Whether you spend hours obsessing over your digital photo collection on your smartphone or just enjoy putting the occasional fun filter on your pictures, chances are you have used Instagram before. The free smartphone app has taken the mobile world by storm since it first launched in late 2010, as everyone from athletes and actors to everyday people use the program to instantly share their photos however they see fit. Like any famous application, Instagram helped start a craze of creative photo sharing all over the web.
You may have heard rumblings about a standalone Instagram camera before, and the device is now 100% happenning, it's just not being made by Instagram. Having announced their project a year ago, the folks behind the Socialmatic camera aim to combine the instant social interactivity of Instagram and Facebook with the classic tangible quality of a real Polaroid camera. A new trailer for the device just hit the web recently, showing off a physical concept of the device and announcing that the product will be launching in 2014.
So how does it all work? The Socialmatic looks like a physical manifestation of the Instagram logo, with a small interactive screen that runs on Android technology According to the offical website, there will be a dedicated "Socialmatic Network" for sharing content, while the device will have all of the expected sharing support for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Just like a Polaroid camera, the Socialmatic can print out any photo it takes, complete with a QR code that can be scanned and tracked. The device will have 16 GB of storage, with 3G and WiFi support.
There's still no word on an official release date, but fans of putting artsy filters on photos of dogs and dinner plates can look forward to the Socialmatic sometime next year. Are you excited about this hybrid camera device, or are you content to simply Instagram all day from your phone?