Prisma, our favorite filter app, is getting offline processing on Android

Prisma took the world by storm this summer with its innovative AI-powered filters.

The app lets you turn the most mundane shots into beautiful, striking creations, in just a few seconds and with minimal effort.

Prisma’s “secret” is its artificial intelligence algorithm that looks at pictures and redraws them from scratch in a variety of styles. Because this algorithm runs on Prisma’s servers, your phone is spared the computational-intensive work of converting images. While that’s good for battery life, the drawback is you can’t play with Prisma without an internet connection.

That will change from today, when an update will give Prisma the ability to convert images in offline mode. The app will work just like before, but you’ll only need an internet connection to download new styles.

For now, only 60% of the styles are available offline, but the rest will be added by the end of the month.

In offline mode, the processing work will be handled by the device’s CPU, so it helps to have a high-end phone. But even with cheaper phones, offline conversion shouldn’t take more than a few seconds. According to Prisma co-founder Aram Airapetyan, applying a style takes about two seconds on the Galaxy S7 and about five seconds on the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3.

Best of all, offline mode will allow you to avoid the “Prisma is over capacity” messages that the app sometimes spits out when its servers are overloaded.

Initially, offline mode will only be available on devices running Android 5.0 Lollipop or higher, but Prisma is working on extending support to Android 4.4 KitKat.

As for video conversion, a feature that just arrived on the iOS version of the app, Prisma’s Aram Airapetyan says that Android users should expect it in 2-3 weeks. Intriguingly, Airapetyan teased a “bigger and cooler” feature that will hit Android before video processing, though he wouldn’t spill the beans just yet.

Head over to the Play Store to download Prisma and let us know your thoughts!