Flashes this 12 months launched an Instagram various constructed on prime of the Bluesky social community. Now obtainable on the App Retailer, the app provides a special method to browse the visible posts on Bluesky. As a substitute of viewing them in a timeline-like feed, much like X, the app attracts inspiration from photo-based social networks, like Instagram.
What you possibly can publish
The app, constructed by Berlin-based developer Sebastian Vogelsang, runs on the identical underlying protocol that powers Bluesky, the AT Protocol (or atproto for brief). Which means it’ll have the identical necessities round posting photographs and movies as you’d discover on Bluesky immediately.
Initially, that meant assist for posting as much as 4 photographs and movies of 1 minute in size, however as of the Bluesky version 1.99 update launched on March 10, customers have been in a position to add movies as much as 3 minutes in size.
How Flashes is like Instagram — and the way it’s completely different
Flashes is considerably much like Instagram, because it provides a scrollable feed of pictures and movies, person profiles, and even picture filters to reinforce your photographs when posting.
As a substitute of getting to begin your community from scratch, Flashes’ customers are instantly tapped into the broader Bluesky group, which now has over 37 million users. Even when not all of Bluesky’s customers are on Flashes, their photographs and movies can be displayed within the app, because it basically filters the Bluesky feed for visible content material.
While you publish on Flashes, it creates a publish that seems on Bluesky as nicely. (For that purpose, you could wish to make a secondary Bluesky account if you wish to hold the 2 networks separate.)
As well as, the app allows you to browse your personal Bluesky feeds and select from Bluesky’s over 50,000 customized feeds, together with these that concentrate on specific matters — like artwork, birds, gardening, or cat pics, for instance — or these devoted to particular codecs, like Bluesky’s video feed.
As you flick through the posts in Flashes, you possibly can like, repost, and reply to them, simply as you could possibly on Bluesky itself. These interactions may also seem in Bluesky’s app, whereas Bluesky customers’ interactions will present up in Flashes.
Photographers in search of a spot to showcase their work will recognize Flashes’ “Portfolio” characteristic.
To toggle this setting on, you’ll head to the “Superior” tab in your person profile, then faucet on “Flashes profile.” Right here, there can be an choice to allow Portfolio, which helps you to curate which photographs ought to seem in your Flashes person profile.
You can even customise your person profile additional by opting to point out or conceal likes, lists, and feeds, or utilizing different media filtering choices.
The best way to get began
To make use of Flashes, you’ll first want a Bluesky account. If you have already got one, you possibly can sign up with these credentials.
If not, you possibly can select to join a Bluesky account from inside the Flashes app. The app defaults to establishing your account on the primary Bluesky server, bluesky.social, however extra technical customers can decide to arrange a customized internet hosting supplier as a substitute.
To create your account, you’ll want to supply an electronic mail tackle, password, and date of delivery, then settle for the phrases of use, which suggests you conform to Bluesky’s Group Pointers and Phrases.
As soon as signed in, you possibly can instantly begin shopping the photographs and movies shared in your Bluesky timeline or every other Bluesky feed, or publish your personal media.
A subscription could also be coming
Vogelsang hopes that Flashes will assist pull in additional customers to the Bluesky group, together with those that aren’t as occupied with a Twitter/X-like expertise. As a substitute, the app appeals extra to folks in search of open options to Meta’s Instagram.
It’s not the one app constructing on this area, nevertheless. One other app engaged on related experiences is Pinksky. In the meantime, customers of Mastodon’s social community might want Pixelfed, which makes use of the fediverse’s ActivityPub protocol underneath the hood as a substitute of Bluesky’s atproto.
Over time, Vogelsang needs so as to add extra options to Flashes, like push notifications, assist for a number of accounts, bookmarks, and extra enhancing choices.
Plans so as to add subscriptions with premium options are within the works, which might assist fund Android and internet growth. These paid tiers may additionally present premium entry to Vogelsang’s third-party Bluesky app, Skeets, and his video-focused app, Bluescreen.
Different deliberate options embody iPad format enhancements, assist for longer movies, posts which are solely seen for a restricted time (like Tales), albums, and batched picture switch from different platforms. Finally, the developer want to evolve Flashes to be its personal AT Protocol-based platform, whereas nonetheless being appropriate with Bluesky’s community.
The app is a free obtain from the App Retailer and requires iOS 17 or increased to run.