After a few years, and plenty of person requests, Instagram has lastly launched a devoted iPad model of the app, constructed for the larger iPad display.
As you may see on this instance, the brand new Instagram for iPad app is particularly formatted for the bigger display, enabling full IG performance on the system.
And it’s not only a ported model of the common IG app, Instagram has additionally added a variety of iPad-specific functionalities and processes, which it hopes will assist iPad customers maximize their use of the app within the larger format.
First off, the IG for iPad app opens to the Reels feed, just like TikTok.
As defined by Instagram:
“Instagram has all the time been the place the place folks join over creativity, and Reels has grow to be a main approach folks uncover and share entertaining content material. With Instagram for iPad, we’ve redesigned the expertise to mirror how folks use larger screens right now – for lean again leisure. Now, while you open the app, you’ll drop into Reels, so you will get the entertaining content material you’re keen on on a much bigger display.”
So whereas all of the common functionalities of IG are additionally out there, together with Tales alongside the highest if the display, Reels would be the major focus of the app.
Which is sensible. Increasingly folks at the moment are spending extra time watching Reels within the app. Certainly, final month, Meta reported that general video watch time on IG is up 20% year-over-year, whereas, in April, it additionally reported that Reels now make up 50% of all time spent on IG.
So most Instagram customers are spending an rising period of time watching Reels, and as such, it is sensible for Instagram to at the very least experiment with opening to a Reels feed as a part of this new venture.
Instagram’s additionally added a brand new “Following” tab within the iPad app, providing you with extra methods to view content material.
Whereas it’s additionally constructed new customized UI flows for the bigger iPad display:
“We’ve made it simpler to atone for your messages and notifications with layouts that show each tabs. Once you watch reels, you may broaden the feedback whereas the reel stays at full dimension, making it simple to atone for the perfect reactions with out lacking a second.”
So, customized formatting for what’s basically a brand new model of IG, which ought to make the iPad crowd comfortable.
And it’ll be fascinating to see how opening to Reels is adopted by iPad customers, as a result of I think, at some stage, Instagram goes to modify to this expertise for all variations of the app.
Instagram for iPad is rolling out globally on iPad fashions that help iPadOS 15.1 and later. IG says that the brand new pill design will even be coming to Android units quickly.