Apple debuted the iconic and now wildly common iPad in 2010. A number of months later, Instagram landed on the App Retailer to speedy success. However for 15 years, Instagram hasn’t bothered to optimize its app structure for the iPad’s bigger display.
That is lastly altering at present: 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 contemporary person interface that embraced the bigger display dimension of the pill. This was the iPad’s calling card on the time, and people native apps optimized for its exact display dimension are what made Apple’s machine stand out from a sea of Android tablets that largely ran telephone 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 will see the identical telephone app stretched to the iPad’s display dimension, with awkward gaps on the perimeters. And you will run into the occasional issues if you submit photographs from the iPad, like low-resolution pictures. Weirdly, Instagram did introduce structure enhancements for folding telephones a couple of years in the past, which implies the expertise is best optimized on Android tablets at present than it’s on iPad.
Instagram’s chief, Adam Mosseri, has lengthy supplied excuses, typically citing an absence of sources 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 yr. (WhatsApp made its debut on telephones in 2009.)
The contemporary iPad app (which runs on iPadOS 15.1 or later) gives greater than only a facelift. Sure, the Instagram app now takes up the whole 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’ll hop into totally different tabs through the menu icons on the left. There is a new Following tab (the individuals icon proper under the house icon), and it is a devoted part to see the newest posts from individuals you really comply with.
