Apple debuted the iconic and now wildly fashionable iPad in 2010. Just a few months later, Instagram landed on the App Retailer to speedy success. However for 15 years, Instagram hasn’t bothered to optimize its app format for the iPad’s bigger display.
That is lastly altering right this moment: There’s now a devoted Instagram iPad app out there globally on the App Retailer.
It has been a very long time coming. Even earlier than Apple started splitting its cellular working system from iOS into iOS and iPadOS, numerous apps adopted a recent consumer interface that embraced the bigger display measurement of the pill. This was the iPad’s calling card on the time, and people native apps optimized for its exact display measurement are what made Apple’s machine stand out from a sea of Android tablets that largely ran cellphone apps inelegantly blown as much as match the larger display.
Besides Instagram by no means went iPad-native. Open the prevailing app proper now, and you may see the identical cellphone app stretched to the iPad’s display measurement, with awkward gaps on the perimeters. And you may run into the occasional issues while you submit images from the iPad, like low-resolution photographs. Weirdly, Instagram did introduce format enhancements for folding telephones a couple of years in the past, which suggests the expertise is healthier optimized on Android tablets right this moment than it’s on iPad.
Instagram’s chief, Adam Mosseri, has lengthy supplied excuses, usually citing an absence of assets regardless of being part of Meta, a multibillion-dollar firm. Instagram wasn’t the one offender—Meta promised a WhatsApp iPad app in 2023 and solely delivered it earlier this 12 months. (WhatsApp made its debut on telephones in 2009.)
The recent iPad app (which runs on iPadOS 15.1 or later) affords greater than only a facelift. Sure, the Instagram app now takes up your complete display, however the firm says customers will drop straight into Reels, the short-form video platform it launched 5 years in the past to compete with TikTok. The Tales module stays on the prime, and you can hop into completely different tabs by way of the menu icons on the left. There is a new Following tab (the individuals icon proper under the house icon), and this can be a devoted part to see the newest posts from individuals you truly comply with.
