Using a pinch gesture, Instagram announced today that it would finally roll out a zoom feature beginning today for users of iOS devices with, presumably, Android to follow in the not too distant future. The new zoom feature will work with video as well as photos and covers Explore, others’ profiles as well as users’ feeds.
Wait, there wasn’t a zoom feature already?
Call me old, I won’t be offended because I’m, well, old but I would have thought that this would be a feature that would have been around since the launch of the app whose popularity I still struggle with on occasion. I don’t get it, you can post pictures and do little else? I was under the impression that that was what Facebook already did. Anyways, I guess this is exciting news to the hundreds of millions that use the Facebook-owned Instagram.
Instagram already allowed for multiple aspect ratios (I’m starting to see the appeal) and does allow you to rotate your device to view photos and videos in landscape mode. However, the service is still limited to a width of a paltry 1080 pixels when our tablets and smartphones can handle so much more.
Weak pixels, novel features instead
Until that becomes an offering, I guess Instagram, and its users, will find some solace in the addition of zoom to offset this limited resolution.
With the addition of new features, like always, users of Apple products like the iPhone and iPad will get to try it out first. Many an Android user has taken to Twitter to take issue with the fact that iOS users always get to try out new features first rather than making a new offering available to both platforms simultaneously or even Android first.
While Instagram made it quite clear today that the zoom feature would be arriving for Android users “in the coming weeks,” the company was mum regarding when those poor sots who use Windows phones might be able to enjoy the feature themselves. Again, I struggle to understand why it didn’t launch six years ago with zoom, but I guess better late than never though I still don’t see myself downloading or using the app anytime soon.
