Synthetic the company behind the popular iPhone app Hipstamatic ventured into a brand new space the other day with a iPad magazine. The Hipstamatic app was the first app that I had for my iPhone that I absolutely loved for shooting photos. I have always been a very big fan of vintage style images, back in college I loved shooting with my trusty (all duck taped up) Holga and have always loved the feeling you can get with certain toy cameras. The Hipstamatic app was like a digital version of the holga and while they never got the crazy huge base of people that Instagram did they have sold millions of these apps and do have a good following.
Last week they released a brand new iPad app that is a digital magazine called Snap. It seems like the perfect fit for the company, they have a user base of millions of people (50 million Hipstamatic photos are taken a month) and many very artistic people using the Hipstamatic app that they can tap into for creative content. Part of what they are trying to do is encourage people to email them or tweet them images that they might include in future editions of the magazine. It’s a great idea to encourage people to submit images and can help create a sense of community. The inaugural issue is over 100 pages and totally free. They claim it’s not ad supported although there are hipstamatic ad’s throughout the magazine. I don’t mind because it’s free but saying they aren’t monetizing the app really isn’t true in my opinion. Regardless its free and has a substantial amount of images to look through so definitely worth a place on my iPad for now.
Getting into the good stuff the app is loaded with some very creative images with a wide range of styles. The first issue revolves around the theme “Make Beautiful” and is broken down into 8 main sections:
Cultured; Hip Stop; Adventures in Hipstaland; Obsessed; Slash; Climax; Situation and Lensed.
Many of the images are creative and keep you interested in flipping through the magazine. For me it’s really the strong point of the magazine while the rest I do feel is lacking a lot.
Lucas Buick the CEO of Synthetic stressed the importance of the content not just the images as a big part of the magazine:
“I’m also really excited for our editoral content. In particular, Climax—an exploration of the things that we all think yet rarely speak about. I’m talking SEX, RELIGION, & POLITICS. It’s my hope that the section can help start the conversation.”
However I felt that the content was very slim and not that engaging at all. Some pieces were just a few small paragraphs which didn’t do anything to interest me and the other part of the content just doesn’t resonate with me personally. Although I am a super creative, love the look of Hipstamatic images I am really not a hipster type of guy. I am not interested in too shiny of jeans, the latest in lipsticks or tattoos. Just doesn’t interest me at all. I know they want to stir it up with a legit magazine and nothing sells better than SEX but for me I would prefer to read a magazine all about good photography and content that revolves around the creative process of photography. It’s not what they are setting out to do with this as it’s more of a lifestyle magazine. I am definitely not the target market for this magazine I’m sure but think we can all appreciate some of the images in here and hopefully they can inspire some future shoots for everyone.
You can download the Snap magazine app for Free in iTunes by visiting this link:
Also if you don’t have the Hipstamatic app I highly recommend it for the unique range of filters. You can get it in the app store here:
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