Instagram has launched its first non-Instagram app today, and using it we will show you how to create hyperlapse videos (also known as smart timelapses) with your iPhone.

Instagram, Inc. is known for its titular mobile social / photography app, but not much else. That changes from today, as the company has announced and launched ‘Hyperlapse’ for iPhone – a fascinating and unbelievably powerful app for smartphones that allows you to create stable timelapse videos for free.

What Is A Hyperlapse / Timelapse Video Anyway?

We love creative photography ideas. Timelapse videos are created by taking photos at a regular interval (or a single, long video) to record the progress of or changes in a slow process, putting them together to form a video, and then speeding it up to see said progress faster. The result is often highly pleasing to the eye, and is a regular staple of modern cinema.

Creating stable timelapse videos requires expensive equipment. In so far, they were deemed impossible on mobile devices because of amateur photographers’ shaky hands, and just the nature of it. These problems have been solved, yet again, by the power of software.

Microsoft recently showed off an internal research project which created lovely ‘hyperlapse’ videos out of super-shaky GoPro wearable camera videos.

Instagram has one-upped Microsoft by actually launching their Hyperlapse software on mobile devices, particularly the iPhone and iPad.

How To Create Hyperlapse Videos

Instagram has kept their new app fairly simple. You simply launch the app, and start recording a video to document some long process. You can use it to capture the sunrise / sunset, the constantly changing view as you climb a hill, the street life of any city you travel to, and anything else that strikes your fancy.

Once recorded, you can select the speed at which the video is played back. From 1x (original speed), all the way to 12x. ‘Hyperlapse’ will process it to output a stable video that can be shared on Instagram and Facebook.

That’s it! No fancy professional cameras or tripods or lighting equipment required. Just record, select the playback speed, and share away.

Because it is night-time from where I write this, I honestly have not tested it out. I look forward to playing with this on sunrise.

Download Hyperlapse for iPhone and iPad [iTunes App Store Link]

Read more about the app’s development story over at the feature article published by WIRED.