iPad App Finally Launched by Instagram

Key Highlights

• App Launch: The Instagram iPad app has finally launched after 15 years since the platform’s debut.
• User Experience: The app opens directly to Reels, catering to the larger screen for video content.
• Features: Key features include a Following tab and optimized layouts for messages and notifications.
• CEO Statement: Instagram’s CEO previously indicated that an iPad app was not a priority, but its launch is now a significant change.

Instagram has, mercifully, made an iPad app some 15 years after both the tablet and social media site launched.

You can download the app now, and there are some significant differences between the iPhone and iPad experience. Most notably, the iPad app takes users directly to Reels. It makes some sense, considering you might prefer to watch video content on a bigger screen.

Other features will feel more familiar, like Stories appearing atop your screen. There’s also a following tab that’ll let you peruse through posts from the folks who matter most. In our initial scrolling, the app works best in a portrait orientation, as that’s how Instagram content is meant to be viewed.

The new Instagram iPad app opens directly on Reels.
Credit: Screenshot: Timothy Beck Werth / Instagram

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The Following tab.
Credit: Screenshot: Timothy Beck Werth / Instagram

Instagram wrote in a press release that it also optimized the iPad experience by keeping the bigger screen in mind.

It wrote:

“When designing Instagram for iPad, we wanted to take advantage of the bigger screen to give people more features with fewer taps, while keeping it simple. We’ve made it easier to catch up on your messages and notifications with layouts that display both tabs. When you watch reels, you can expand the comments while the reel stays at full size, making it easy to catch up on the best reactions without missing a moment.”

Credit: Meta

Instagram finally launching an iPad app is a big change-in-tune. CEO Adam Mosseri wrote on X in 2022 that an iPad app was “not a big enough group of people to be a priority” and that the company was “hoping to get to it at some point.”