Oggl, Hipstamatic’s little brother, to launch this week

Hipstamatic is one of iPhone’s coolest photo-filtering apps and its maker is about to launch a new and similar app called Oggl in the App Store some time before this week ends. The release of Oggl has great significance due to its back story. This app pretty much seems like another version of Hipstamatic, especially with lenses, films and other tools from the older app also featuring here. This raises the question, why the Oggl release?

Hipstamatic is trying to reshape what it already built into something that can reach out to new customers while keeping existing ones happy. That is why tomorrow’s Hipstamatic app will very much look like what is available today. In the meantime, the company will use Oggl as the vehicle that takes it forward. However, in spite of the push, “Hipstamatic Classic is still awesome” as Hipstamatic CEO Lucas Buick says.

Oggl differs from the Hipstamatic app in a number of ways. While Hipstamatic has never been concerned with where users post their photos, Oggl creates a photo community for them to share their best works. Users can also now add filters to photos after taking them.

The new app represents the company’s business model change. Hipstamatic offers occasional in-app purchases of new lenses and film, but Oggl will avail them as part of the subscription. You will have to pay a $0.99 monthly subscription fee or $9.99 a year to have unlimited access to current, past, and future Oggl options.

Oggl is basically a free app that’ll have five pre-loaded favorites: food, nightlight, sunsets, and landscapes, excellent for situational shooting.