Instagram's New App Does Something Really Effing Cool

In perhaps a move to compete with Snapchat's extremely popular video features, Instagram just launched Boomerang: a standalone app that creates short, stop-motion-style videos. While Instagram's previous Hyperlapse focused on speedy time-lapse videos, Boomerang improves upon traditional formats by snapping continuous bursts of photos and stitching them into a video that repeatedly plays on a loop — hence the name.

Boomerang might be slightly confusing — it's not a GIF, it's not a photo, and it's not a traditional video, but it is fun. "Capture a friend jumping off a diving board, defying physics as she flies back and forth through the air," Instagram wrote on its blog. "Transform an ordinary selfie with your friends into a funny video. Get that exact moment your friend blows out his birthday candles, then watch them come back to life again and again."

Boomerang is available for free today for iOS users in the App Store and for Android users in Google Play. Learn more about how it works ahead.

Here's how the app will look to users . . .
Instagram

Here's how the app will look to users . . .