Instagram finally has a proper iPad app, and it only took them 15 years to get there. The company launched Instagram for iPad today, ending years of users getting stuck with a blown-up iPhone app that looked terrible on bigger screens. This feels familiar though. Meta just did the same thing with WhatsApp earlier this year, making you wonder why the company has such a weird relationship with Apple’s tablets.
What Meta Got Right This Time
The Instagram iPad app isn’t just a stretched-out phone version. When you open it, you land straight on Reels instead of your photo feed, which makes sense for tablet viewing. Meta clearly wants people to lean back and watch videos on the bigger screen. Stories still show up at the top, and messaging is one tap away.
The app takes advantage of the iPad’s screen size in smart ways. When you’re watching a Reel, comments appear on the side without making the video smaller. In direct messages, your inbox stays on the left while you read conversations on the right. It’s the kind of multitasking setup that should have existed years ago.
Meta’s iPad Problem Pattern
Here’s where things get frustrating. WhatsApp for iPad finally launched in May after similar delays, and now Instagram follows the same pattern. Both apps are huge on mobile, both would work great on tablets, yet Meta just ignored iPad users for years.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri spent years making excuses about why an iPad app wasn’t happening. In 2021, he said it “would be nice to do” but wasn’t a priority. By 2022, he doubled down, claiming there just weren’t enough iPad users to justify the work. Meanwhile, TikTok was happily serving up videos on iPads while Instagram users dealt with pixelated phone apps.
Why Now?
The timing isn’t coincidental. TikTok has been dominating video consumption on tablets, and Meta needs to compete everywhere it can. The company is also pushing Reels hard as its answer to TikTok, so having a proper tablet experience for video watching makes business sense.
There’s also the simple fact that iPads have gotten more popular as work devices. Meta’s been working on better integration across its apps, so having Instagram work properly on the devices people actually use for content creation matters more now.
The Instagram iPad app is available now for iPads running iPadOS 15.1 or later. It’s free, obviously, and you can grab it from the App Store. Better late than never, but it’s still weird that it took Meta this long to figure out that people like using big screens for social media.
