Fact: the iPad launched 15 years ago in 2010. Steve Jobs famously made himself comfortable in a leather armchair and then proceeded to show everybody how “magical” the iPad was for browsing the web, looking at photos, and—yes—checking Facebook. Also fact: Instagram launched months later that fall, two years before Mark Zuckerberg would cut the app’s founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, a fat check for $1 billion. In the decade and a half since establishing itself as the go-to place to share photos (and the app that just copies Snapchat and TikTok features to a T), Instagram has resisted releasing an iPad app. That all changes today.
Instagram is now finally—officially—available on iPad. Why did it take so long? Who the hell knows? Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has repeatedly dodged questions about bringing Instagram to iPad, claiming the company didn’t have the resources or that it wasn’t a priority. The important thing is now you can use your Apple tablet to watch Reels until you’re soulless.
More room on an iPad screens
If I’m being honest, there’s nothing remarkable about the design of the Instagram iPad app. It’s exactly as you’d expect it, which is to say it appears to be similar to the roomier web version, which supports sidebars for direct messages and comments. There’s also more screen real estate to do stuff like edit video clips, which was always a pain in the ass on a phone. In other words, Instagram on iPad is less cramped than it is on the glass brick in your pants.
Here’s what the Instagram iPad app looks like in portrait orientation:
New “Following” tab
Beyond having more pixels to see photos, memes, Reels, messages, and ads—who else has a love-hate relationship with ads on Instagram?—there’s a new “Following” tab that also feels like a major finally. There are three sections under the Following tab: All (shows posts and Reels from accounts you follow), Friends (content from accounts you follow and who follow you back), and Latest (shows posts and Reels from accounts you follow in reverse chronological order). Instagram says users will be able to choose the “order of these feeds to prioritize what you want to see first.” All of this sounds good because we all use Instagram for different reasons. The ability to choose the order of the feeds is something all social media platforms should allow.
Reels, front and center
The part that might upset OG Instagram users like myself is that the iPad app opens into the Reels tab instead of your feed. Instagram will spin it as helping you get to the content you care about most—and maybe the numbers show that people watch a ton of Reels these days—but I open IG to see stuff from my friends and family and accounts that I follow. This change not only shows what Instagram thinks the app is now—a funnel for Reels—but also that it’s basically TikTok. No hate if you like that, but why not give users an option to choose what the iPad app launches into, the same way they’ll reportedly be able to choose the order of their Following tab feeds? Oh, right, ads. Ads from Reels basically print Instagram and Meta money to fund Zuck’s superintelligence lab. Anyway, Reels—they’re here to stay!
Go download it ASAP
The Instagram iPad app is available globally for supported devices running iPadOS 15.1 or later, and can be downloaded directly from the App Store today.