Gif culture – the use of animated image files on the web – has become a key online visual format in the past year. At the same time, the trend for sharing mobile phone images using apps such Instagram has also exploded in popularity. So what happens when the two behaviours combine? You get some sort of lo-fi, social animated Gif maker. Or Cinemagram.

The new app, created by Canadian-based developer Factyle, lets people shoot short videos on their iPhone and instantly turn them into an animated Gif file. A person uses the app to shoot a short film of around a second or two in length. They then use the 'mask' tool to highlight the animated area (works best if there's just a small part of the frame that's moving). Then they choose one of the lo-fo filters – similar to the style of those in the ever-growing Instagram app – to add a lo-fi quality to the finished animation. Then the completed Gif is ready to be shared with the world.