My biggest gripe with Instagram is the app takes my big beautiful pictures and compresses them down to a low 640×640 resolution. It looks like the company is preparing to change that in near future though, by now storing images in a higher 1080 x 1080 size.
The change was first spotted by the Verge, which noted that the higher-resolution images aren’t displayed by Instagram yet, but the source code on Instagram’s website reveals new photos are now saved in 1080px resolution. By storing photos at a higher resolution in advance, the app is likely preparing to make a public switch in a few days or weeks.
“It’s important to note that these aren’t merely 640px images stretched out to fill the larger size; we are looking at legitimate 1080px photos, with a quality reasonably close to the original,” explains Vlad Savov at the Verge. “It’s too soon to say whether Instagram’s persistent issue of over-compressing images coming from its Android app has been addressed, but both Android and iOS uploads are being stored in the higher res now.”
You can uncover you own 1080px pics straight from a desktop browser too. If you’re using Chrome, just right click the image you want and select ‘View Page Source.’ Then run a search for ‘.jpg’. The first file listed is usually the image you want. Copy the file url and then paste it into the address bar to see the 1080x pic.
