There’s a new Instagram rival now available on iPhone

Flashes for Bluesky

Photo-and-video-sharing app Flashes has launched on the Apple App Store. Designed specifically for the iPhone, the Flashes app is built on Bluesky and is seen as a rival to Meta-owned Instagram.

After downloading Flashes on your iPhone, you can start using it by logging in through a Bluesky account; if you don’t have one, you’ll be asked to create one for Flashes. The new photo-and-video-sharing app has been compared to Instagram when the Meta-owned app was in its early days. Once you log in through an existing account on Bluesky, Flashes will take up image and video posts of people you follow and present them in an Instagram-like feed. Conversely, when you post a photo or video on Flashes, it will pop up in your Bluesky feed.

In Flashes, you can choose a custom feed without something similar to an Instagram algorithm showing specific content to you automatically. Personalise your Flashes profile and be in control of your profile visibility by choosing what information to show. You can enable or disable your Portfolio, Media, Likes and Lists.

Flashes comes with photo filters, and you can “showcase your best work by curating a standout portfolio”, as advertised by the app. Flashes also comes with VoiceOver support.

When you log in to Flashes, you will see multiple tabs: a home tab, a search tab, a tab to create new posts, a notifications tab for Bluesky notifications and a profile tab. Using the search tab, you can search for trending stuff in addition to someone’s post. Flashes offers over 50,000 feeds to choose from. Essentially, Flashes seems to be entirely dedicated to image and video sharing online with minimal extra features.