Piictu turns photo sharing into a social game

A new photo sharing app for the iPhone and iPod touch has been released, designed to allow players to not only snap and share photos but interact with other users on a photo-based social network. Described as “part photo game, part social camera,” Piictu allows users to take pictures, dubbed “piics” and post them onto the service where other users can then reply with their own piics. Users can browse streams of friends and other nearby Piictu users and initiate and reply to any photo stream simply by snapping their own piic and posting it. The app also provides instant sharing of photos with Facebook and Twitter, the ability to share photos and interact with non-Piictu users and full support for both the front and back cameras on the iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod touch. Piictu requires iOS 4.1 and is available from the App Store as a free download.