Instagram has enjoyed taking up all the major photo app space for a long time now. But, every great empire must fall. Flickr is looking to knock Instagram off of its pretty filtered pedestal with a newly updated iOS app. How does the new Flickr stack up? I took a look at the iOS app using an iPhone 4. Here’s what I discovered.

Interface and User-Friendliness

Using the Flickr app can be a bit off-putting at first. It took me a few moments just to sign into the app. If the app remembers that you once had a Yahoo or Flickr account, it will ask you to sign in with this information. If you don’t remember what your username or password once was, it will take a few moments to retrieve this situation. You can sign in using Facebook or Google as well. Once signed in, you will see a number of photos from popular users. If you want to add friends to your feed, you will have to search for them by typing a name into the search bar (there is no way to automatically find Facebook or address book names).

As with Instagram, you can “favorite” a photo by double-tapping it. You can also follow random users quite easily by tapping the follow button. When it comes to taking photos, Flickr has taken some cues from Instagram here as well. The first similarity is the selection of photo filters that are available through Flick. The main difference here being the names that Flickr has given to available filters.

Photo Filters

Flickr’s photo filters include a number of different options. Each filter has an animal name (for some reason) and includes the usual black and white, sepia, and various vintage filter options. Seemingly, Flickr offers more filter options than Instagram, but a lot of these filters are somewhat insignificant. Once you’ve selected a filter using Flickr, you can then choose a number of different options including security options. Flickr also lets you add your photo a to group, create a tag for your photo, and determine the safety level of the photo you took (you can decide whether or not the photo should be public or private).

After you’ve finished editing your photo, you can share your photo using Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or via email. I found the Flickr interface slightly confusing at first and the icons used are overly large. Once I had a chance to use the app a few times, Flickr did grow on me. How does it compare to Instagram? Really, the two apps are very different. Flickr seems to be for photographers who are serious about photography and aren’t as interested in snapping, say, a photo of last night’s dinner or today’s dinner.

The photos that you’ll find on Flickr are of the serious landscape and still life sort. But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a lot of fun with what Flickr has created. It is harder to find friends using the Flickr app, but that may change with time.

Currently, the new Flickr photo app updates are only available on iOS. However, rumor has it that Yahoo will be updating its Android Flickr app soon as well. If you’re tired of what Instagram has to offer and are sick of all those duck faces, well, it might be time to give Flickr a try – it’s free.