A few days ago and 15 years too late, Meta released the official WhatsApp iPad app. And while many people celebrated the end of one of the most inexplicable software holdouts in App Store history, others asked the most obvious follow-up question: “Thank you! Can you get Instagram next?”
Yes, after all.
According to BloombergMark Garman in his latest version of his power in the newsletter has become “full steam” in the development and testing of the native Instagram app for the iPad.
“Employees at Meta Platforms Inc. are said to be actively testing their iPad Instagram and are actively testing their development work as full-powered.
Despite being one of the world’s largest tech companies and a core iPhone app for many users, Instagram has never offered an optimized iPad experience. Instead, iPad users had to settle down on the iPhone app and zoomed in.
Why delay?
For many, the lack of iPad support across Meta’s portfolio has long felt like Apple’s sheer swipe, in Mark Zuckerberg’s way back to Tim Cook for Apple’s past skirmishes.
For one, when journalist Kara Swisher responded “I wouldn’t be in this situation,” Zuckerberg reportedly was personally disregarded when he replied, “I wouldn’t be in this situation,” if he was facing a privacy scandal like Cambridge Analytica.
And then there was the entire Onavo Hubbub, which was easily (and very publicly) kicked out of Apple’s developer program.
In any case, this decision has always felt strange, especially considering how Instagram can help with casual browsing and media consumption. All of this makes you feel better on a bigger screen.
But now that WhatsApp has made its leap, it looks like Instagram is finally in the next line.
Why now?
Some of the delays state that “photos are often lower resolution and more obvious on larger screens.” Perhaps another part was Pettness. See above.
However, times have changed and the iPad’s user base has grown. Additionally, Instagram’s own use cases have evolved to include high-resolution content, widescreen video and long-form media consumption.
And there’s a Tiktok available on the iPad, and it continues to gain ground. Meta probably hoped that the Tiktok issue would disappear in court, but that wasn’t much by that day.
Ultimately, as competition has increased and meta exhausted its options to increase revenues for its current user base, using the iPad Instagram app is no longer an option, just like WhatsApp.
