10 Changes we'd like to make to Instagram: Desktop app, intensity sliders and view counts

We love Instagram. We really do. That’s why we write around 4,348,354 articles a week about the lovely little app. However, there are always things we’d like to change and tweak and hack and Instagram is no exception.

So, we’ve written up some of the changes we’d love the Instagram team to make, as well as changes our Twitter followers want to see too.

Now obviously if we tweaked EVERYTHING the app wouldn’t be as streamlined, simple and appealing as it is now, but that hasn’t stopped us from dreaming up new ways to make it even better.

Changes the Shiny Shiny team want to see:

1. The option to change the intensity of the tilt-shift effects

When the Instagram team made a few big changes to the application back in September many users were disappointed with how intense the blurring effects had become. They seem to have been toned down a little in more recent updates, but it’d still be good to have the option to make them much more or much less intense.

2. The option to change the intensity of the filters

It’d also be handy to have the freedom to tweak filters a little, making them more or less intense with the use a little slider, which you can already see in apps like Magic Hour and 100 Cameras in 1.

3. Frames and borders that aren’t constrained to certain filters

There are some great frames and borders available on Instagram if you use filters like Earlybird and Nashville. However, it’d be useful if you could user these borders alongside any filter you want.

4. Automatic tags with details about the filter

Some Instagram web apps let you see which filters your followers have been using, but we’d love to see that feature added to the mobile application too.

5. An official Instagram web app

We’re not sure if an official Instagram web app would take something away from the mobile magic of Instagram AND there are plenty of good alternatives available out there, but sometimes we wish there was an official web app that worked just as well as the iPhone application.

Changes our Twitter followers want to see:

1. The ability to browse other photos from a feed when you click on one from @jojogifford

We agree with Jo, it’s great that you can click on someone’s Instagram photos and see them blown up on your screen if you’re browsing Twitter or see an Instagram widget on their blog, but it’d be even better if you could browse through a few of their older images too.

2. The ability to run different accounts and easily switch and post between them from @katiemoffat

We think this will become even more of an issue as the app gains more followers over the coming months. At the moment, if you want to have more than one Instagram account, whether you’re representing a brand or just want two photo streams, you can’t really switch between both with ease, which is VERY frustrating.

3. A view count like Twitpic and Yfrog from @claironeill

Adding a view count to photos would be interesting and a good way of finding out what your friends and followers like looking at and which of your photos they just find boring!

4. A desktop app from @claironeill
Another one which has plenty of alternatives but would be really handy.

5. An Android version of the app from @britl

Ahh yes, we’re surprised we didn’t come up with this one really. It’s one of the few popular apps only available on iOS devices, which makes iPhone users very smug and Android users very frustrated.

To celebrate Instagram week we’re running an easy to enter mobile photography competition with our friends at Orbitsound. All you have to do is take a photo with an Autumnal theme and share it on Twitter along with the hash tag #ShinyAutumn. It can be of a leaf or a Halloween costume, we really don’t mind. The winner will get a fabulous T12v3 speaker bar from Orbitsound and 19 runners up will get random iPhone related goodies.

Visit the #ShinyAutumn competition post to find out more.