Apple debuted the iconic and now wildly fashionable iPad in 2010. A couple of 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 immediately: 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 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 gadget 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 present app proper now, and you will see the identical telephone app stretched to the iPad’s display measurement, with awkward gaps on the perimeters. And you will run into the occasional issues once you publish images from the iPad, like low-resolution photos. Weirdly, Instagram did introduce format enhancements for folding telephones a couple of years in the past, which implies the expertise is healthier optimized on Android tablets immediately than it’s on iPad.
Instagram’s chief, Adam Mosseri, has lengthy provided excuses, usually citing a scarcity 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 12 months. (WhatsApp made its debut on telephones in 2009.)
The contemporary iPad app (which runs on iPadOS 15.1 or later) presents greater than only a facelift. Sure, the Instagram app now takes up all the 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 high, and you’ll hop into completely different tabs through the menu icons on the left. There is a new Following tab (the folks icon proper under the house icon), and it is a devoted part to see the most recent posts from folks you really comply with.
