With the latest update to Hipstamatic comes the ability to push your Hipstamatic photos to your Instagram feed. It marks the first time Instagram has opened its doors to a third party. As with Hipstamatic, Instagram lets you share your photos on Facebook and Twitter among other social networks, but it has never allowed photos taken with other apps into its network. Until yesterday.
After you update Hipstamatic, you'll notice that the app features a new layout. Select a photo to share, tap the share button in the upper-right corner, and you'll see a row of six grayed-out buttons below the comment area. Between the Twitter and Tumblr buttons is an Instagram button. You'll need to sign in to your account for each of these services to connect, but then you'll be able to tap any number of them to share your Hipstamatic photo. It's convenient that you can share a photo across multiple outlets at once (the platforms you select go from gray to color). Just tap the Share button in the upper-right corner to complete your transaction.
Your Hipstamatic photos will appear the next time you refresh your Instagram feed. And they're marked with the #Hipstamatic hash tag with a note below stating, "Taken with Hipstamatic." Tap on the #Hipstamatic hash tag and you'll see an Instagram feed of only Hipstamatic photos.
CNET News has more on the Hipstamatic-Instagram partnership.