Apple Instagram Makes #ShotoniPhone The Star

Fashionably late or just... late? Apple has finally joined Instagram, and just as the media-centric social network has become the go-to place for people to show off their glamorous lifestyles and myriad talents (even if that demands some very careful framing and a bucket-load of filters), so the Cupertino behemoth is using its account to pimp its own abilities. Namely, its iPhone cameras.

Indeed, the whole point of the Apple Instagram account – which has nine posts already today – appears to be sharing photos that were taken by iPhone photographers. Apple itself has taken none of the pictures, it appears. Instead, they're from regular iPhone owners using the #ShotoniPhone hashtag.

It's an expansion of Apple's prominent billboard campaign, which has seen huge blow-ups of iPhone photography appear around the country. Each of those posters are the handiwork of an iPhone user, rather than a professional photographer paid by Apple, as the company doubles-down on the message that its camera is the most popular one out there.

There may well be some truth in that, too, though it's arguably getting harder to ascertain. For a long time, the primary rule of thumb used was Flickr's "Most Popular Cameras" list, which for a long time has been dominated not only by smartphones, but by iPhones in particular. Currently, the top five most-used models for images shared on the photo gallery site are all Apple's handiwork, with the iPhone 6 in pole position.

Despite Flickr's best efforts, the online photo sharing world has evolved. Apps like Instagram are arguably the new go-to place for showing off your amateur – or, indeed, professional – camera talents. Accounts that aggregate, sometimes controversially, other content into themed collections, "photos of the day," or generally interesting shots are often wildly popular, and many times viewers will want to know what device was responsible for them.

For Apple, it's a good opportunity to control the message, as well as sneak into users' daily lives. Instagram is undoubtedly a "sticky" app, one of the social networks that users generally check repeatedly through the day. As ways to capture mindshare go, it's a fairly low-effort one for the iPhone-maker.

Mobile photography has been under scrutiny recently, with former Google SVP Vic Gundotra controversially praising the iPhone camera while criticizing Android. Gundotra's comments spurred huge discussion about whether devices like the Galaxy S8 and Pixel XL are capable of taking better images than the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, and what role the underlying OS architecture plays in that comparison. Meanwhile, device-makers aren't standing still. Famed movie camera specialist RED has revealed it plans to build a new Android smartphone, the RED Hydrogen One, that will have interchangeable lens support and begin a new line of holographic video-capable cameras.