Hipstamatic is back. Hipstamatic X is a new and improved version of the old classic. Think of the same old Bill Murray but this time in a Comme de Garcons outfit. (By the way we were talking about Lost in Translation last night over dinner, so probably that is why I made that analogy this morning.) I don’t know, but there is something ironic and poetic about the return of this photo capture application, that at one time was the rage of the mobile photographers.

It came of age when our smartphone cameras sucked. Photos then needed to be masked with filters and looks of analog film and cameras. Anything to make the photos that were grainy become artistic. Then, Instagram happened and Hipstamatic which at one time was rumored to be bringing in millions of dollars in revenues faded into the background,

“It’s funny that 10 years later I found myself wanting the same thing I did with the original iPhone; a camera that was like my old sx-70. Over the years I’ve often been too close to the mobile photo world to see what was missing. For me it turned out that the concept of a analog-like point and shoot was I was missing. Sadly, that experience had gotten lost in Hipstamatic many many updates since its release in 2009. That’s why I spent the past year working with the team at Hipstamatic to start over.” wrote Lucas Allen Buick, Co-Founder @Hipstamatic in an email

Today our smartphones are cameras-first and phones later. I am using the iPhone 11 Pro for pretty much every casual photograph, and am constantly blown away by the quality of even casual photos. As photography becomes computational, our photos become even more perfect, thanks to the efforts and the power of artificial intelligence in the photo processing software. The iPhone Pro 11 is a perfect example of what can be achieved when you combine the power of silicon with artificial intelligence. It has started to take the guesswork out of how normal humans make photos and started to eliminate the mistakes we make in making snapshots. It is only the start. It won’t be long before we won’t think about editing photos and our photos will automagically be good, even if we don’t know how to even really make good photos.

And perhaps that is why the return of Hipstamatic feels so bitter-sweet and tinged with a sense of irony. As machines make our images perfect, I wonder if we have this need for imperfection as a way to take back control. Do we yearn for a style that brings a sense of nostalgia, of a time when we, and not the software made the decisions? Hipstamatic’s latest version can be a good app to experiment. It still retains most of its original quirks and features. It isn’t the easiest to use — even today – but it is still fun.

Try it.