Instagram Launches Cinema, Its Fix For The iPhone’s Shaky Camera

Instagram today finally unveiled its anticipated video service and served it with a kicker, which is great for those of us with shaky hands. It launched Cinema: a way to stabilize the video captured with the iPhone.

Right now this is an iPhone-only app. And for good reason. Since the launch of the iPhone 5, Android phone makers have embraced higher-quality cameras than Apple with many flagship devices already featuring superior image stabilization.

Of course a lot of this is hearsay right now. Image stabilization performed by software, as is done here, historically gets the job done at the sacrifice of image quality. Either it introduces more digital noise or messes with the flow of the image. But most of the time the image does improve in some way.

This feature gives Instagram a solid leg up over Vine and other camera apps. Like when taking pics with Instragram, the photos often look better with a slight adjustment. Other apps, like Camera+, feature similar tools, but Instagram bakes in features that make their pics, and now videos, look as good as possible — and then adds a social layer on top.

Cinema is built into Instagram’s iOS app, which is available in the app store now.

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