Meet Brand New Photography-Oriented App

In August, Glass Labs Inc. launched the Glass app, the main essence of which is similar to Instagram at the very beginning of its existence. This service is specially designed for photographers who want to share their work with their business colleagues. Although it has recently become available, it already looks promising.

Instagram initially positioned itself as a photo-sharing app with a few social features. Now the developers are focusing more on the use of videos, and influencers and trend-setters occupy the main niche here. As Adam Mosseri, a chief of Instagram at Facebook, confirmed, it is not a photo-sharing service now, but something more, where people are looking for entertainment. It is no longer profitable for the creators to focus exclusively on viewing photos. Photographers have to look for other applications where they can display their content. This option is now offered to them by Glass.

Glass Essence

The Glass developers put the photos and images in the first place. All functionality (albeit not very large yet) is built around them, and not social interaction and the use of search algorithms.

The process of registering and setting up an account is as simple as possible. You can create your profile with your Apple account, pick the photographers you want to follow, and turn on notifications. After short guidance, you will be transferred to the feed of posts from users you subscribed to. Since the main focus is on photos, all the images here are large and of excellent quality, and the control buttons are small and located at the screen bottom.

Through the Plus icon, you can add photos from your device's gallery. Images can also be uploaded from Lightroom Mobile and other photo editors that Glass supports. However, for it, you need to switch to another application and import the images into Glass. It is not the most convenient option; perhaps, the developers will refine it later.

You can add a description when you post a photo; however, there are no tags or other SEO tools here. Any image can be viewed in excellent quality in full-screen mode, as well as additional EXIF ​​information: the camera used, aperture, ISO, focal range, shutter speed, and the date when you took the photo. It is handy data for professional photographers, which other similar services do not provide.

Social Functions

Of course, this app has some social interaction tools. However, there are not too many of them, and they do not distract you from viewing high-quality images. So, for example, there is a news feed that contains pictures of the users you follow. Also, you can comment on the posts you like and look for new photographers.

Since the app does not support hashtags, you can only search for new users by name, not by their content. It might not be the best option for those looking for inspiration by studying various photographs. Your feed is compiled solely based on the date of a post, not your interests.

Confidentiality

According to the app developers, they do not use any algorithms that study the history of your searches and interactions with posts. User actions are not tracked, saved, or passed on to third parties. If necessary, you can completely delete your account.

To protect users and ensure copyright integrity, Glass allows you only to post your own images on third-party services. You cannot repost another person's posts. Before starting to use the app, you need to study the rules and agree with the policies. At the moment, joining Glass is only possible by invitation from developers or photographers who are already on the service.