Instagram on the iPhone just got its first major overhaul since Facebook bought the app for more than $1 billion and it's a fairly big one.
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Instagram on the iPhone just got its first major overhaul since Facebook bought the app for more than $1 billion, and it’s a fairly big one.
Version 2.5 of the photo-sharing app doesn’t exactly change it out of all recognition, but it does add a whole new tab — “Explore”, shown above — to replace the “Popular” section that showed photos with the most likes.
You can still see those top-ranking snapshots under “Explore”, but now Instagram also lets you search by username or hashtag. That should make it a whole lot easier if you’re just looking for pics from a particular sporting event, perhaps, or you want to focus on street art shots.
The Facebook acquisition is evident in one new setting: Open Graph is in the house. That means you have the option to post all the photo Likes you’ve made — those little hearts on Instagram — to your Facebook account. Brand page managers can post directly to their Facebook page without leaving the app.
This seems a worthy development. Previously we couldn’t help but notice how an Instagram pic on Facebook has three separate silos where people can like it (on the picture on your Timeline, on the picture when you click through, and on Instagram itself.) Hopefully the Open Graph functionality will go some way towards corralling the Likes into one place (thus making your pictures suddenly seem a lot more popular.)
One more small but welcome feature of Instagram 2.5: Getting to your Camera Roll, for those of you who like posting shots you’ve already taken, is no longer a two-click operation. If you tap and hold the camera button, you’ll go straight there.
The app also seems slightly speedier, which is in line with the company’s stated goal of making sure the service is lightning fast before all else.
