Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Instagram pulls stand-alone Hyperlapse, Boomerang apps

Instagram seems to be on an app-retirement spree these days. Days after the Meta-owned photo- and video-sharing platform announced that it is shuttering the stand-alone IGTV app, it’s now time for the Hyperlapse and Boomerang apps to receive similar treatment.

As of March 8, 2022, stand-alone apps for the Hyperlapse and Boomerang effects for Android seem to have been pulled off the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store and are no longer available for download, reports TechCrunch. For those unaware, these are apps that Instagram users take advantage of to add effects to videos before uploading the final version of the content on Instagram.

Related Videos

What is strange about this move is that unlike in the IGTV app, which received a much-publicized boot, but has not been removed from the app stores yet–these two apps seem to have been silently removed from both the app stores. According to app-tracking service Apptopia, there is a good chance that the Hyperlapse and Boomerang apps were removed from the app stores on the same day.

Data from AppTopia also indicates that the stand-alone Boomerang app was quite popular among Instagrammers even on the day it was removed. In fact, the app averaged 26,000 downloads every day and had been downloaded more than 300 million times. The numbers for Hyperlapse pale in comparison — with just 23 million downloads. This is why Instagram’s decision to retire the Boomerang app has perplexed many people.

Why is Instagram killing all ancillary apps?

While Instagram is yet to reveal the reasons behind retiring the Hyperlapse and Boomerang apps, the company did explain why it pulled the plug on IGTV via a blog post. It is safe to assume that the reasons for the retirement of the stand-alone IGTV app apply to Hyperlapse and Boomerang as well.

In the aforementioned blog post, Instagram revealed that it is doubling down on efforts to improve the experience of using the main Instagram app. With the default Instagram app having long gained the ability to record Hyperlapse and Boomerang videos, most Instagram users did not even need to download Boomerang or Hyperlapse to use these effects. Besides, these stand-alone apps are remnants of an era when the Instagram app was a bit too bloated for smartphones that used less-powerful hardware.

It was easier (and often faster) for such users to download the dedicated Hyperlapse or Boomerang app, add all the required effects, and upload the content using the main Instagram app. Now that even relatively low-cost handsets can easily run the Instagram app, there is hardly the need for stand-alone apps for the sole purpose of adding effects.

Editors' Recommendations

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 may get a feature we’ve never seen before
Render of the Galaxy Z Flip 5 with two cover screens.

As we get closer to the launch of the Galaxy Z Flip 5, details have started surfacing more regularly. In February, we learned that the cover display will be much larger than the one found on the Galaxy Z Flip 4. Now, rumors seem to suggest that the new foldable will be the first of its kind sporting two discrete cover displays.

According to renders shared in a recent video by mobile insider SuperRoader, the Galaxy Z Flip 5's dual cover screens will greatly differentiate the foldable from the rest of its kind. The two screens are vastly different in size, and seem to serve two distinct functions.

Read more
You aren’t ready for this Galaxy S23 vs. iPhone 14 Pro camera test
Deep purple iPhone 14 Pro and Cream Galaxy S23 crossed over

Samsung’s Galaxy S23 is here, and it's quickly become one of the best phones you can buy in 2023. For $800, you’re getting a small but mighty phone with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset, long-lasting battery life, and a powerful triple lens camera system with a 50-megapixel main shooter.

But how does one of the best Android phones stack up against Apple’s smallest flagship, the iPhone 14 Pro? It has just as many cameras as the Galaxy S23, a powerful 48MP main camera, and costs $200 more than Samsung's handset.

Read more
Nothing Phone 2: news, release date and price rumors, and more
Nothing Phone 1 with Glyph lights active.

The Nothing Phone 1 made its debut in July 2022, and it had a reasonable amount of hype behind it due to the involvement of Carl Pei, a co-founder of OnePlus. It was a quirky phone due to the unique light show on the back that makes it stand out from the competition, but on the software front, it’s very similar to other Android phones out there. It received mixed reviews, though the consensus leaned more on the positive side.

This year, we’re expecting the Nothing Phone 2, as confirmed by Pei in January during MWC 2023. Here’s everything we know so far about the Nothing Phone 2!
Nothing Phone 2: design

Read more