Why no Instagram for iPad? Not enough people would use it, Insta says...
Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee often likes to tweet about the daily tech user's pains in a half-joking manner (ahem, Twitter edit button). It just so happens that sometimes, the heads of some companies can spot and reply to such tweets.
In the case we are discussing here, it's the point about the ever-missing Instagram app for iPad. Apple's tablets are incredibly popular and most popular phone apps have their iPadOS counterpart. That includes Facebook, which is owned by the same company that Instagram is. Still, Insta doesn't have a tablet app for some reason. What might that be?
Yup, we get this one a lot. It's still just not a big enough group of people to be a priority. Hoping to get to it at some point, but right now we're very heads down on other things.
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) February 27, 2022
Instagram head Adam Mosseri responded that the amount of users that would use such an app doesn't seem to be that large. Kind of a weird thing to hear, especially as he started the claim with "We get this one a lot".
However, the willingness to reply to a random tweet does tell us that there's no reason to doubt these words. In fact, it makes us think that the Instagram team may not be as large as we like to imagine.
Yes, on one hand, the iPads are tablets that manage to keep selling in a declining tablet market. So, it's hard to believe that there's a shortage of iPad users out there. However, Instagram is an app that is built with one-handed, vertical screen in mind. From the classic square Insta posts to the fairly new Reels feature — it's all a bit awkward to consistently use on a landscape-oriented tablet.
Perhaps the Insta team is much more interested in improving that "vertical phone" experience instead of trying to reinvent a new UI for a niche that may, in fact, turn out to be small.
For influencers and Instagram powerusers, the Meta Business Suite gives you all the controls and notifications that you can navigate and enjoy on a huge tablet screen. For the front end user, Instagram is a more "chunks of fun, here and there" type thing. Or, at least that's what it's supposed to be, maybe?
I wonder... is this the same reason why Apple refuses to develop native calculator and weather apps for iPadOS? Not enough users?
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