Hipstamatic 235 iPhoneSeveral days ago, we found out that iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 broke Hipstamatic. A new update was promised soon. The Hipstamatic 260 update was released today — soon, as promised. It’s more than just a bug fix update. The 260 comes with several cool new features in addition to “Bug fixes and performance improvements”, including the new Rock The Vote FreePak.

Most importantly (and not specifically mentioned in the App Store description), the bug introduced with Hipstamatic on the iPhone 5 has been fixed. Hipstamatic once again saves images up to 2448×2448 pixels.

The 260 update is now iPhone 5 optimized. The revised user interface fills the larger screen of the 5 quite nicely. Not in the App Store description, but the new UI also has a slightly larger and more square viewfinder. Hipstamatic has never been about precise onscreen framing, but the new, larger viewfinder should offer a tiny improvement while still maintaining the point-and-shoot spirit of the app.

The flash button has been improved as well and works more intuitively. The neutral position is now centered. A jog to the left arms the app’s software flash. A jog to the right arms the iPhone’s hardware flash (on equipped devices).

Hipstamatic 260 comes with a new “Rock The Vote” FreePak, which I strongly suspect will only be available for a limited time. The pak comes with two new films and a new case. The RTV Film adds boldness and saturation along with a hand-drawn style frame. The RTV Shout! Film adds callouts to the print, such as “We will be counted” and “We will vote”. The callouts are randomized. RTV Shout is a novelty film that may find its way out of mothballs every couple of years or so. The bold look of RTV isn’t outstanding, but the frame is an interesting addition to the Hipstamatic camera bag.

Hipstamtic 260 comes with a new Multiple Exposure kit for $0.99 in-app purchase. It adds a new slider to the back of the Hipstamatic case and enables you to layer two exposures in Hipstamatic. The feature is easy to use. You can re-enable the slider to add even more exposures.

Prints and Stacks view has been revamped with support for portrait as well as landscape orientations (requires iOS 6).

One other undocumented addition…. Hipstamatic 260 requires iOS 5.0 or newer and no longer supports iOS 4.x or older.

A lot of us would have been happy with a Hipstamatic update that simply fixed the iPhone 5 issues. Instead, they released what I consider to be a good update with plenty of new, well-done features.

If you just got a new iPhone 5 from another brand of smartphone, I highly recommend Hipstamatic. It’s got a unique set of effects that no other app has matched. It also has great Instagram integration.

Hipstamatic is $1.99 for the base configuration. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G, iPad (3rd generation) and iPad Wi-Fi + 4G. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Hipstamatic - Hipstamatic, LLC

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Hipstamatic RTV Film

Hipstamatic RTV Shout Film (sorry for the black T-Shirt)

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