Smile! Microsoft Selfie App for iPhone Hits 500,000 Downloads

Just two weeks into its initial release, Microsoft Selfie for iPhone hit 500,000 downloads, a fairly impressive number for such an app. Who knew there was such an audience for a Microsoft app on iPhone?

Even Microsoft has registered its surprise.

“Within two weeks after releasing, our app has achieved more than half a million downloads, which is a lovely surprise for our team,” Microsoft’s Peggy Dai said. “Together with the research team we will introduce more innovative features to the app, and expand availability on more platforms.”

Dai says that “extensive instructive feedback from users” has led to some updates in the latest version of the app, which shipped last week. These include:

Share. Save has been renamed to Save/Share, and you can share selfies to Facebook or any app on iPhone that is registered for sharing (Message, Twitter, Mail, and so on).

Rate the app. A new Rating option in Settings lets you rate the app (and leave feedback in a review in the store if you want).

Airplane mode fix. A “crash issue” that occured when the phone was in airplane mode has been fixed.

UX updates.The app icon and UI have been updated.

In an Inside Microsoft Research post, Microsoft explained that the app came out of the firm’s Beijing facilities, with researchers from the Visual Computing group there contributing “a bevy of computer vision technologies ranging from face detection to visual recognition to super charge the experience contributing to the app’s meteoric rise in popularity.”

This video is also worth watching.

You can get Microsoft Selfie from the Apple Apps Store. As noted, versions for “more platforms” are on the way, Microsoft says.