Instagrille: Instagram for Your Windows PC

Instagrille: Windows for your PC

Well after all the wait, the yawns, the murmurs and everything, we got excited a few weeks ago when the Systrom-led makers of popular camera application Instagram announced that it will finally debut on the Google Play store. It did drop and was an instant success; raking in over one million downloads in under 24 hours. Well, that was expected. The app is what many analysts term as “default camera killer” since it has successfully dwarfed the native camera apps on both the Android and iOS platfroms. So what about a share of this magic photo cake on your PC? Enter Instagram for Windows going by the name Instagrille, the application that promises to be your go to for snooping on your ex-girlfriend’s latest photo shoot in the drinking spree last Friday

So what exactly is Instagrille? It is the desktop version of the popular image networking app, Instagram. Since I posted my two articles on Instagram here, a couple of my friends have been asking me, “what is this Instagram you are fond of talking about these days?” Well I hope with time I have managed to answer that question. So far Instagram on my Droid has been excellent. After sharing my first two pictures I have done nothing else than snoop around people’s profiles getting ideas on what I should be doing in that whole new ecosystem. Yes, I take my time to learn. So where was I? Yes Instagrille! It is one fine little app developed by SweetLabs (Some info: Instagrille has been around since last year though most of us just heard about it recently). SweetLabs is in itself a development team that focuses on creating HTML5 based apps and games through Pokki (an app of sorts too).

Instagrille is, in a few words, Instagram for PCs or for desktop. It is currently available for Windows 7, Vista, XP and good news for the early adopters of everything Redmond, Windows 8, the upcoming new OS from Microsoft is also supported. What are you waiting for? Download it now and start viewing your precious moments on a screen larger than your iPhone or Droid. The install requires an active data connection and should take around 5 minutes to be fully set up. When you run it, you will be prompted to connect with your Instagram account. Do it and you will be taken to the all familiar feature pages of your favourite photo app. From there you can do everything you have been doing on your phone app save for uploading photos.

I already downloaded the app and I have been having fun checking on what the people I follow have been snapping up lately. Instagram has already taken everyone by storm and Instagrille is looking forward to also cash in on this with the tiny but handy app. Of course it is not yet late for the party. There is promise to bring it to the Mac community soon, may be after they are done flashing their botnets . It is worth noting that Carousel, another Instagram app exclusively available for Macintosh users, has been doing a good job providing Instagram access to the Apple lovers. The images are smooth on the desktop version.

My Instagrille installing

The downside of Instagrille? Well, like the web app Webstagram, that I have been using on the web in the absence of a dedicated PC Instagram app, it does not allow you to upload photos to your Instagram account. For Mac users, they are lucky, Carousel allows them to do so. However I suppose this will be taken care of in an update soon.

Interestingly, Systrom and co, the makers (Systrom being the founder) of Instagram have not yet announced plans of a web app or a native desktop client. This could be in the works going by how popular their image networking service has been.

PS: For Android users who were lamenting about the Instagram for Android app being bulky, here is a reprieve. An update released over the last 24 hours addresses a critical issue: you can now move the heavy app to your sd card saving you some precious mbs (17mbs in my case) in internal storage space.

Top of them all: The Instagram app is already 2nd in the most downloaded new apps on Google Play store. Second only to monster Angry birds Space.

Keep the shutters clicking.

More screenshots here: