Snapchat vs Poloroid
when poloroid started making instant cameras, Snapchat and Instagram didn’ t exist. No one dressed up their photos with filters, or scrawled on them in fluorescent pink text. They simply pointed, shot, and threw bunny ears.
Polaroid’ s latest camera, the Pop, reinterprets the company’ s classic instant camera for the social media era. It debuted this week at CES and features a fourinch touchscreen, image stabilization, and a 20-megapixel sensor— specs to rival the smartphone camera you carry around all day. Of course you can add filters and stickers, with no shortage to choose from: party hats, dog faces, and decorative frames are a few of them. And just like in the days of yore, you can print a three-by-four inch photo and stick it on the fridge.
The Pop is digital and analog, all at once.
Polaroid hopes this combination attracts young consumers.“ I’ m old enough that we grew up with the original Polaroid,” says Robert Brunner, whose firm, Ammunition, did the Pop’ s design work.“ The simplicity, fun, immediacy of it— we want to bring that back to a new generation, in formats that they would find interesting and exciting.” Few things are more immediate( or addictive) than Snapchat or Instagram. But they aren’ t keepsakes.
Prints are. Pop uses inkless printing technology developed by a company called Zink. So does Snap, another digital-analog Polaroid model that came out in 2015.( Ammunition designed Snap, too.) The technology and image quality have only improved since then. As resolution increases, so too can print sizes. The Snap spits out two-by-three inch photographs( and costs $ 100), whereas the Pop emits photos that are the same size as a classic Polaroid. No word yet on price, but it’ ll cost more than a Snap.
In a way, Polaroid was always its own filter. The constraints of the technology— squeezing instant film into a portable camera— resulted in fairly low resolution. Polaroids are just a bit blurry, and therefore immediately nostalgic. You still have that, but now you can add a cartoon party hat, too.
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