One of the things I love about the Google I/O conference is stumbling upon cool new apps like Lightbox. This Android app is aiming to replace your regular camera functionality and, from what I’ve seen, it has a very good chance of doing that as well as giving the little, green robot something to crow about when iPhone owners talk about Instagram.
The Lightbox Android app is essentially a social photo-viewing app that can tie in to your various social networks to display photos. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare and the company is compressing those photos on its servers to make sure the pics pop up quickly. You’ll still have the ability to pinch to zoom, as well as retweet or post a Facebook comment from within the app.
The neat thing about the Lightbox Android app is that you create one account and you’ll be able to view all of these pictures on any of your devices. That means you’ll be able to take photos on the go with your phone and then apply some filters to it much like you can with Instagram. You can also then share those photos on Facebook and Twitter for the world to see.
When you get back to a tablet, I’ve found this program makes some great use of the larger real estate to view your pics. The real reason why I’m gravitating toward the Lightbox Android app is because it seems that many of the innovative mobile photography companies are focusing on the iPhone only and maybe they’ll get around to porting it to the little, green robot later. I don’t like that.
This app is currently in a private beta but it should be landing in the next few weeks. Check out the video below and let us know what you think.