Would Twitter, Instagram or Vine be any fun if you couldn’t participate in the social experience? No, probably not. This is the problem that Motorola’s Droid Zap had: it was a unique, localized photo-sharing service that left non-Droid owners out to dry. Now, Motorola is finally letting other phone owners become part of the conversation, opening the app’s photo-sharing features to all Android devices.
Motorola’s Droid Zap, an exclusive feature for Verizon’s 2013 DROID line, always seemed a bit on the limited side. Maybe that’s because only those three DROID phones could actually use the service – other phones could receive photos from nearby users with the Zap app, but only the DROID Ultra, DROID Mini, and DROID Maxx could send them. Today Moto has seen the light and made both sending and receiving photos possible for any phone. If you’ve never used Zap, it goes something like this: open the Zap app and you’re given a list of your local photos. Tap and drag up with two fingers, and your phone creates a “virtual sharing zone” around your GPS location. Anyone with the Droid Zap app installed who’s inside that area will be alerted, and can download the photo to their device. Users can add a PIN to the download for a little extra security.
