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Frontback, the perfect selfie-taking app, arrives on Android

Frontback, the perfect selfie-taking app, arrives on Android

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Nine months after its well-received release on iPhone, Frontback has arrived on Android. The selfie app captures two shots: one of the subject, and one of your face a second after taking the photo. The gimmick adds context, almost like an additional caption for the image, which you can then post to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Tumblr, as well as to the app's own news feed. You can also hashtag, caption, and include @replies with each photo.

"We don't try to acquire users, so the quality of the users is way way better."

Frontback also announced that it reached one million downloads on iOS. A million downloads is a milestone reached by an increasing number of apps, but Frontback founder Frederic della Faille stresses that the app's growth has been completely organic. "We don't try to acquire users," he tells The Verge. "So the quality of the users is way, way better." Della Faille wouldn't comment on active user numbers, but the app seems to be cultivating quite a community. The average Frontback user likes 15 photos every time they open the app, he says. Even some celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Joe Montana, and MC Hammer have joined.

Investor Ashton Kutcher recently gave della Faille some sage advice. "He said that fans never go where the celebrities are — celebrities go where the fans are," della Faille recalls. Kutcher's chicken and the egg problem is one that impacts almost every social startup, but given its success thus far and its unique, creative community, Frontback has a better than average chance of truly hitting it big.