Once upon a time a company pioneered simple photo sharing. By allowing consumers to easily take and share pictures, photography became a part of everyday life.
Now, several generations removed, Polaroid is essentially an empty shell of the once iconic brand it used to be. The Instagram Socialmatic Camera is just a concept currently, but it attempts to revive the Polaroid movement with a little help from every hipster’s favorite mobile app, Instagram.
The large concept camera comes courtesy of ADR Studios, who modeled after Instagram’s logo (which itself is a play on Polaroid). Around the back of the camera is a printer capable of producing photos on sticky strips for quick and easy sharing. The camera would also feature 16GB of storage, a large 4:3-inch touchscreen, interchangeable lens, WiFi, and Bluetooth connectivity — all the goods needed for the ideal mobile Instagram machine.
The idea actually isn’t that novel. Polaroid and Olympus outed a very similar device in 2001 of course sans the touchscreen and the Instagram integration. That camera, the C-211 took pics, printed pictures and also had a pretty awful form factor.
Again, this is just a concept but as Freshness Mag points out, it would not be surprising to see something very similar hit Kickstarter in the near future with or without Instagram’s (and Facebook’s) permission.
