New App Utilizes the Best of Photo and Video to Create Addictive 'Interactive Photographs'

It’s impossible to deny the rise of video in recent years. Even on the high street, many shops are replacing print campaigns in favor of TV screens with moving advertisements that showcase a larger range of their products. With video, even though you lose the subtlety of capturing a single moment in time, you can share so much more. So what’s the compromise? A new micro-video app by the name of Polaroid Swing combines movement with moment in a one-second clip to create what it calls “interactive photographs.”

So how does it work? First, you capture your moment. Then, unlike regular photo apps, you can either swipe across the image, or angle your phone left and right to see the image moves. Thus, it's not strictly a video. Founder Tommy Stadlen explains it best himself:

These are one-second moments. You can reach into the picture and make it move, briefly. The way we think is not in still photos. It tends to be in vignettes. Swing’s offering is better than still photos — you can reach into the photo. It’s a far better expression of the moment you have captured. 

The aim of the app is to pool together the pleasure of both photo and video-taking, whilst countering some of their limitations. The team behind the app are not just Instagram-generation fanatics with no knowledge of technology, either. Aside from Stadlen, there’s co-founder Frederick Blackford, a media and sports entrepreneur. They are backed by a series of former Apple engineers, and even the man who invented the very first Instagram filters. Stadlen even worked on President Obama’s tech strategy. The team settled on the time-frame of one second after taking feedback from 100 photographers.

Popularity of the app has rocketed after they featured on the Apple store’s front page. Swing is currently only available for iOS (free of charge) with an Android version planned. Polaroid has even backed Stadlen and Blackford as shareholders in light of the app's success. 

You can try the app by heading over to http://Www.polaroidswing.com

[via Evening Standard]