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Popular iPhone photo-sharing app Instagram has just released a real-time updates API that allows developers to use Instagram photos, tags, and locations in their own apps. The announcement wasn't all theoretical either: you can already see the new API in action with apps including Foodspotting, Dropbox and Momento. Other trendy apps will be launching Instagram integration soon, Flipboard and About.me among them. The API is read-only for the moment, so these apps are just pulling data from Instagram, not allowing you to post to it.
With a reported 2,000(!) developers already signed up for the API, third-party apps on other platforms (hello, Android!) probably aren't too far off. All it will take is for the API to go read-write and allow third-party apps to post photos and comments to your account. Instagram competitor Picplz already has an Android app, so it would behoove Instagram to get up and running on that platform ASAP.
If you don't have an iPhone, but you still want to see the new API in action, check out the official API demo or visit (http://instagre.at/) Instagre.at, a web gallery of Instagram photos.