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Instagram Testing Support for Browser-Based Posting

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For as long as it's been around, Instagram has been a smartphone-oriented social network that doesn't extend to tablet devices and even lacks many basic features in its web browser incarnation, including the ability to post. However, that could be set to change, if a recently unearthed internal feature test ever goes public.

Instagram-Feature-1.jpg

Developer and leaker Alessandro Paluzzi has discovered Instagram code that strongly suggests the Facebook-owned platform is already working on the ability to upload photos and videos from a desktop web browser.

Based on images Paluzzi shared on Twitter, browser-based Instagram users could soon be offered the ability to natively drag and drop photos and videos from their computer for upload, as well as crop the content, apply filters, and compose accompanying text for publishing to the social network.


It's still not clear when the features will go live, and there's no mention of Stories creation being supported within a browser. And given Instagram's long-established focus on smartphone-originating content, the company could well decide to abandon the web feature test altogether.

Meanwhile, there's still no word on an official Instagram app that's built specifically for iPad, so if these web-based features do make it out of testing, they could offer an alternative workflow for tablet users.

Article Link: Instagram Testing Support for Browser-Based Posting
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/17/instagram-testing-browser-posting/
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It's a little interesting because Instagram has earlier intentionally avoided this feature to ensure people see more ad-hoc mobile photos there. But this obviously hasn't worked out with photographers and even influencers there using smartphones only as a temporary storage between professional gear and an upload to Instagram, so I suppose this might be late reaction to that.
 
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Hallelujah ... not holding my breath it will come to fruition though.
 
Native app?

Every once in a while I am forced to look at instagram, and it is to this day still the original ipad situation from 10 years (?) ago, where you have to get the phone app and then that 2x magnification button to go full screen with black borders.

Both the web version and phone version are so crippled, and annoying to use, that I don’t want to bother.

And for a multi billion dollar company is frankly mind boggling, that they refuse to do better.

So, maybe, change is finally coming … but it has been promised before.
 
Facebook has always treated iPad and apple watch as though they don't exist.

Don't get your hopes up for an iPad app. They still haven't bothered to bring dark mode to it.
 
Northgrove said:
It's a little interesting because Instagram has earlier intentionally avoided this feature to ensure people see more ad-hoc mobile photos there. But this obviously hasn't worked out with photographers and even influencers there using smartphones only as a temporary storage between professional gear and an upload to Instagram, so I suppose this might be late reaction to that.
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I think its the app tracking being denied. Easier to do on some browsers.

Facebook only cares about data and advertisers, not its users.
 
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An option for people like me (who don't want to use their iPhones for this sort of thing) is to get a mode-switcher browser add-on and rock on posting images. You don't get full functionality but you can easily post images by having your browser emulate a phone. You can't do much more than post, but it works.
 
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If I used this crap I'd be happy with the change. I try to have as few native apps installed as possible. Hard to trust them, and some are draining the battery for no apparent reason. I had to uninstall bloomberg's (otherwise great) app as it was consuming 30pct of my iphone 11 pro max battery a day. Sitting idle. No thanks.
 
Well now FB has the Creator Studio which lets you set posts to publish later as well as to a FB business page, so it really wouldn't be hard to just let you post live from it.
 
Would be nice. The only reason I still have the App installed is because Friedly+ is crap when it comes to posting but using the web interface could give me more freedom to block all their trackers
 
Direct result of Apple blocking tracking in apps. Now it’s much easier to monetize browser users than app users.
 
I'd strongly prefer this as I'd like to be able to open Instagram on the desktop only when I need to post an image (artworks in my case) instead of having a data-hoarding app leaking all sorts of telemetry from my phone
 
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mollyc said:
Well now FB has the Creator Studio which lets you set posts to publish later as well as to a FB business page, so it really wouldn't be hard to just let you post live from it.
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It already does. Instagram Creator Studio has been around for 2 years now as a browser-based solution.
 
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Instagram has always baffled me. Dedicated to photos but it has shockingly bad image quality and a godawful user interface. You can’t even zoom, which I guess is explained by the image quality.
 
Skiefire said:
Instagram has always baffled me. Dedicated to photos but it has shockingly bad image quality and a godawful user interface. You can’t even zoom, which I guess is explained by the image quality.
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You can pinch to zoom, it just doesn't stay that way.
 
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