Anyone looking for an alternative to Instagram could have an appropriate candidate FlashA recently launched application built on Bluesky which seems to make all the good important bases. Flashs technically launched on the App Store on February 24, but a series of updates published in the days that followed the launch made the application much easier to recommend.
If you remember an Instagram before Meta transforms it into its Facebook replacement, you have the basic of what flashes are. It is an application to share photos and videos, with wrinkles with bluesky flavor, like Several personalized flows To choose instead of the Meta Meta default option.
When you first open flashes, you will be invited to connect with a Bluesky account or create a new one to use exclusively with flashes. If you use your existing account, the application essentially reconditions the image and video publications of the person you currently follow in an Instagram style flow. This configuration also works upside down: any article you put on flashes will also appear in your normal Bluesky flow focused on the text.
The application itself has several tabs, with a home tab for your flows, a search tab where you can search for messages and display trend topics, a dedicated tab for the creation of new messages, a notification tab that offers all your Bluesky notifications and a profile tab. Flashs includes some filters to apply to your photos, as well as certain personalized flows that you can use if you wish, but otherwise the customizations are minimal. It is really a version and a version focused on the video of Bluesky. However, it comes with boring drawbacks. If you get a lot of Bluesky notifications, you will now get them twice, once in the Bluesky application and once in flashes. If you delete your account from an application, it will also be deleted from the other.
Building a more customizable portable version of social media that does not enclose you on a single platform is a large part of Bluesky’s goal with the Protocol And what applications like mastodon and Threads Try to do with ActivityPub. It is not clear if a standard will become the default, but Bluesky has taken momentum. The application struck 20 million users in November 2024, causing a dramatic Extension to its moderation effortsThen passed 30 million users In January 2025. Flash design means that all of these new Bluesky accounts are also potential users.
This article originally appeared on engadget on https://www.engadget.com/apps/flashes-an-instagram-alternative-ceze-on-bluesky-is-ononable-for-iphones-now-205946754.html?src=rsss
