Tadaa, the best Instagram alternative for iPhoneographers [Review]

A few days ago, we got the news that Facebook acquired Instagram at $1Billion. This was just days after the release of the Android app. Many instagramers reacted to this and most were opting to close their accounts.

I have recently gained exceptional interest in iPhoneography and my first reaction to the release of the Android App was “will droid users really get it?” Apple has upgraded its iPhone camera and managed to bring pro and armature photographers together. Many professional photographers are using their iPhones to take photos more often than their expensive equipment, thanks to the portability of the phone and ability to slot it in spaces and angles that might be difficult or impossible with large cameras. Instagram has brought about a community of 30M+ iPhoneographers who were getting better by the day. I discovered other iOS editing Apps in the App Store and hence knew Android will definitely not match up. I gained an eye for photography and even learnt about angles and perspectives, rule of thirds, etc. thanks to a phone I carry around. Instagram was a community that gave me a sense of belonging and now I perceive it as an open field. I don’t stand a chance of learning more on iPhoneography since it’s now all about taking any photos, sharing them, and soon, Facebook might try to monetize the opportunity! However, I won’t delete my account just yet but my search for Instagram alternatives made me discover a brilliant iOS App built on Instagram’s template with more Twitter-like features for serious photographers.

Tadaa is an app developed by a team in Hamburg, Germany, who have integrated the idea of mobile photo editing and online global community all with an interest in sharing photos. The first thing you’ll notice after downloading it is that it’s really fast. It gives you a sense of exploration and some of the features are hidden and require some learning before you master them. The fact that it’s exclusive to iOS will give you the liberty to ask, “Which other editing App did you use?” Tadaa has actually been around in the App Store since December 20, 2010. I’m confident with the tweaks they’ve done so far in their updates. As you export their Instagram photos, and/or close your account, here’s a review of a great app you can start using as an alternative.

Free in the App Store!

Here are two video reviews of the app.

Credits: YouTube’s @stateoftech

Credits: Youtube’s @pocketpcch [This one is in German]

Review

Once you launch Tadaa, it takes you to the Home screen (Photos) which is your timeline. Photos of accounts you follow as well as your uploads appear here. The ‘Awesome’ tab displays photos in the community. This includes Trending, Featured, photos with specific filters, Challenge etc. At the far end is the notification tab denoted with a ‘t’

  

The ‘People’ tab gives you the option to find friends using Tadaa and are on Twitter and Facebook, accounts you’re following and those following you as well as searching by username.

  

‘Settings’ tab has option of muting push notifications as well as sharing options to Twitter and Facebook. It’s worth noting that once you link your Facebook account and share a photo, it automatically creates an album on Facebook where all your uploads will be sent. Pretty neat!

You may view your profile under the ‘Me’ tab.

That’s said and done, let’s have a look at the features of the camera. This is where you take a photo with the inbuilt camera or upload from the photo album. Sessions are created and given a time stamp and you can resume to previous ones or create a new session.

Note that when taking a photo with the inbuilt camera, you can swipe horizontally to change effects or vertically to change the boarder frames (on both portrait and landscape modes). You can also toggle between 1:1 crop ratio or full screen as well as back and front cameras.

  

Once you capture/open you arrive at the editing stage. You can swipe with both fingers to view other previously captured photos. Editing is really fun and has attention to detail. Here you crop your image, adjust brightness, HD clarity (with an intensity bar), Tilt-Shift, frames and effects. You can preview your image before saving. A copy of the image is saved in the camera roll. I found this to be really awesome for those images you just want to edit and keep you yourself.

  

After saving, Tadaa! You may choose to share on Facebook or Twitter as well as adding a caption. Geo-tagging is also available, and very detailed with a feel of Foursquare check-in. Tap Tadaa to share!!!

  

When you click on an image, you have options as below. You can re-post the image or reply with a photo, which again, gives the feel of twitter. Comments and likes are here as well. You can also view both.

  

I must say, the photo sharing experience is really interactive and ideas are well executed. That Twitter-Facebook feel is familiar when it comes to comments, likes, re-posts etc. I like being able to do all these in one App.

When you upload a photo, it’s sent you your account URL eg. www.tadaa.net/egichomo Images are in great resolution and very pleasing to view on PC. There are like buttons at the bottom as well as the caption.

Tadaa is a great mobile App for a photo community with fantastic PC display making it great in viewing images. Click here to see what I mean.

When you join, you get 200 Tadaa currency. These accumulate every time you get a like/comment by 2 and 1 respectively. This is a nice way to push people to take better images and get “Rich”

Here are some of the reactions I’ve received on twitter so far. (To be updated progressively)

@eGichomo so will facebook also acquire tadaa once it scales?

— Gicheru (@martingicheru) April 13, 2012

@eGichomo haha! Loving this one! thank you!

— tadaa (@tadaa) April 13, 2012

I hope this review has exhausted the app and more can be discussed under comments. For instance, What do you think about Facebook buying Instagram? Which app(s) are you using as an alternative to Instagram? Which apps are u using to improve your iPhoneography experience? Let’s share below right after you cast a vote in the poll.

Take that phone out of your pocket/from your desk and start snapping! Show us your world through the eye of your camera.

Follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Tadaa @eGichomo

I also found this post resourceful – Instagram Alternatives: 8 Great Choices