They do always say that no press is bad press and considering all of the internet chatter that has surrounded Instagram recently over their flip-flopping terms of service, it would seem that there is no better time to discuss the new Piktr Instagram client that has just landed on the Windows Store. Piktr is obviously a third-party development project and although it doesn’t come from Instagram or Facebook themselves, it is a fairly comprehensive and modern offering that should fill the void that exists for those mostly happy and content Windows 8 / RT users out there.
Although Piktr has been designed and developed to look and feel modern with great attention being paid to things like loading times, smooth scrolling and all other things that make using an app of this nature extremely enjoyable, it is noticeable by its lack of features due to the limitations of the Instagram API. Users are unable to register for new Instagram accounts through the Piktr application purely due to the fact that Instagram choose not to allow third-party developers to access these calls. The same goes for actually uploading new images to the Instagram network.
While those fairly important and core aspects of Instagram may actually be missing, that is in no way the developers fault and shouldn’t detract from what is a great and extremely polished Instagram app that exposes the available API calls extremely well and gives a great browsing and commenting experience for existing Instagram accounts on Windows 8 and Windows RT. Recent updates to the app include the new Search Charm feature that fully integrates searching for other users by their username.
The developer behind the app has also hinted that the ability to follow and unfollow other users will be coming in a new update as well as number of obligatory bug fixes and performance updates that will make Piktr even smoother than it already is. It also seems like that mobile users who prefer to have their experience handled by Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 will be getting the Piktr treatment in the future but there is no official word when that will actually come.
When the search functionality is extended and the follow and unfollow features are added into the equation Piktr will be an extremely functional and very well developed piece of kit for Windows 8 and RT users.
(Source: Piktr for Windows 8 / RT on the Windows 8 Store).
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