For too long, hipsters who were so cool that they wouldn’t even bow to Apple’s hegemony have been deprived of Instagram, the popular photo filtering and sharing app for the iPhone and iPad. But how were Android’s devoted fans supposed to take pictures that looked old and share them with other people, artificially creating a sense of nostalgia? Were they just supposed to take regular photos? Fear not! After years of development, Instagram for Android has arrived; and the initial reviews say it was worth the wait.

The app became available for download at the Google Play store yesterday, and it has already earned 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 28,000 ratings. Gizmodo says that the interface is “beautiful,” and “really takes advantage of the extra screen real estate you get on Android phones.” And Engadget claims the developers have assured them “that the ‘exact same filters and algorithms are implemented on both [iOS and Android builds], so there is no difference in the output other than the raw image quality that differs between phones.’”

But a few features are missing, including a few filters and Share to Flickr; but these are expected to be added in later updates.

Have you tried Instagram for Android? What do you think?

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