Taking pictures has always been a huge part of my life. I take pictures of literally everything; friends, family, pets, food, nature, etc. So when a new social media app surfaced focused on taking aesthetic pictures, creating albums, and sharing them with friends, I just had to jump on the trend. The name of that new app is Lapse. It’s almost as if Dispo, VSCO, Tinder, and Instagram had a baby. It’s an app that works like a disposable camera, and you can swipe right to share the picture once it “develops”, or swipe left to save it privately.Â
I know most readers are probably thinking: what makes Lapse different from all the other platforms? There are a ton of cool new features on Lapse that no other platform has.Â
Selects
Selects is a feature that allows you to showcase your favorite pictures on your profile by creating a video using your selected pictures. This video goes right behind your profile picture like a cover photo. It’s a great way to share your favorite memories with others right on your profile page. It’s especially great for people like me who always have a hard time choosing just one cover photo on other apps.Â
Music
Most social media companies have integrated music features onto their platforms, such as adding music to stories or posts. However, Lapse takes a unique approach by allowing users to select a song to play on their profile page and change it at any time. Additionally, users can add music to their monthly recaps, which is a great way to keep friends updated on their favorite songs or artists. Eventually, I can see Lapse allowing users to add songs to their albums, but the app is still relatively new so this may not happen for a while.
Emojis
I think one interesting feature of Lapse is how it incorporates emojis on its platform. Rather than just receiving likes or comments on a post, users can leave an emoji reaction, similar to how it works on Facebook. What’s unique about Lapse, though, is that it lets you choose your top 5 favorite emojis, which are then displayed as a part of your profile photo. I haven’t seen this feature on any other social media platform before, and I think it adds a nice touch of personality to your profile page. It’s definitely one of my favorite features because emojis can say a lot about a person.Â
Albums
Like Facebook, Lapse offers an album feature. Any album can be made public or kept private, you can add as many pictures as you want, add a name to the album, and even add saved pictures to the album you never posted to your friends. It’s a great way to organize your favorite memories! This is a feature I would love for Instagram or Snapchat to integrate, as I love organization, especially for photos since it makes finding a specific picture much quicker and easier.
Recaps
My favorite feature of Lapse is the recaps. It automatically creates a video recap of all the photos you post in a month on your “journal” or profile page. Plus, you can also get recaps of any of your albums. It’s such a unique and adorable way to share your favorite photos with my friends without having to manually create them.Â
Invite-OnlyÂ
Lastly, another feature that is unique to Lapse is that the app is invite-only. Because Lapse is new, the creators have kept users limited on an invite-only basis. It is unclear if this feature will stay, or if this feature is only for the early stages of the app. However, this is a cool feature to ensure your account is only shown to your best friends.
Lapse offers a refreshing change from the typical apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, making it more enjoyable and exciting. This generation of college students tends to get bored quickly, and Lapse satisfies their need for something unique. Arguably, we haven’t seen a good, new social media app since the release of TikTok in 2016…around 7 years ago. I’d say after 7 years of the same few apps, we needed some serious change. Lapse is capitalizing on this opportunity and taking the world by storm.