Starmatic

Starmatic S.A.
Type of site
Photo sharing
Available inEnglish, French
Headquarters
Paris
,
France
Area servedWorldwide
URLwww.starmatic.com
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedSeptember 2012
Current statusDiscontinued

Starmatic was a social networking-enabled photo sharing and filtering application for the Apple iPhone, launched in September 2012.

History

Starmatic made its debut on the Apple App Store 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 introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1959.[1] Starmatic was part of Kodak'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.[2]

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 films used by Starmatic cameras.

Reception

Starmatic made Apple'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,[3] The Guardian,[4] AppAdvice[5] and AppMyWorld.[6] The app was praised for its nice interface[7] and was wholly perceived by the media as a qualitative and serious alternative to Instagram.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

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.[16]

Upon its launch, Starmatic has also been recommended via Twitter by the Apple App Store[17] and by British actor Stephen Fry to its 5 million followers.[18]

References

  1. ^ Starmatic for iPhone springs the original Kodak Brownie Starmatic camera back to life Publisher Redmond Pie. September 16, 2012.
  2. ^ History of Kodak - Milestones chronology. Kodak.com
  3. ^ Starmatic, an App of the Week. Stuff magazine. September 17, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  4. ^ Starmatic, an App of the Week. The Guardian. September 7, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  5. ^ AppAdvice App of the week for September 10, 2012 AppAdvice, September 10, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  6. ^ Top App of the Week. AppMyWorld. September 27, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  7. ^ "Can Starmatic and Glopho bring anything new to the photo apps table?" TechCrunch. September 6, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  8. ^ "L'application iPhone Starmatic : La vraie alternative à Instagram enfin disponible" Archived 2012-10-15 at the Wayback Machine. (in French). PixPopuli. September 7, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  9. ^ "Starmatic photo sharing per chi non ama più Instagram" (in Italian). Comunità Digitali. September 7, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  10. ^ Starmatic nebo Instagram? (in Czech). The Imho. September 9, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  11. ^ "Is Instagram alternative Starmatic your new favourite photo app?" Shiny Shiny. September 10, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  12. ^ "Starmatic = The New Instagram?" Archived 2012-11-18 at the Wayback Machine Spontaneous Shot. September 11, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  13. ^ "Starmatic, une alternative française à Instagram" (in French). Gizmodo. September 26, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  14. ^ "Starmatic : une alternative à Instagram" (in French). CréaNum. September 26, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  15. ^ "E se starmatic fosse meglio di Instagram?" Archived 2013-01-21 at archive.today (in Italian). Francesco. October 15, 2012. Retrieved October 28, 2012.
  16. ^ "Starmatic iPhone App Review: Paying Tribute to the Legendary Kodak Starmatic Brownie Camera". We Are Juxt. September 12, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  17. ^ Apple's tweet for Starmatic. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  18. ^ Stephen Fry's tweet for Starmatic. Retrieved October 26, 2012.