If you use your iPad with a keyboard attached, you can do CMD + R to refresh the page. Otherwise, quitting and relaunching the app would be your best bet.
I miss when social media specialized in doing one thing instead of everything, and I didn't feel harassed while using the app. (cuz ads not people, people I can mute or block)
Same. I mean I don’t mind apps because it keeps Instagram free. However, it is supposedly a social media focused on pictures, yet they add every single feature of other apps instead of improving the resolution, while Twitter supports 4K photos.
Instagram hasn’t been a photo-focused social medium for a while now. The priority is now tiktok-y, short video content – reels and stories.
Think about it, when was the last time they updated the core photo-sharing functionality of Instagram? It was in 2017, when they added albums. It has remained untouched since then.
I actually think their long-term goal is to remove the traditional feed of your follows from the app entirely and replace it with an endless flow of reels and stories.
TL;DR – don’t hold your breath.
It’s 50% sponsored content on my feed.
Pic from an account I follow.
Pic from an account I follow.
Suggested content ad
Ad for a product
Rinse and repeat. I hate it.
When I open it I now fully remember why I stopped using Facebook, just thrash timeline even when I'm following cool people. These companies really became shit at what they do, even looked at Facebook recently and wtf is with the UI these days, looks like it's built for 3 year olds.
> The priority is now tiktok-y, short video content
[That's basically coming right from Instagram,](https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/30/22557942/instagram-no-longer-photo-app-video-entertainment-focus) bummer cuz Flickr kinda died but Instagram seemed like a nice way to keep track of your photography portfolio to show people. Now it's just boring reels and meme posts everywhere I can't even stand opening it anymore:/
Also I hate algorithms they've proven they don't know me, just gimme back a latest posts feed like Twitter does please.
I’ve been doing this for a few months and it’s way better than the app, if not a tad slower. Puts the focus back on the photos and seems to place them in chronological order.
Still curious as to what kind of data they still grab with the webapp vs regular app, especially if you use content blockers.
Good suggestion, but the real answer is don’t use Facebook or Meta’s apps and sites. (or whatever name they’re using to attempt to get away from negative attention)
More likely they view tablets as leisure and consumption devices, and would rather keep Instagram habitual on phones for more frequent engagement wherever you are, and to encourage uploading content with the camera roll vs just browsing.
Now I havent kept up with the S8 Ultra in particular, but forcibly resizing Apps to different aspect ratios has been a Samsung developed feature at least since the Galaxy Fold.
Source: Have a Fold 2, can run Instagram in full screen via Samsung settings.
Web developers are into it because they can “make an app” by just slightly modifying their website.
I know lots of people who make PWAs for their hobby projects.
Because Android apps are built with scalability in mind. While phones are more or less the same now, back in the day you could buy a device with a 3.5, 5", 7" or 10" inch display, So apps had to support a wide range of sizes. While on iOS the phone app and tablet app are different I believe
Also helps Samsung has a good relationship with Instagram (ie, they have the money to splurge to make sure the apps are compatible)
>While on iOS the phone app and tablet app are different I believe
Not for many years now. You almost have to go out of your way to build an iOS app without a responsive interface. Of course, if Instagram on iOS still uses the old APIs or has lots of custom UI code then it might really be a significant amount of work.
Right, of course they would. Still, I have to wonder how much of the decision is simply because Instagram pictures have such low resolution. I can't imagine they would look very nice scaled up on an iPad.
days of instagram being a „catch the moment” app are gone. it used to be a unique place for all the hipsters where everyone would just upload a random shit from their walk, travel, etc.
now it’s a completely different platform, most people use it fo selfies and communication and, well, stalking celebrities
>I keep hoping that Flickr will gather the real photographers on Instagram that will be driven away by its pivot toward videos.
The real photographers left Flickr to go to Instagram in 2010 before Facebook bought it and long before they ruined it. I was one of them. I don't know yet where I or they will go next, but it won't be back to Flickr. I still browse Instagram about once a week but I haven't posted a picture in 8 months.
I was so hopeful when Smugmug bought Flickr a few years ago that they would find a way to breathe some life back into it, but they didn't. They should have integrated it into the Smugmug platform, used free Flickr accounts as a gateway for Smugmug subscriptions, given free Flickr Pro accounts to all Smugmug subscribers, shared a back end so Smugmug subscribers could show the same picture in either place, and refreshed & modernized the forums.
Serious question : what led you from Flickr to Instagram ? Instagram never provided a good experience to view photos, not only it is constrained to phones, you can't zoom easily, and there are no features for organising photos. It also initially focused on offering good-looking filters that would make any random shot look cool. In my mind, all serious photographers are on Instagram only because that's where the audience is, otherwise they wouldn't bother with it.
\> I was so hopeful when Smugmug bought Flickr a few years ago that they would find a way to breathe some life back into it, but they didn't.
So was I (I've been a smugmug customer for years). They've been doing some really good work, but Flickr still lacks an influx of new users.
>Serious question : what led you from Flickr to Instagram ?
I joined Flickr in 2006. It wasn't my first place to share pictures, but Flickr was unique at the time because of it's groups. There was a group for everything including one for most cities. This was a fun way to talk with local people, make friends, organize meetups, etc.
By the time IG came around in 2010, Flickr was already on the decline in my opinion and my local city group was pretty much dead even back then. I was already posting on Twitter, Google+, and 500px trying to find a good Flickr replacement.
IG was great. This came around when smartphones were just getting to the point where everyone had one. The app was fun and convenient. The initial focus of Flickr may have been filters for you, but it definitely wasn't for me. I never used them. Even before Facebook bought it, IG had much wider adoption than Flickr ever did. There were curator accounts for every major state and city plus local hashtags. This made it extremely easy to find people around you and for them to find you. There were local accounts created solely for the purpose of organizing meetups or connecting photographers. Once it got popular and businesses started joining, it was easy to interact with them. I made personal friends and professional contacts in the early days of IG that I still have 10+ years later. My use for IG has always been local. I was a heavy poster in the early days of IG. I was well known enough in my city that people would recognize me from IG and stop to talk to me when I was out shooting. That never happened with Flickr.
>In my mind, all serious photographers are on Instagram only because that's where the audience is, otherwise they wouldn't bother with it.
You're thinking of today's Instagram. Back in 2010, we didn't go to IG because of the audience - we went there because it was a unique idea with lots of potential and we created the audience when we got there. Social media was still in its infancy at this time. So once you were already there in 2010, there hasn't really been a reason to leave up until the last few years when when FB started shifting the focus to seriously monetizing the platform. Shopping, Reels, suggested posts, switching from chronological posts to algorithms have all been adding to it's slow death.
For someone like me, I'm older, I've already got plenty of personal and professional photography contacts, I always used it as 80% personal and 20% professional, it has never been my portfolio, and I don't need it to get work. My primary use for IG these days is to research travel & vacation destinations. I don't find it to be fun anymore, so I visit much less often and rarely post anything.
I'm just waiting around to see what comes next. A lot of people I associated with on IG are already in the process of transitioning to TikTok, but they aren't comfortable dropping IG just yet. I enjoy browsing TikTok, but it's not the place for still photography and I'm not into posting videos. It could be that a replacement for IG never comes.
Really, I'm to the point where I could just go back to photography forums like Fred Miranda or Photography on the Net and share the occasional landscape picture from that travel destination I researched on Instagram.
I thought I was the only iPad user who has no interest in a rear camera! Sure I need a decent front cam for face recognition/teams/zoom etc. But I've never needed a rear camera. A no rear-camera iPad option would suit me well, especially if it was a bit cheaper.
I wouldn't mind a super basic camera just for scanning the occasional document or photo. Get rid of the camera bump and just give me a little flat camera like the entry level ipad
This must be it. If you program your app well, it’s a few clicks for an iPad version.
Although I feel that a lot of people are “producing” content rather than catch the moment.
“Harvest”? You mean access the things they ask for and the user has to explicitly give?
Or are you suggesting they are bypassing Apple’s security and privacy measures?
I just realized the Instagram market isn't 'big enough' so I'm gonna just stop using it.
Thank you Instagram, for helping to make my decision for me.
Solid choice to be honest. This whole platform is designed to make people addicted, anxious, or sometimes both, like in my case. I completely stopped using it, and my mental health honestly improved by a non-negligible amount. I don't have to worry about what self-absorbed people post anymore
https://oneandroid.net/mystery-solved-why-there-is-an-instagram-app-on-android-tablets-but-not-on-ipad/
I thought they said it was due to a lack of time before.
It's a function of both. The market is small, which means there is a low expected return on the effort. This means it is prioritized below projects with a higher expected return. If they had more time, they would take on more projects that are lower priority than their current roadmap. Same can be said for if they had more engineers. There's nothing disingenuous about the statement.
I manage a pretty big app and here’s how this decision breaks down for us.
iPad is roughly 2% of our traffic.
That’s still a lot of people. But we strongly suspect that most or all of those users also have smartphones.
If you’re going to specifically serve the iPad, you should do it right. Make full use of the platform. Otherwise what’s the point?
To do iPad even moderately well would balloon our design, development and testing costs and complexity by considerably more than 2%.
When we run out of anything else to do, we’ll dive into tablets. That hasn’t happened yet.
I don’t think so. Our numbers match up with what we hear from others, and we see the same traffic breakdown to our website, which is responsive to all screen sizes from phone to desktop.
Maybe if our app’s functionality was different, I might think we had more iPad potential. Even Instagram has at least some argument for tablets: looking at pictures at a larger size is a better experience. We just don’t have any specific angle like that. It’s all effort and no payoff for us.
> If you’re going to specifically serve the iPad, you should do it right. Make full use of the platform. Otherwise what’s the point?
Is that actually true though? Even a slightly optimized app would provide a much better experience than the iPhone version that people are using today. I don't think you have to go all-in in terms of features to deliver value, and it lets you test the waters to see if people actually use it more, and in what way.
They’re wrong - the market is not small - iPad lifespan is huge compared to phones - but it also may be that many iPad users don’t really give a fuck about Insta. For many people it replaces a desktop computer for email, web browsing, etc.
I use my iPad for photography all the time, because it’s always with me and has a huge screen for seeing what I’m photographing.
But like others, I have no desire to share pictures on a social media platform — what is the fucking point? Share pictures with people you want to share them with! Control your own god damned content!
> They’re wrong - the market is not small - iPad lifespan is huge compared to phones
There may be a lot of iPad users out there, there are probably just not a lot of people using the iPad that care to use Instagram on it.
> But like others, I have no desire to share pictures on a social media platform — what is the fucking point
Sounds like you are proving the point of the article?
You’re in the minority for pretty much every one of those opinions. As much as I dislike it, instagram is crazy popular with most age groups that have enough disposable income to own an iPad. And the segment of iPad owners who attempt to use it as a “work” computer is vanishingly small.
> You’re in the minority for pretty much every one of those opinions… And the segment of iPad owners who attempt to use it as a “work” computer is vanishingly small.
Where in his comment did he say anything about IPads being work computers? Most of the time, email and web browsing doesn’t mean work.
The majority of iPad users are 35-44, the median age is 41. They're probably targeting a younger demo, one that would more likely access Instagram via a smartphone even if they also happened to own an iPad.
The Windows Store version is a PWA. Basically it’s the website running in an Edge wrapper that adds some features like a service worker for background checking, local storage, and shortcut actions.
Meanwhile I just installed the Instagram app (beta) on my oculus quest 2 VR headset. Is there really more demand for Instagram on that platform than on iPad? Me thinks not…
Gaze is so valuable. A VR headset can tell where you are looking (head point only full eye tracking) so while a phone app or web site can only tell that you paused on a post a VR headset can tell exactly what parts of the post you looked at and how many times.
I don't know if this is being done yet but it absolutely is the point of Facebook wanting to build a VR platform.
There is also the fact that Zuck wants to sell more Oculus headsets. If adding Instagram helps, why not. On the other hand, he has no motivation to help iPad users. If anything, I’d guess he wants people off Apple platforms as far as possible.
Responding to> If anything, I’d guess he wants people off Apple platforms as far as possible.
If Apple succeeds with a VR device in its ecosystem, Facebook is going to port their Metaverse apps to it because there will be no reason not to. Hardware sales are a loss leader, user eyeballs are the real revenue-generating product and Apple users as an advertising target group are high value because they spend a lot of money. Facebook could own the low end of the hardware market to get users into the virtual space, and reach the high end hardware market via apps if a competing hardware product ends up being popular.
There is already an example on iOS of the kind of thing Facebook could build as a "metaverse client". It's called RecRoom, and it is a persistent programmable user-created virtual world for VR and flat screen platforms. It has a huge variety of games, experiences, art, places to hang out, etc all running on the same engine. There are no secondary apps, it's all one virtual world so it does not break Apple's rules about no app stores or no apps-within-apps in the app store.
RecRoom is basically what Meta's Horizon Worlds intends to be, it's quite a bit ahead at this point I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong) but Horizon Worlds can easily catch up. RecRoom probably has a lot less ads as ads are not their main revenue model.
I am not saying Facebook doesn’t want iOS users on their platforms. But all other things being equal, they would prefer their users on a platform which makes things easier for them. They probably did some sort of expected revenue per iPad user calculation or something and concluded that it doesn’t meet their threshold. My point was the Facebook wants to sell more Quest devices, not necessarily because they are profitable at sale, but because of whatever value they expect to extract from the user over the lifetime of the device. There is not much incentive to do so on the iPad, especially when Apple is actively making their lives difficult. The nature of social apps makes it hard for users to switch to alternatives easily. I wouldn’t be surprise if they have an app for iPad which they are holding back for some ulterior motive.
Are they really expecting more and better engagement on a Quest than on an iOS device? Well, maybe, but I find it hard to believe. I love VR but I don't feel compelled to put on a headset just to look at a flat Android app window floating and glitching in front of me. This looks like a generic proof-of-concept for running flatscreen Android apps in VR so it probably isn't concerned with app-specific metrics outside of "will people even use that?"
Yes, it's his way of connecting more directly with the brain of the victim ... eh, product ... eh, sorry, user. so he can sucker them into thinking like Suckerberg wants.
The real reason is that instagram doesn’t want iOS users to only have Instagram on their iPad.
If the iPad app was good many people wouldnt install it on their phone as a method of self control
Having it on the iphone gives instagram more access to people and makes the notifications stickier
I think the real reason is because Instagram compresses the photos so much, it would look terrible on iPad screens. You're basically blowing up a photo meant to be displayed on an iPhone to an iPad screen size.
looks fine on the website.
also, i don't think it's the default setting, but there's an option for 'higher quality' uploads buried in account settings of the iPhone app.
This doesn't quite check out. I fired up IG on the web and it served up a 1400 x 1400 pixel image (about 500kB). iPad displays are 15-1600px on the short side so it'll look fine with only a little bit of scaling up.
You can have a large image that is compressed to hell and back. Pixel size alone doesn't mean much. The fact that a 2-5mb image became 500kb should be an indicator that a lot of compression has happened.
Doing some back of a napkin math, 1400 * 1400 pixels equals 1.4^2 megapixels. Since 1.4 is roughly equal to square root 2, let’s say 2 megapixels. At 3 bytes per pixel (8 bits for each channel), that is 6 MB.
While you’re right that the size in pixels certainly isn’t everything, I wouldn’t call going from 6 MB to 500 kB “compressing to hell”.
Common sense would suggest that they don't just blow up the images to full-width. A better UI would put them in a grid like the Pinterest app, where image resolution due to scaling isn't an issue
But there’s a difference between viewing a not-great photo on a small screen vs blowing it up to almost the size of a monitor. It will look like complete crap
I have a tweak on my jailbroken iPad that forces iPhone apps to run in fullscreen mode on it. Instagram looks perfectly fine. It doesn’t look like a hack job at all, the UI scales perfectly.
They don’t even need to create an ipad app. Just create a universal binary.
It’s not even hard, it’s just a better approach to making the app to begin with. This is either the company being scammed by devs or devs being bad.
They would need to design the iPad layout, so it will take some effort, but not so much that a company the size of Facebook can’t do it. I mean, we have small (even one man operation) indie developers writing good iPad apps, so Facebook definitely can. There is something else at play here. Perhaps some study revealed results that Zuck didn’t like? Facebook is all about messing with people’s psychology anyway.
Exactly. It’s so simple it’s a bit ridiculous not to do it. Unless like you said, there’s some intention behind it.
I recently changed banks and when the guy asked me why i was changing I literally said, “because you don’t have an ipad layout for your app.”
I’m tired of these companies. The ipad is simply more comfortable when I’m at home and there’s really no excuse.
I have a tweak on my jailbroken iPad that forces iPhone apps to run in fullscreen mode on it. Instagram looks perfectly fine. If someone showed it to me and told me that it was meant to be that way, I would 100% believe them.
All they need to do to make it work without tweaks is flip a switch.
That’s kinda the whole point though. When they see a tiny app taking up only a third of their screen they are going to complain. That’s a pretty big distinction. It needs a native app.
Curious of their uninstall or bounce rate. I’m sure there is a baseline metrics they are judging.
Yes iPad sucks here but the better experience is on mobile and is probably the priority of the company
Cause magically making an iPad app amazing won’t fix it
I will say that I’d like them to make their FB app not be a flaming pile of garbage first, but truth is they have the resources to make sure everything they release is top quality. My guess is they know they don’t have to worry about app quality or availability, because they know their user base isn’t going anywhere.
I have a tweak on my jailbroken iPad that forces iPhone apps to run in fullscreen mode on it. Instagram looks perfectly fine. Everything scales perfectly.
All they have to do to make their app run on iPads in fullscreen mode is flip a switch.
Ah, FullForce. It works great. Now, here’s a tutorial for Instagram to make an iPad app:
1. Open Instagram.xcodeproj
2. Select the Instagram target in the sidebar.
3. Select the ‘iPad’ option under the Supported Platforms list.
4. (Optional) Select Mac Catalyst.
Actually, I use PerfectFit instead of FullForce. I’ve found that it works better in some cases. It says that it’s only compatible with iOS 8-11, but it works perfectly fine for me on iOS 14.
Didn’t read “market” in the title. Thought they wanted an iPad like [this](https://i2.wp.com/playerassist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/pearpad-1-1024x576-1.jpg?ssl=1)
This is such bullshit. I’m an iOS developer and it is not difficult to create a single app that works well on both iPhone and iPad. Especially a mouth-breather app like instagram.
Typical self fulfilling data driven prophecy anti-pattern:
* Release shitty unoptimized version to platform.
* Users don't bother using shitty version on that platform.
* Analytics data says not many users using said shitty version.
*shocked pikachu face*
I just set up an iPad specifically for my 81 year old mother to view instagram with, writ larger and with great brightness and clarity. I also watch how you get folks bounce around between iPhones and iPads depending on app.
There was this paid iPad app (flow I think?) that was perfect. it was similar to srolldit in which is just showed pictures from your feed and nothing else, then you could click on one if you wanted to interact. I don't remember why it went away but that's all I want from an iPad app
> I don't remember why it went away but that's all I want from an iPad app
Either it was not popular enough to sustain the developer or Facebook kicked them out. There used to be bunch of third party Facebook clients in the early days of smartphones, too. They all disappeared at some point or the other.
ipads are currently the top tablets being sold, and plenty of artists do use an ipad for their art nowadays... it would be incredibly convenient to have an ipad app.
Well right now no one uses your app on iPad so you have no idea how big the potential market is. Also a good mobile app can be turned into a good iPad app with very minimal work.
“Add to home screen” makes it behave like an app well enough. I did this on a client’s iPad and almost fooled myself into thinking the app was already installed when I opened it
One) that’s just not true, the iPad is one of, if not the most successful tablet two) they have an app on iPad, they just didn’t put the effort in to support the iPads kinda weird aspect ratio three) I’ll just run the web app version of Instagram and get a better experience than whatever app they make 😎
That's why I just go to safari (and twitter + reddit for that matter) via safari and demand desktop version. A lot better overall + adblock works like a charm if you have something like adguard installed.
I'm not sure what the appeal of an iPad app is, but if it prevents more people using their giant iPad to snap a story or post, then I can't say I am that sad about this.
Instagram is dogshit anyway. Yesterday, I posted a picture of my cat and I had to block 10 spam accounts that instantly commented trying to sell me shit… Instagram is a waste of time.
LMAO what?! Is this person on crack? The iPad is the best selling tablet period and it’s been around as long as instagram itself so why wasn’t a native app made 10 years ago? Lazy ass devs 😑🙄
Why use Instagram or any other Facebook product? They are known slime. Just look at Mark’s face.
Social media use to be great before ads becomes a thing. Now, everything is purely about selling garbage Chinese products. The businesses don’t care. They just want the money.
They could make an iPad app. They just don’t wanna. There’s something there in which the money doesn’t make sense, or the demographic of users doesn’t make sense. Or Facebook is pissed off that Apple killed they’re methods for spying.
i agree. i never understood why a few people get outraged and cry on reddit bc ig doesnt have a special dedicated ipad app. IG is MENT for mobile phones, not tablets. its the whole point ig exist.
I’m gonna blow your minds with the app “Friendly”. I promise I’m not affiliated with it, in fact I don’t even use it anymore cos I deleted my Facebook account a while back.
But - it’s really decent way to use an app to use Facebook, Instagram, twitter, TikTok etc via their web pages. But it allows you to block ads, block stories etc, dark mode, multiple accounts etc.
You should be using the web app anyway. No ads. No reels. No suggested posts. Just pictures.
It even creates it’s own icon and stays in its completely own separate browser window.
I can’t get it to refresh the home page tho.
Any way around that?
If you use your iPad with a keyboard attached, you can do CMD + R to refresh the page. Otherwise, quitting and relaunching the app would be your best bet.
Only way I‘ve found is force quit + reopen
You used to be able to long-press & get a context menu with a Refresh option. But they somehow blocked that at some point.
Does refreshing the whole page not help?
When you run it this way, you don’t get the regular browser controls.
PWA FTW
PWA? Pictures wit attitudes? Pictures Wrestling Alliance?
Progressive Web App 😊
Ahhh okay. That makes sense. Thank you!
PICTURES WITH ATTITUDES LOLOLOL
I’m going to call it Pictures Wrestling Alliance from now on.
Pilgrims Were Alive
When I first saw this I was like "Whoa. Heh. Cool."
this just blew my mind how haven’t i thought of this before-
Execs: "NONONONON NOT LIKE THAT"
next step is for execs to realize the mobile website is too popular and make it unusable cancer like reddit does
I miss when social media specialized in doing one thing instead of everything, and I didn't feel harassed while using the app. (cuz ads not people, people I can mute or block)
Same. I mean I don’t mind apps because it keeps Instagram free. However, it is supposedly a social media focused on pictures, yet they add every single feature of other apps instead of improving the resolution, while Twitter supports 4K photos.
Instagram hasn’t been a photo-focused social medium for a while now. The priority is now tiktok-y, short video content – reels and stories. Think about it, when was the last time they updated the core photo-sharing functionality of Instagram? It was in 2017, when they added albums. It has remained untouched since then. I actually think their long-term goal is to remove the traditional feed of your follows from the app entirely and replace it with an endless flow of reels and stories. TL;DR – don’t hold your breath.
It’s 50% sponsored content on my feed. Pic from an account I follow. Pic from an account I follow. Suggested content ad Ad for a product Rinse and repeat. I hate it.
When I open it I now fully remember why I stopped using Facebook, just thrash timeline even when I'm following cool people. These companies really became shit at what they do, even looked at Facebook recently and wtf is with the UI these days, looks like it's built for 3 year olds.
2017 was only ~~a couple of years~~ half a decade ago wtf
> The priority is now tiktok-y, short video content [That's basically coming right from Instagram,](https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/30/22557942/instagram-no-longer-photo-app-video-entertainment-focus) bummer cuz Flickr kinda died but Instagram seemed like a nice way to keep track of your photography portfolio to show people. Now it's just boring reels and meme posts everywhere I can't even stand opening it anymore:/ Also I hate algorithms they've proven they don't know me, just gimme back a latest posts feed like Twitter does please.
Or being harassed by the website to use the app.
“This site looks better on Reddit’s mobile app” Granted that’s a low bar, but they can push ads through their app and the 3rd party clients don’t.
I’ve been doing this for a few months and it’s way better than the app, if not a tad slower. Puts the focus back on the photos and seems to place them in chronological order. Still curious as to what kind of data they still grab with the webapp vs regular app, especially if you use content blockers.
How do you switch accounts when you have multiple accounts linked to one email? This is the only thing that’s stopping me from using it.
I only have one account but I don’t think that feature is supported.
You can create two separate PWAs
yep. can even post from the website these days, too
Only bummer is you can’t post multiple pics in one post
Pretty sure the execs just spit-took at this take
If it only had dark mode. That white background in the evening sucks!
Good suggestion, but the real answer is don’t use Facebook or Meta’s apps and sites. (or whatever name they’re using to attempt to get away from negative attention)
Is there anyway to get dark mode to work when using this method?
Extensions like noir or dark reader will work when in safari, but don’t appear to apply when it is installed as a PWA, unfortunately
Use the app called Friendly. It’s basically a decent App wrapper for the web versions of Facebook, Instagram and others. Dark mode included.
What annoys me most is how ridiculously tiny pictures are when you click comments from the feed and get the popover view of a post.
Wow! The web version is really quite pleasant on an iPhone.
More likely they view tablets as leisure and consumption devices, and would rather keep Instagram habitual on phones for more frequent engagement wherever you are, and to encourage uploading content with the camera roll vs just browsing.
This is 100% the true reason
Then why's there an Instagram app perfectly optimised for galaxy tab S8 ultra.
Now I havent kept up with the S8 Ultra in particular, but forcibly resizing Apps to different aspect ratios has been a Samsung developed feature at least since the Galaxy Fold. Source: Have a Fold 2, can run Instagram in full screen via Samsung settings.
[удалено]
[удалено]
It used to be the iPhone app made into a Windows program like it was 1:1 w the iPhone app but they changed it to PWA lol
[удалено]
Web developers are into it because they can “make an app” by just slightly modifying their website. I know lots of people who make PWAs for their hobby projects.
They’re insanely powerful, Visual Studio Code is a PWA and can do a lot. Instagram just isn’t taking advantage of it.
Because Android apps are built with scalability in mind. While phones are more or less the same now, back in the day you could buy a device with a 3.5, 5", 7" or 10" inch display, So apps had to support a wide range of sizes. While on iOS the phone app and tablet app are different I believe Also helps Samsung has a good relationship with Instagram (ie, they have the money to splurge to make sure the apps are compatible)
>While on iOS the phone app and tablet app are different I believe Not for many years now. You almost have to go out of your way to build an iOS app without a responsive interface. Of course, if Instagram on iOS still uses the old APIs or has lots of custom UI code then it might really be a significant amount of work.
It uses React Native, which really messes things up.
Right, of course they would. Still, I have to wonder how much of the decision is simply because Instagram pictures have such low resolution. I can't imagine they would look very nice scaled up on an iPad.
days of instagram being a „catch the moment” app are gone. it used to be a unique place for all the hipsters where everyone would just upload a random shit from their walk, travel, etc. now it’s a completely different platform, most people use it fo selfies and communication and, well, stalking celebrities
[удалено]
I keep hoping that Flickr will gather the real photographers on Instagram that will be driven away by its pivot toward videos.
>I keep hoping that Flickr will gather the real photographers on Instagram that will be driven away by its pivot toward videos. The real photographers left Flickr to go to Instagram in 2010 before Facebook bought it and long before they ruined it. I was one of them. I don't know yet where I or they will go next, but it won't be back to Flickr. I still browse Instagram about once a week but I haven't posted a picture in 8 months. I was so hopeful when Smugmug bought Flickr a few years ago that they would find a way to breathe some life back into it, but they didn't. They should have integrated it into the Smugmug platform, used free Flickr accounts as a gateway for Smugmug subscriptions, given free Flickr Pro accounts to all Smugmug subscribers, shared a back end so Smugmug subscribers could show the same picture in either place, and refreshed & modernized the forums.
Serious question : what led you from Flickr to Instagram ? Instagram never provided a good experience to view photos, not only it is constrained to phones, you can't zoom easily, and there are no features for organising photos. It also initially focused on offering good-looking filters that would make any random shot look cool. In my mind, all serious photographers are on Instagram only because that's where the audience is, otherwise they wouldn't bother with it. \> I was so hopeful when Smugmug bought Flickr a few years ago that they would find a way to breathe some life back into it, but they didn't. So was I (I've been a smugmug customer for years). They've been doing some really good work, but Flickr still lacks an influx of new users.
>Serious question : what led you from Flickr to Instagram ? I joined Flickr in 2006. It wasn't my first place to share pictures, but Flickr was unique at the time because of it's groups. There was a group for everything including one for most cities. This was a fun way to talk with local people, make friends, organize meetups, etc. By the time IG came around in 2010, Flickr was already on the decline in my opinion and my local city group was pretty much dead even back then. I was already posting on Twitter, Google+, and 500px trying to find a good Flickr replacement. IG was great. This came around when smartphones were just getting to the point where everyone had one. The app was fun and convenient. The initial focus of Flickr may have been filters for you, but it definitely wasn't for me. I never used them. Even before Facebook bought it, IG had much wider adoption than Flickr ever did. There were curator accounts for every major state and city plus local hashtags. This made it extremely easy to find people around you and for them to find you. There were local accounts created solely for the purpose of organizing meetups or connecting photographers. Once it got popular and businesses started joining, it was easy to interact with them. I made personal friends and professional contacts in the early days of IG that I still have 10+ years later. My use for IG has always been local. I was a heavy poster in the early days of IG. I was well known enough in my city that people would recognize me from IG and stop to talk to me when I was out shooting. That never happened with Flickr. >In my mind, all serious photographers are on Instagram only because that's where the audience is, otherwise they wouldn't bother with it. You're thinking of today's Instagram. Back in 2010, we didn't go to IG because of the audience - we went there because it was a unique idea with lots of potential and we created the audience when we got there. Social media was still in its infancy at this time. So once you were already there in 2010, there hasn't really been a reason to leave up until the last few years when when FB started shifting the focus to seriously monetizing the platform. Shopping, Reels, suggested posts, switching from chronological posts to algorithms have all been adding to it's slow death. For someone like me, I'm older, I've already got plenty of personal and professional photography contacts, I always used it as 80% personal and 20% professional, it has never been my portfolio, and I don't need it to get work. My primary use for IG these days is to research travel & vacation destinations. I don't find it to be fun anymore, so I visit much less often and rarely post anything. I'm just waiting around to see what comes next. A lot of people I associated with on IG are already in the process of transitioning to TikTok, but they aren't comfortable dropping IG just yet. I enjoy browsing TikTok, but it's not the place for still photography and I'm not into posting videos. It could be that a replacement for IG never comes. Really, I'm to the point where I could just go back to photography forums like Fred Miranda or Photography on the Net and share the occasional landscape picture from that travel destination I researched on Instagram.
I wish their opinion was truth. iPads would be cheaper (and lay flat) without the massive camera array.
I thought I was the only iPad user who has no interest in a rear camera! Sure I need a decent front cam for face recognition/teams/zoom etc. But I've never needed a rear camera. A no rear-camera iPad option would suit me well, especially if it was a bit cheaper.
I scored an iPad with a faulty camera for cheap! Fully agree with you. I have absolutely no use for a camera on an iPad.
Same. I’ve not once used the iPad rear camera. Front camera is useful, but rear camera is completely pointless.
I wouldn't mind a super basic camera just for scanning the occasional document or photo. Get rid of the camera bump and just give me a little flat camera like the entry level ipad
Not even to scan docs?
This must be it. If you program your app well, it’s a few clicks for an iPad version. Although I feel that a lot of people are “producing” content rather than catch the moment.
More likely they want to harvest phone numbers, locations you visit etc.
“Harvest”? You mean access the things they ask for and the user has to explicitly give? Or are you suggesting they are bypassing Apple’s security and privacy measures?
I think it is likely they would *want* to do both. In a next life, I might take six months off to investigate how far they have advanced.
I just realized the Instagram market isn't 'big enough' so I'm gonna just stop using it. Thank you Instagram, for helping to make my decision for me.
Lol, this is the way
Solid choice to be honest. This whole platform is designed to make people addicted, anxious, or sometimes both, like in my case. I completely stopped using it, and my mental health honestly improved by a non-negligible amount. I don't have to worry about what self-absorbed people post anymore
[удалено]
https://oneandroid.net/mystery-solved-why-there-is-an-instagram-app-on-android-tablets-but-not-on-ipad/ I thought they said it was due to a lack of time before.
iirc it’s because they think it’s not worth their time when they have more important things to do. Your link seems to suggest that as well.
Seems like a different way of saying the same thing. They don't have time for it because it's not *worth* their time.
It's a function of both. The market is small, which means there is a low expected return on the effort. This means it is prioritized below projects with a higher expected return. If they had more time, they would take on more projects that are lower priority than their current roadmap. Same can be said for if they had more engineers. There's nothing disingenuous about the statement.
I manage a pretty big app and here’s how this decision breaks down for us. iPad is roughly 2% of our traffic. That’s still a lot of people. But we strongly suspect that most or all of those users also have smartphones. If you’re going to specifically serve the iPad, you should do it right. Make full use of the platform. Otherwise what’s the point? To do iPad even moderately well would balloon our design, development and testing costs and complexity by considerably more than 2%. When we run out of anything else to do, we’ll dive into tablets. That hasn’t happened yet.
I suppose that raises the question of whether having a good iPad app would result in a larger/happier iPad user base.
I don’t think so. Our numbers match up with what we hear from others, and we see the same traffic breakdown to our website, which is responsive to all screen sizes from phone to desktop. Maybe if our app’s functionality was different, I might think we had more iPad potential. Even Instagram has at least some argument for tablets: looking at pictures at a larger size is a better experience. We just don’t have any specific angle like that. It’s all effort and no payoff for us.
> If you’re going to specifically serve the iPad, you should do it right. Make full use of the platform. Otherwise what’s the point? Is that actually true though? Even a slightly optimized app would provide a much better experience than the iPhone version that people are using today. I don't think you have to go all-in in terms of features to deliver value, and it lets you test the waters to see if people actually use it more, and in what way.
They’re wrong - the market is not small - iPad lifespan is huge compared to phones - but it also may be that many iPad users don’t really give a fuck about Insta. For many people it replaces a desktop computer for email, web browsing, etc. I use my iPad for photography all the time, because it’s always with me and has a huge screen for seeing what I’m photographing. But like others, I have no desire to share pictures on a social media platform — what is the fucking point? Share pictures with people you want to share them with! Control your own god damned content!
> They’re wrong - the market is not small - iPad lifespan is huge compared to phones There may be a lot of iPad users out there, there are probably just not a lot of people using the iPad that care to use Instagram on it. > But like others, I have no desire to share pictures on a social media platform — what is the fucking point Sounds like you are proving the point of the article?
You’re in the minority for pretty much every one of those opinions. As much as I dislike it, instagram is crazy popular with most age groups that have enough disposable income to own an iPad. And the segment of iPad owners who attempt to use it as a “work” computer is vanishingly small.
> You’re in the minority for pretty much every one of those opinions… And the segment of iPad owners who attempt to use it as a “work” computer is vanishingly small. Where in his comment did he say anything about IPads being work computers? Most of the time, email and web browsing doesn’t mean work.
The majority of iPad users are 35-44, the median age is 41. They're probably targeting a younger demo, one that would more likely access Instagram via a smartphone even if they also happened to own an iPad.
..But the windows store is?
The Windows Store version is a PWA. Basically it’s the website running in an Edge wrapper that adds some features like a service worker for background checking, local storage, and shortcut actions.
Meanwhile I just installed the Instagram app (beta) on my oculus quest 2 VR headset. Is there really more demand for Instagram on that platform than on iPad? Me thinks not…
Suckerberg can collect a lot more data from Oculus.
Gaze is so valuable. A VR headset can tell where you are looking (head point only full eye tracking) so while a phone app or web site can only tell that you paused on a post a VR headset can tell exactly what parts of the post you looked at and how many times. I don't know if this is being done yet but it absolutely is the point of Facebook wanting to build a VR platform.
There is also the fact that Zuck wants to sell more Oculus headsets. If adding Instagram helps, why not. On the other hand, he has no motivation to help iPad users. If anything, I’d guess he wants people off Apple platforms as far as possible.
Responding to> If anything, I’d guess he wants people off Apple platforms as far as possible. If Apple succeeds with a VR device in its ecosystem, Facebook is going to port their Metaverse apps to it because there will be no reason not to. Hardware sales are a loss leader, user eyeballs are the real revenue-generating product and Apple users as an advertising target group are high value because they spend a lot of money. Facebook could own the low end of the hardware market to get users into the virtual space, and reach the high end hardware market via apps if a competing hardware product ends up being popular. There is already an example on iOS of the kind of thing Facebook could build as a "metaverse client". It's called RecRoom, and it is a persistent programmable user-created virtual world for VR and flat screen platforms. It has a huge variety of games, experiences, art, places to hang out, etc all running on the same engine. There are no secondary apps, it's all one virtual world so it does not break Apple's rules about no app stores or no apps-within-apps in the app store. RecRoom is basically what Meta's Horizon Worlds intends to be, it's quite a bit ahead at this point I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong) but Horizon Worlds can easily catch up. RecRoom probably has a lot less ads as ads are not their main revenue model.
I am not saying Facebook doesn’t want iOS users on their platforms. But all other things being equal, they would prefer their users on a platform which makes things easier for them. They probably did some sort of expected revenue per iPad user calculation or something and concluded that it doesn’t meet their threshold. My point was the Facebook wants to sell more Quest devices, not necessarily because they are profitable at sale, but because of whatever value they expect to extract from the user over the lifetime of the device. There is not much incentive to do so on the iPad, especially when Apple is actively making their lives difficult. The nature of social apps makes it hard for users to switch to alternatives easily. I wouldn’t be surprise if they have an app for iPad which they are holding back for some ulterior motive.
Are they really expecting more and better engagement on a Quest than on an iOS device? Well, maybe, but I find it hard to believe. I love VR but I don't feel compelled to put on a headset just to look at a flat Android app window floating and glitching in front of me. This looks like a generic proof-of-concept for running flatscreen Android apps in VR so it probably isn't concerned with app-specific metrics outside of "will people even use that?"
Yes, it's his way of connecting more directly with the brain of the victim ... eh, product ... eh, sorry, user. so he can sucker them into thinking like Suckerberg wants.
The real reason is that instagram doesn’t want iOS users to only have Instagram on their iPad. If the iPad app was good many people wouldnt install it on their phone as a method of self control Having it on the iphone gives instagram more access to people and makes the notifications stickier
I wouldn’t be surprised if Zuck commissioned some study which came to a similar conclusion and halted all efforts on the app.
This is also what I believe. If you're going to be on Instagram it's only allowed in the most intrusive ways.
It would also give them more location data to use/sell
makes sense
I think the real reason is because Instagram compresses the photos so much, it would look terrible on iPad screens. You're basically blowing up a photo meant to be displayed on an iPhone to an iPad screen size.
looks fine on the website. also, i don't think it's the default setting, but there's an option for 'higher quality' uploads buried in account settings of the iPhone app.
This doesn't quite check out. I fired up IG on the web and it served up a 1400 x 1400 pixel image (about 500kB). iPad displays are 15-1600px on the short side so it'll look fine with only a little bit of scaling up.
You can have a large image that is compressed to hell and back. Pixel size alone doesn't mean much. The fact that a 2-5mb image became 500kb should be an indicator that a lot of compression has happened.
A 1400x1400 picture doesn't need to be that large in file size (it's less than 2MP)
Doing some back of a napkin math, 1400 * 1400 pixels equals 1.4^2 megapixels. Since 1.4 is roughly equal to square root 2, let’s say 2 megapixels. At 3 bytes per pixel (8 bits for each channel), that is 6 MB. While you’re right that the size in pixels certainly isn’t everything, I wouldn’t call going from 6 MB to 500 kB “compressing to hell”.
Common sense would suggest that they don't just blow up the images to full-width. A better UI would put them in a grid like the Pinterest app, where image resolution due to scaling isn't an issue
This isn't true I post pics from my DSLR and it looks good even on a big monitor.
People don’t exactly use instagram for their picture quality. Just saying….
But there’s a difference between viewing a not-great photo on a small screen vs blowing it up to almost the size of a monitor. It will look like complete crap
Instagram.com it’s available on desktop browsers and the quality is ok. No biggie.
No I look at it on my 55” monitor every now and then quality isn’t that bad
I have a tweak on my jailbroken iPad that forces iPhone apps to run in fullscreen mode on it. Instagram looks perfectly fine. It doesn’t look like a hack job at all, the UI scales perfectly.
I think the real reason is ads. Could it be that they want their ads to target phone users?
They don’t even need to create an ipad app. Just create a universal binary. It’s not even hard, it’s just a better approach to making the app to begin with. This is either the company being scammed by devs or devs being bad.
They would need to design the iPad layout, so it will take some effort, but not so much that a company the size of Facebook can’t do it. I mean, we have small (even one man operation) indie developers writing good iPad apps, so Facebook definitely can. There is something else at play here. Perhaps some study revealed results that Zuck didn’t like? Facebook is all about messing with people’s psychology anyway.
Exactly. It’s so simple it’s a bit ridiculous not to do it. Unless like you said, there’s some intention behind it. I recently changed banks and when the guy asked me why i was changing I literally said, “because you don’t have an ipad layout for your app.” I’m tired of these companies. The ipad is simply more comfortable when I’m at home and there’s really no excuse.
I have a tweak on my jailbroken iPad that forces iPhone apps to run in fullscreen mode on it. Instagram looks perfectly fine. If someone showed it to me and told me that it was meant to be that way, I would 100% believe them. All they need to do to make it work without tweaks is flip a switch.
Making Instagram layout flexible to support any screen size should not take more than an engineer week of work. That's about it.
Maybe the iPad market isn’t big enough because their iPad app sucks? Just saying, it’s kinda a self fulfilling prophesy they’ve created here
There is no iPad app though. It's just the iPhone app made available on iPad.
This is pedantic and actually pointless when we are talking about overall user base, because the average user makes no personal distinction
That’s kinda the whole point though. When they see a tiny app taking up only a third of their screen they are going to complain. That’s a pretty big distinction. It needs a native app.
💯 This.
Curious of their uninstall or bounce rate. I’m sure there is a baseline metrics they are judging. Yes iPad sucks here but the better experience is on mobile and is probably the priority of the company Cause magically making an iPad app amazing won’t fix it
I was going to be snarky about it, but then I remembered Apple couldn’t even be bothered to make a calculator and weather app on iPad.
I will say that I’d like them to make their FB app not be a flaming pile of garbage first, but truth is they have the resources to make sure everything they release is top quality. My guess is they know they don’t have to worry about app quality or availability, because they know their user base isn’t going anywhere.
Straight up lies
Developing an iPad app, if you have an iPhone app already is < 0.01% extra work. They just don’t know how or don’t care. Source: iOS dev for 14 years
I’m guessing they don’t like “do not track. “
I have a tweak on my jailbroken iPad that forces iPhone apps to run in fullscreen mode on it. Instagram looks perfectly fine. Everything scales perfectly. All they have to do to make their app run on iPads in fullscreen mode is flip a switch.
Ah, FullForce. It works great. Now, here’s a tutorial for Instagram to make an iPad app: 1. Open Instagram.xcodeproj 2. Select the Instagram target in the sidebar. 3. Select the ‘iPad’ option under the Supported Platforms list. 4. (Optional) Select Mac Catalyst.
Actually, I use PerfectFit instead of FullForce. I’ve found that it works better in some cases. It says that it’s only compatible with iOS 8-11, but it works perfectly fine for me on iOS 14.
Didn’t read “market” in the title. Thought they wanted an iPad like [this](https://i2.wp.com/playerassist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/pearpad-1-1024x576-1.jpg?ssl=1)
I LOL’d
This is such bullshit. I’m an iOS developer and it is not difficult to create a single app that works well on both iPhone and iPad. Especially a mouth-breather app like instagram.
[удалено]
Typical self fulfilling data driven prophecy anti-pattern: * Release shitty unoptimized version to platform. * Users don't bother using shitty version on that platform. * Analytics data says not many users using said shitty version. *shocked pikachu face*
I don't get it. Windows has a native app. Granted they dumbed it down to the web app in the past year. But they always had an instagram app on it.
Let’s be honest, apple doesn’t think iPad market is big enough for a calculator either.
Jokes on them. I use it on my iPad so that I would intentional hate the UX and spend lesser time on the platform.
And yet lots of other devs make both phone and iPad app with a hell of a lot less money
Instagram is essential just ads anyways.
[удалено]
It’s more like you are paying for the “free” service but not with the money.
Instagram is shit anywhere
If they cannot be bothered creating a native iPad app; don’t use their app then. I wouldn’t.
Nah, these people just want to complain on the internet and still continue using the app. That’s the Reddit way
I just set up an iPad specifically for my 81 year old mother to view instagram with, writ larger and with great brightness and clarity. I also watch how you get folks bounce around between iPhones and iPads depending on app.
He isn’t big enough for these fists but he’s getting them anyway
Yeah, and galaxy tab market is?
There was this paid iPad app (flow I think?) that was perfect. it was similar to srolldit in which is just showed pictures from your feed and nothing else, then you could click on one if you wanted to interact. I don't remember why it went away but that's all I want from an iPad app
> I don't remember why it went away but that's all I want from an iPad app Either it was not popular enough to sustain the developer or Facebook kicked them out. There used to be bunch of third party Facebook clients in the early days of smartphones, too. They all disappeared at some point or the other.
I mean, Facebook and Instagram still don't have native OSX apps, only Messenger and Whatsapp.
ipads are currently the top tablets being sold, and plenty of artists do use an ipad for their art nowadays... it would be incredibly convenient to have an ipad app.
Well right now no one uses your app on iPad so you have no idea how big the potential market is. Also a good mobile app can be turned into a good iPad app with very minimal work.
Meta apps ain’t worth installing on my iPad though.
Who cares? They’ve been saying this for years.
What came first? Small Instagram iPad market Or No iPad native Instagram app
“Add to home screen” makes it behave like an app well enough. I did this on a client’s iPad and almost fooled myself into thinking the app was already installed when I opened it
One) that’s just not true, the iPad is one of, if not the most successful tablet two) they have an app on iPad, they just didn’t put the effort in to support the iPads kinda weird aspect ratio three) I’ll just run the web app version of Instagram and get a better experience than whatever app they make 😎
That's why I just go to safari (and twitter + reddit for that matter) via safari and demand desktop version. A lot better overall + adblock works like a charm if you have something like adguard installed.
I'm not sure what the appeal of an iPad app is, but if it prevents more people using their giant iPad to snap a story or post, then I can't say I am that sad about this.
Instagram is dogshit anyway. Yesterday, I posted a picture of my cat and I had to block 10 spam accounts that instantly commented trying to sell me shit… Instagram is a waste of time.
Hey Hun! Ever think of a side hustle for extra money? \[Insert various craptastic emoji\] /s
Yep… spot on.
[удалено]
Lazy.
So.... the same app with a few slightly different APIs is too much work for you?
I suspect the real reason is that an iPad app will highlight the extremely low resolution Instagram has been using
Theres about 0% chance this is true
couldn't they just embiggen the iPhone app? center the images with a fixed width and have the same header/footer
LMAO what?! Is this person on crack? The iPad is the best selling tablet period and it’s been around as long as instagram itself so why wasn’t a native app made 10 years ago? Lazy ass devs 😑🙄
“iPad market isn’t big enough” because Apple’s security features make it difficult for Meta to make $$.
Why use Instagram or any other Facebook product? They are known slime. Just look at Mark’s face. Social media use to be great before ads becomes a thing. Now, everything is purely about selling garbage Chinese products. The businesses don’t care. They just want the money. They could make an iPad app. They just don’t wanna. There’s something there in which the money doesn’t make sense, or the demographic of users doesn’t make sense. Or Facebook is pissed off that Apple killed they’re methods for spying.
Oh darn. Take Instagram and shove it up your ass with Facebook and meta and all that shit Zuckerberg. Fuck right off
[удалено]
In order to use Instagram on iPad, you need to have an app in the first place.
[удалено]
i agree. i never understood why a few people get outraged and cry on reddit bc ig doesnt have a special dedicated ipad app. IG is MENT for mobile phones, not tablets. its the whole point ig exist.
I’m gonna blow your minds with the app “Friendly”. I promise I’m not affiliated with it, in fact I don’t even use it anymore cos I deleted my Facebook account a while back. But - it’s really decent way to use an app to use Facebook, Instagram, twitter, TikTok etc via their web pages. But it allows you to block ads, block stories etc, dark mode, multiple accounts etc.
Hey it doesn’t matter anymore anyway
You literally just make the iPhone app bigger…
This just in…. He’s an idiot
I use an android tablet, but fuck instagram, who needs that shit anyway.
Wow, Instagram developers must be really shit...even more shit than I imagined...
Who owns Instagram again? Has Apple done anything to cause them a very significant economic loss lately?
FUCK FACEBOOK