EyeEm Is A Beautiful Photography App With Creative Competitions And Lucrative Prizes

EyeEm is a photo-sharing app that already has 10 million users, but iPhone and iPad app has been redesigned with a clean interface and a new one-touch zoom feature to explore photographs in all their glory.

"We thought a lot about the first impression," Markus Spiering, EyeEm's chief product officer and general manager who is also Flickr's former head of product, told Business Insider. "With a photograph app, it should focus on photography - big bold images. But it should also find the right balance between images and the conversations."

At its most basic, EyeEm's visual overhaul and stark black background gets rid of distractions and keeps things centered on exploring the detail within photographs.

The new one-touch zoom feature seamlessly loads a full-resolution photo, and it means users won't have to compromise between the presentation and fidelity of their photos.

"You can really look at the small details that the photographer captured when he took that photo," said Matias Castello, EyeEm's head of mobile. "People like photos and commenting on them, but in this case we built this feature for people to engage with the photo itself."

But the heart of EyeEm is its 10-million strong community, and special competitions called "Missions" that keep users engaged and motivated with the opportunity to win prizes ranging from cash, a GoPro, an Xbox One, and lucrative publication opportunities.

The new update makes discovering new Missions easier with a tidy summary and some curated example photographs that frame the competition and get the creative juices flowing.

For example, a new Mission from The Huffington Post asks users to distill their definition of peace into a photograph for the chance to see their image credited in future articles. Another Mission from FourSquare called "Where do you Swarm?" asks you to capture your favorite hangout spot. The winner gets $300 and their photo hung on the wall of FourSquare's New York City office.

Previous Missions have resulted in over 10,000 submissions in only a couple of days, and it demonstrates EyeEm's understanding of how to keep users interested and hungry to prove their skills.

"What is most important to us when we create Missions is asking 'Does it fit the product and does it fit the community?'" said Spiering. "We work with our partners to figure out a creative challenge."

You can download the new version of EyeEm for iPhones and iPads here, or check out the Android version over at the Google Play store.