There is no denying that a lot of Windows Phone users want to be able to access and share photos on Instagram from their Windows Phone handsets.  Just look at the response that the app #2InstaWithLove from Nokia had that was published a few weeks ago

Quite a few Instagram alternatives have surfaced in the Windows Phone store and provide the basics of that service but it is obviously still not Instagram.  This is exactly why any app that brings a promise of being able to post pictures from a Windows Phone handset to Instagram gets a lot of attention.

Well today that app is Instagraph from Venetasoft.

According to the app description in the Windows Phone Store it does have some limitations:

The publish operation time depends on the server load. You don’t need to run Instagraph in background or even leave your phone connected, your request is securely queued and managed by our servers. You can check the status of every publication on the history page at any time. Currently we are limiting the number of daily uploads to 3 per user in order to guarantee a fast publish time. We are upgrading our server infrastructure to scale accordingly and we plan to increase or even remove this daily quota very soon.

See Instagraph is not using Instagram’s API to interact with the Instagram service therefore many features are unavailable in the app and as you can read above the developer is limiting picture uploads to the service to three images per day.

There is no info available on this relaying process that is apparently used on the developers servers, which are apparently via Azure Services, and the upload time can vary depending on the pace of the uploads via the Windows Phone App.

Already on Twitter a lot of discussion is ongoing about this process and possible privacy concerns.

Here are a few of them I have come across:

  • The postings appear on the Instagram service as if they came from your account. That means your credentials, which you provide in the Instagraph App settings dialog, must be stored on the servers so your picture can be tied to your account when it goes to Instagram. Are those credentials kept there after you choose to uninstall the app from your phone? Are they stored securely?
  • Delay times being discussed on Twitter for pictures to get from being shared in Instagraph and being posted on Instagram appear to be in the range of 20-30 minutes. If that is the fast publish time they refer to in the app description I am not sure many folks will stick around to wait on those times.
  • There was at least one Instagraph user I follow on Twitter who showed that someone else’s photo ended up on their Instagram timeline. Would this not indicate that your picture might end up on someone else’s timeline as well? Can you say major privacy issue?
  • Whatever method is being used to get your picture from the developers servers to Instagram, according to the developer’s FAQ, is legal. However, legal or not couldn’t Instagram choose to shut down the means they are publishing the photos to your account with?
  • The app costs $1.99 and there is no trial option. Besides this being a pet peeve of mine when it comes to apps if this all falls apart will you get your $1.99 back?

I get that many folks on Windows Phone want to be able to use Instagram from their favorite handsets but just exactly how much are folks willing to invest in a risky work around to do it?