Instagram Hyperlapse Is Silky Timelapse For Your iPhone

It's clearly the season for fast-moving timelapse, for shortly after Microsoft Research showed how it could make shaky GoPro footage watchable with Hyperlapse, Instagram has outed a new video sharing app of the same name. Instagram's Hyperlapse promises time-lapse video and smooth tracking shots that previously would've required a Steadicam system, all from your iPhone (or, eventually, your Android handset).

The roots of Hyperlapse were in Luma, a software image stabilization system Instagram acquired last year. Benefits had already been used in the core Instagram app, for keeping video recordings from being too shaky, but the company has pushed things further with this new app.

Unlike Microsoft's Hyperlapse, which figures out a virtual 3D path through video footage and then renders a smooth transition along it, Instagram's Hyperlapse takes advantage of the gyroscopes inside smartphones. By figuring out exactly how the phone's camera is being moved, each of the video frames can be shifted around accordingly to iron out judder.

The standalone app echoes the simple UI of the regular Instagram, with a record button and a speed controller.

Speeds from 1x – or real-time – through to 12x are supported, and the finished results can be shared to Instagram or Facebook.

iPhone users will get Instagram Hyperlapse first, though the company tells Wired that an Android version is in the pipeline. That's waiting on some changes to the Android camera APIs, however, so there's no public timeline as to when it might arrive.

VIA Wired

SOURCE Instagram