A new photo filter app, Prisma, is taking the App Store by storm this week (if you can ignore the Pokémon GO fervor) with good reason. At first glance, Prisma seems like any other photo filter app: choose a filter, pick an image, share to social media. What sets Prisma apart is the diversity and quality of the filters themselves.
There are some incredibly rich and unique options on here, that go beyond the usual shadowy color shifts popularized by Instagram. Prisma features a diverse set of filters that correspond to known paintings and art styles, including Mondrian Cubism, Mosaic, Heisenberg, The Scream and many more.
The Prisma effects are dynamic and fresh. The app relies on server-side machine learning and intelligence to generate the resultant images, which allows it to provide the more detailed and advanced filters to set it apart from being just another photo filter app. Images can be loaded from the Camera Roll or taken within the app itself.
The final images with filters applied are striking and great for sharing to social media. It almost feels like Prisma is setting a new bar for filter apps to meet. You can get some crazy good results from a one-tap operation.
After taking a picture, users can quickly share their creations to Instagram, Facebook or any other service via the iOS system Share Sheet. Prisma is available for free in the App Store.
Elsewhere in the App Store, Polaroid has launched a new app called that gives its own take on the iPhone Live Photos premise; central focus image packaged with a few seconds of video context. Polaroid Swing cleverly uses the iOS device motion sensors to play through the 1-second video in a novel way.
Tilting the phone left and right scrubs through the 60fps video. Users can also use their finger to slide across the Swing and reveal the entire shot. See some examples of the app in action on the Polaroid Swing website.
Polaroid Swing is made by a collaboration of Polaroid with Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder. It’s easy to see how Twitter’s 140 characters constraints translated into Swing’s 1-second video length. Polaroid Swing can be downloaded for free from the App Store.
