I don’t pretend to like Instagram. I don’t dislike the service. But I resent how extremely overrated it is.

Just about every smart phone has the ability to do what Instagram does. It’s not brain surgery or rocket science. Take a picture, open it up in an app, add effects and then post it somewhere people can see and comment on it. IPhone, Android, Windows phone and Blackberry can all come up with similar results in just about the same amount of steps. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, Picasa and Google+ all let you get followers that can add comments easily. There are tons of apps that will allow you to apply filters to images and even video. There is nothing new about that.

From everything I’ve read about the founders and the company, they seem like a nice group of people. So I have nothing against them. And if you where wondering, it’s reported that 25 million people are using the same filters you are. Taking the same pictures of the same things, over, and over, and over again. I don’t know for sure but I think that Instagram is the big shot in its field for two reasons. It road on the mystique of the iOS platform and it’s simple to use. In my opinion, all of the photo apps are simple to use but Instagram is dead simple. Coupling that simplicity with how voraciously vain and self indulged many iphoners are was a marriage made in Heaven. Sure, that’s a pretty harsh stance to take on people expressing their creativity. But how many bathroom shots, close-ups and I’m bored pictures does the universe need?

I would probably like Instagram if they had released an Android app sooner or at least opened their network up thru a decent web app and upload service. But they didn’t, so I don’t. Will I use it when they do support other platforms? That depends on what new features they add at that time amongst other considerations. I would like to think that by then there will be enough bells and whistles in other apps that keep me playing the field.

I guess in the end, I don’t have a problem with Instagram (other than it’s single monogamous platform dependency). I am just worn by the redundant, predictable shots that seem to live thru it.