Instagram may soon address one of the longest-standing complaints, with newly discovered evidence suggesting the service could be testing browser-based posting internally.
Instagram Is Testing Browser-Based Posting
Primarily a smartphone app, Instagram has resisted calls to release native apps optimized for tablets and computers. Instead, the Facebook-owned app has been recommending for years that people use its web interface. The problem with that, however, is the fact that Instagram doesn't support even the most basic features when used in a web browser.
But that may reportedly change soon as developer and leaker Alessandro Paluzzi has managed to unearth evidence from the code of the mobile Instagram app, suggesting the photo-sharing service could be testing support for browser-based posting.
Paluzzi also shared images on Twitter showing the ability to drag photos and videos from a computer and drop them onto a browser window to automatically upload to Instagram.
Right now, people can only post to Instagram from within the mobile app for iOS and Android (and you should probably abandon all hope for a native iPad app at this point).
Instagram’s Upload Workflow on the Web
It would appear that additional posting features found in the smartphone app might eventually work from within Instagram's web interface. Specifically, users may be permitted to crop videos and photos as well as apply filters prior to posting from the web. The same goes for adding accompanying text for publishing to the service, MacRumors has it.
In other words, Instagram may be looking to replicate the mobile app's upload experience on the web. If those web-based features launch publicly, Instagram customers may at long last get feature parity between the mobile app and the web interface in terms of posting.
But what about Stories creation, does that work from within a browser? Based on the leaked screenshots and Paluzzi's comments on social media, Instagram doesn't seem to be currently working on support for Stories creation in a web browser.
Instagram continues to pick up new capabilities at a steady clip---Facebook recently added new messaging features to Instagram, an auto-captioning sticker for Stories, as well as the ability to add pronouns to your profile so people know how to refer to you.
When Is Instagram's Web Posting Launching?
There was no timeline for this feature at post time.
"This feature is currently being tested only internally," Paluzzi wrote in another tweet. He went on to advise against expecting to use this feature "anytime soon," expressing hope it won't "take too long" for Instagram to officially roll out browser-based posting to all users.
That said, remember that there are no guarantees whatsoever that Instagram will release web-based posting. As usual, some caveats apply---just because Instagram is testing a feature doesn't mean it will end up launching it for everyone to use.
And in this particular case, Instagram could easily decide to ditch browser-based posting altogether and focus on delivering new features through its iOS and Android app.