Instagram Is Finally on the iPad, and It’s a Mess
It’s 2025 and… we finally Instagram on the iPad. This is quite surprised, because Instagram and the iPad were launched 15 years ago, but it was taken so long to obtain a version of the social network on the tablet. Here’s how to start with Instagram for iPad, but be notified: it’s a little different from what you can expect.
Beginning with Instagram for iPad
Credit: Pranay parab
This is the easy part. You just need to open the app store on your iPad, search for Instagram and download the application. Alternatively, if you read this on an iPad, you can click on this link to directly access the Store page. Once the application is downloaded, connect to your Instagram account and you are ready to roll. The initial configuration process is quite similar to Instagram on iPhone. You must connect with your identification information, and you see the same permissions (notifications and authorization to follow you on applications to display personalized ads). Do not hesitate to deny the two authorizations if you wish, then you can start using the application.
How Instagram for iPad differs from the iPhone version
Credit: Pranay parab
After using the Instagram iPad application for a day, I am honestly disappointed with what the company has published. It resembles and resembles a pre-winding beta version, designed with the sole intention of increasing commitment rather than providing an experience that makes sense on the largest screen of the iPad. It will probably achieve the growth objectives that the parent company wants the company of the company to be, but I hope that the application has the varnish of its iPhone counterpart.
Example: the “Home” tab of the iPad application is different when you compare it with its counterpart on all other platforms. On the iPhone, Android or the web, pressing the reception icon brings you to a flow of messages from people you follow or has suggested articles of the application algorithm. On the iPad, it takes you directly to Instagram coils. You will see stories of people you follow at the top, but below, it is an immediate dive in the coils. I expected this behavior when I press on the tab of the iPhone application, but put it directly on the home tab is a little too much.
Instagram says it is intentional. “With Instagram for iPad, we have redesigned the experience to reflect the way people today use larger screens – for Lean Back Entertainment,” said the company in its blog article announcing the application, which alludes to an increasing number of people using televisions and other big screens to watch short forms of forms. It is clear that the iPad application has been designed to suck you instantly in coil algorithm and increase the time you spend using Instagram.
Credit: Pranay parab
To see your flows, you must first press the “people” icon on the left. This shows your following flow, which is divided into three tabs: all, friends and later. Everything shows a mixture of content of people you follow and suggests of messages, while friends focus on the articles that your friends loved or republished. The last tab is the chronological flow, which I personally use.
There are still buttons for messages, research, notifications, the creation of new messages / stories / rollers and go to your profile. All these elements work in the same way as on the iPhone application, and they are carefully placed in the left pane, which makes them easy to reach if you hold your iPad with both hands. Apart from that, there is very little here to suggest that the application has been designed with great care for the person who uses it.
What do you think so far?
One of the most boring things in which I continue to meet is that the application continues to go from clear mode to dark mode. With my iPad system settings in light mode, Instagram opened the Home tab in dark mode, and it also used a dark background when I tried to create new messages. When I operated any video in the next tab, it spread to a full screen mode and also used a dark background. However, all other tabs opened with a white background. When I activated the dark mode on my iPad, Instagram fortunately respected this choice and darkened all the backgrounds, but I want there to be more consistency for light mode.
Credit: Pranay parab
I also tried to use Instagram in Split View on my iPad, which meant that I had Instagram and a second application opened at the same time. In the Split view, you can change the size of the Instagram window. When you reduce the Instagram window to a third of the screen, the application changes its layout to look a lot to the iPhone version. Most tabs are moved to the bottom of the screen, and a few buttons are moved up (the Create button and the messages button). The application worked well in Split View, which is good news for the type of content that Instagram now favors. Since the application focuses so much on vertical videos these days, using it in full screen mode does not make sense on an iPad. You see giant black bars on each side of your videos and there is a lot of dead space that could have been put to use.
To be fair, when you open a post and try to read the comments, the video moves to the left and the comments appear on the right. Apart from that, I couldn’t spot a lot of good uses from the larger screen of the iPad. This is why I mainly prefer to use Instagram in terms of split on my iPad, where I can use a browser next door. In this way, if I see something interesting on Instagram, I can quickly look for it in a browser and find out more.
Perhaps you will get more use on Instagram for iPad, but anyway, prepare for a learning curve.
