in place to move things along and incorporate new features slowly, so as to still show that some of the Hipstamatic essence is retained.

Another new feature is that when you’re editing photos on Oggl, you can pinch and crop – again reminding us of Instagram’s basic options.

John S/Dixie/no flash

Oggl does code photos depending on their source – when you tap on a snap your profile or on the photo-feed, the right hand bubble will show a different symbol depending on the source. An import from Hipstamatic will be yellow, from your camera roll it’ll be will be red and white, and photos taken in Oggl will be grey. Imports from camera rolls or external apps will also be marked as ‘post-processed’.

What are your thoughts on the update? Like or loathe the direction that Oggl seems to be going? Let me know in the comments below!