Starmatic was a social networking-enabled

photo sharing Image sharing, or photo sharing, is the publishing or transfer of digital photos online. Image sharing websites offer services such as uploading, hosting, managing and sharing of photos (publicly or privately). This function is provided through ...

and filtering application for the

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

iPhone, launched in September 2012.

History

Starmatic made its debut on the

Apple App Store The App Store is an app store platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc., for mobile apps on its iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The store allows users to browse and download approved apps developed within Apple's iOS Software Devel ...

on September 5, 2012, gained almost 500,000 users, and was discontinued in May 2014.

Backstory

The Starmatic application was named after the Starmatic Brownie

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a ...

introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1959. Starmatic was part of

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

's Brownies Star series launched in 1957. Made of plastic and relatively cheap, Starmatic fell in the category of toy cameras and was sold over an estimated 10 million units in 5 years. The icon and the camera of the application were modeled after the original Starmatic camera while the two rolls of filters, Starmacolor and Starmachrome, have been inspired by the

127 film 127 is a roll film format for still photography introduced by Kodak in 1912. The film itself is 46 mm wide, placing it between 35 mm and 120 "medium format" films in terms of size. The image format normally used is a square 4 ...

s used by Starmatic cameras.

Reception

Starmatic made

's Top 25 New and Noteworthy iPhone apps in 20 countries (including USA, China, Japan, Italy and France) and gained over 50,000 registered users from around the world within a month. Starmatic was named an App of the Week by Stuff magazine,

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

, AppAdvice and AppMyWorld. The app was praised for its nice interface and was wholly perceived by the media as a qualitative and serious alternative to Instagram. Nicholas Carron, in its extensive review of the app for ''We Are Juxt'' stated:

Upon opening the app for the first time, there is an immediate sense that the Starmatic team not only understood the niche benefits of reviving a legendary brand, they utilized their various backgrounds in design, fashion, photography, advertising and previous business pursuits to create a handheld, interactive product that is visually appealing and tempts exploration.

Upon its launch, Starmatic has also been recommended via

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

by the

and by British actor

Stephen Fry Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...

to its 5 million followers.Stephen Fry's tweet for Starmatic
Retrieved October 26, 2012.

References

External links

Grampros.com
{{Eastman Kodak 2012 software IOS software Image-sharing websites Defunct social networking services Kodak cameras