Instagram dashes hopes of a native iPad app

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Instagram not coming to iPad
Instagram isn't coming to iPad any time soon.
Image: Instagram/Cult of Mac

More than 12 years after the iPad made its debut, it still doesn’t have a native Instagram app. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to get one any time soon. Instagram head Adam Mosseri believes that not enough people want it.

“It’s still just not a big enough group of people to be a priority,” Mosseri said Sunday in response to a tweet from Marques Brownlee (MKBHD).

Not enough people want Instagram on iPad

You can install the Instagram app on iPad, but because it still isn’t optimized for larger tablet screens, you’re stuck with the iPhone version. It’s surrounded by black border and when you blow it up to twice its size, it looks … nasty.

Sadly, it’s probably not going to get any better. Mosseri admitted on Twitter, after Brownlee pointed out that “the year is 2022 and there’s still no proper Instagram app for iPad,” that Instagram gets requests for an iPad app “a lot.”

But apparently not enough to make Instagram for iPad “a priority.” The Meta-owned company is “hoping to get to it at some point,” Mosseri added, “but right now we’re very heads down on other things.”

‘We are leaner than you think’

Brownlee questioned whether the number of people interested in a native iPad app would be “way bigger” if it actually existed. “For sure,” Mosseri replied, but “each surface has overhead” and Instagram is “leaner than you think.”

In other words, Instagram doesn’t have enough people right now to make iPad development feasible — not when it is already supporting iPhone, Android (its largest user base), the web, and Instagram Lite.

Mosseri also admitted that “TikTok and YouTube are behemoths,” and that Instagram is working to adapt to the fact that people are now sharing more in messages than they are to their Stories or Feeds.

It’s disappointing but not surprising news. If Instagram really wanted to support iPad, it surely would have found the time over the past 12 years.

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