Instagram Updates iOS App With Pinch-to-Zoom Ability on Photos

[Floris]

I remember a rare interview with Kevin and the other guy from the Instagram team. Saying they are overwhelmed with the feature requests from people, but that they don't want to do them - they rather do things right. Take the time they need to perfect the basic features to create an innovating and unique experience as a compliment on top of Twitter. Something Twitter couldn't offer. The other guy said they of course want other feature, but the simplicity of the app and just a square picture forces people indirectly to think twice about what they post. So we can all enjoy quality over quantity and have something interesting to come back to, explore, and converse about. Rather than the big stream of tweets Twitter offered.

Then Facebook bought it. And now it's a blatant rip of everything they want someone else to code, while Kevin rides bikes through the world and posts it on his old app

Money ruins everything. On the other hand, I am sure the latest group of 12 year olds love it that they don't have to think twice about which app to use, how to use it, what to share, or if it has any quality. Just click and spam.

 

[C DM]

I remember a rare interview with Kevin and the other guy from the Instagram team. Saying they are overwhelmed with the feature requests from people, but that they don't want to do them - they rather do things right. Take the time they need to perfect the basic features to create an innovating and unique experience as a compliment on top of Twitter. Something Twitter couldn't offer. The other guy said they of course want other feature, but the simplicity of the app and just a square picture forces people indirectly to think twice about what they post. So we can all enjoy quality over quantity and have something interesting to come back to, explore, and converse about. Rather than the big stream of tweets Twitter offered.

Then Facebook bought it. And now it's a blatant rip of everything they want someone else to code, while Kevin rides bikes through the world and posts it on his old app

Money ruins everything. On the other hand, I am sure the latest group of 12 year olds love it that they don't have to think twice about which app to use, how to use it, what to share, or if it has any quality. Just click and spam.

Not sure how having a rather straightforward, basic, and essentially fairly fundamental ability to zoom on a picture is running anything or anything close to that.

 

[Return Zero]

As if it's some ground-breaking feature... Which sadly brings to mind all too many recent Apple announcements.

#cantinnovatemyass

 

[S.B.G]

Well at least its, finally, a step in the right direction. The zooming is working now, but as others already mentioned, it doesn't stay zoomed when you let go of the screen.

 

[Drumjim85]

Force quit the app. Then it works

Did that, even restarted my phone, and it still doesn't work. But it sounds like I'm not missing much.

 

[appledefenceforce]

#innovation

#original comment.

A big area where innovation should have happened is people being smartasses.

 

[Floris]

Not sure how having a rather straightforward, basic, and essentially fairly fundamental ability to zoom on a picture is running anything or anything close to that.

I am going by the changelog on their app store, I don't care about their zoom, which isn't mentioned in the changelog on my downloads.

 

[Internet Enzyme]

The resolution of the photos needs to be upped. I have 20 megapixel photies that get downscaled and compressed, and then they add the ability to zoom in, and the once high res image is low res and you can see all the pixels. Also, iPad version please.

 

[freddiecable]

A good example of that products can succeed without having fundamental features. This was one of the things that made me not using Instagram.

 

[SMIDG3T]

The update also adds support for the system font size set in iOS Settings.

 

[Keane16]

This is just as exciting as when they brought MMS to the iPhone. Should have been there from the start.

About freaking time. Agreed, should have been there from the start.

Did they miss Steve Job's demo on the first iPhone?

On a serious note was this lack of feature deliberate. If yes, what has changed now?

Pinch to zoom on already low res photos? That's going to look fab..

This just in: Instagram realizes the capabilities of touch screens!! Welcome to 2007!

Unless they allow you to upload higher resolution photos then the magnify feature will always look poor.

From Engadget:

"The feature you didn't know you wanted for Instagram has finally arrived pinch-to-zoom. Surprised it wasn't already there? Don't be. Originally, Instagram didn't support large enough images to warrant enlarging -- but last year, that changed last year when the company bumped its default image size up to 1080 x 1080. Now, we're seeing the fruits of that upgrade: starting today, iOS users can pinch and zoom any image or video in their feed."

This guy sums up why it wasn't there earlier:

Edit. And yeah, photos look low quality when magnifying them.

Instagram is evolving from what it was (whether that's a good or bad thing is a separate debate).