A fresh face has joined the photo-sharing scene. Flashes, a new app, is giving Instagram a run for its money.  It supports up to four photos per post and one-minute-long videos. But there's more to it than just photos and videos.

        Flashes is built on the same tech as Bluesky, a decentralized social media app. This means users can share posts on Flashes and have them show up on Bluesky and vice versa.  With Bluesky seeing  a growth of 30 million users and more than a billion posts, this is a huge opportunity for Flashes.

        But it's not all smooth sailing.  The beta launch on Apple's TestFlight platform had some hiccups, with the beta being temporarily shut down before reopening. The 3, 000 beta tester spots filled up in a matter of hours, showing that there is a lot of interest in this app.

        Flashes is familiar territory for Instagram users, with a double tap to like feature and zoom gestures to enlarge images. These features, which can be turned on and off, add to the app's user-friendliness.  The app also offers three timeline options: "Trending, " "Timeline, " and "Following. " The latter is a chronological timeline, which many early users have been requesting.

        The developer, Vogelsang, has plans to launch Flashes on Android soon. He admits that the decision to launch on iOS first was because of his familiarity with the tools.  He wants to make it clear that launching on iOS first wasn't about some hidden agenda or excluding Android users.

        The photo-sharing app is not the only one.  In recent years, there has been a rise in decentralized social media platforms. This is largely due to concerns about data privacy and the influence of big tech.  There is a growing demand for alternatives to Meta's network of apps. Flashes is one of the many apps that are trying to fill this gap.  But will it be enough to pull users away from Instagram?  Only time will tell.

Flashes: The New Photo-Sharing App That's Taking on Instagram

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