In this week's Tap That App, we take a look at a new video capture app from Instagram called Hyperlapse. You might be understandably skeptical if you haven't heard of it yet, because who needs yet another image capture app from Instagram? Trust us: you and everyone you know will want Hyperlapse.

Instagram's Hyperlapse app is an example of consumer technology at its best. It offers an ingenious and simple solution to a complicated problem, and all in a package that's designed so it's easy for anyone (including people who don't have an Instagram account) to create great looking videos.

Hyperlapse is the newest solution to "shaky-cam syndrome" -- the most persistent and obnoxious drawback to videos made with smartphones, besides the unending curse of vertical video syndrome.

Traditionally, professional photographers and cinematographers attack the shaky-cam problem from two angles: You either have to physically stabilize the camera with a tripod, a steadicam or with tracking rigs, or you render the video afterwards with powerful editing software, which requires powerful computers.

Both options are terrible for smartphones, since the devices are not high-powered enough to run the kind of algorithms required to process each frame to digitally stabilize the video; And as far as option one goes, no one wants to bother attaching some stabilizing doohickey every time you shoot a video.

Hyperlapse solves the problem by basically taking both traditional options and cobbling them together, specifically taking advantage of the smartphone's unique features.

Firstly, like camera stabilizing and tracking rigs, nearly all smartphones these days have built-in gyroscopes, accelerometers, and other movement-tracking sensors. But by themselves, they can't really stabilize the camera (or the resulting video) the way external rigs do, by physically stabilizing the sensor.

On the other hand, professional video-stabilizing software is too processor-intensive for smartphones -- largely because those programs traditionally have to run algorithms to virtually model the camera's movement in order to smooth the shake out, frame by frame.

Hyperlapse was brilliantly designed to cut out the most ungainly aspects the two traditional solutions to shaky-cam -- the physical camera rig and the virtual camera modeling -- while it puts the rest of the puzzle together.

When processing your video after you shoot it, Hyperlapse takes the real-time camera movement data from the iPhone's sensors and be feeds it directly into a simplified version of image stabilization software -- which no longer needs the virtual movement-modeling bits to do the job because it already has the real data. And so the process of stabilizing the video can be done more quickly (in a matter of seconds for most videos) without needing to be performed on a super-powered desktop computer.

Introducing Hyperlapse from Instagram from Instagram on Vimeo.

But you don't need to know any of the technical details to use Hyperlapse -- though that was just a very basic and perfunctory description of a much more in-depth process -- which is another winning aspect of Instagram's new app.

Setting up the app is simple. Just download it, open it up, allow access to your iPhone's camera, and start recording video. You don't even have to sign up for anything or sign into an Instagram or Facebook account -- another aspect of Hyperlapse that should be applauded -- it's completely standalone.

When you're recording, you'll see a time counter showing both the real-time elapsed and how long that footage would last sped up to 12 times (the fastest timelapse speed the app offers).

Once you stop recording, you've got the option to set the video speed to 1x, 2x, 4x, 6x... all the way up to 12x speed. You can also save the unedited footage to process later if you can't decide what you want to do with it at the moment.

Of course you're encouraged to share your video on Facebook or Instagram, but as we mentioned, you don't have to. The processed video will save to your camera roll, which you can use, upload, or share however you want.

The super simple UI -- your only options are to shoot video, choose a timelapse speed, and share it if you want to -- is the final aspect that deserves praise. Not only is Hyperlapse making professionally stabilized video attainable on an iPhone, it's making it so easy that your grandmother could figure it out without help.

(Photo : Instagram)

And you'll end up with a great, professional-looking video (with or without the timelapse effect) -- without any of the jolts and bumps that come from walking, natural arm movements, or driving on a road.

The results are near miraculous considering the lack of effort required: Professional quality smooth video without any professional equipment or knowhow. All it takes is you and your iPhone (Android support is coming soon, after some technical changes are made to its underlying sensor software). Currently available for free on the iTunes App Store for iOS 7 or later, Instagram's new app is incredibly simple, intuitive, and definitely worth a try.

Hyperlapse represents a genuine step forward in what's possible with a smartphone and offers it in a way that's just so damn smart -- Steve Jobs would've loved it.

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