Instagram started as a place to filter, share, and like your iPhone photos.

Glass is like that, only without the filters or the likes.

Like OG Insta, Glass is iPhone-only.

The view of an image through a detached camera lens someone is holding up.

Paul Skorupskas / Unsplash

Glass is so pared down that it makes Philip Glass look like a 1990s-era Geocities home page in comparison.

But do we need a pure photo-sharing site?

Glass

Thats all fine, but what if you just want to share and look at photos?

Screenshots from the Glass app.

Glass

Now that Instagram isofficially over as a photo-sharing site, photographers and photo fans will have to look elsewhere.

Glass is here to plug the gap.

Its focused on sharing and viewing photos and nothing else.

An image from a photographer on Glass

Glass

Do We Need It?

But there are already places to do this.Sunlitis amicro.blog-based app thats philosophically very similar to Glass.

If people arent signing up and using it, then who do you follow?

Currently, its hard to judge the app because there are so few people using it.

Instagram got a big leg up by importing your Twitter following list, but those days are over.

And Glass is currently invite-only.

The other barrier is the subscription.

And yet Glass is compelling.

you might tell photography lovers have built it.

The photos are the main attraction, and the design only reinforces that.

Then, if you like what you see, following them is done with just a one button-tap.