Instagram launched Boomerang, an iOS and Android app that “takes a burst of photos and stitches them together into a high-quality mini video that plays forward and backward”.

The app is similar to Apple’s Live Photos and Google Photo’s animation feature.

The animations, which don’t have any sound and can be shot in both portrait and landscape format, can be shared on Instagram and Facebook.

Earlier this month, on Instagram’s fifth birthday, co-founder Kevin Systrom said video has to be at the core of the company if it is to succeed in the long term.

Instagram already offers looping videos and a standalone time lapse video app called Hyperlapse.

The photo sharing platform hit 400 million monthly active users in September.