Today owners of the iPhone, had something new from Instagram. Layout is the popular photo sharing service's take on the collage, allowing you to group together a bunch of your favorite images and share them with your friends and the wider world on your favorite sharing service. And it came a day over one full year since the last update to the Instagram app for Windows Phone.
While that's a pretty bad state of affairs, it's at least one we can do something about.
The Instagram app for Windows Phone was announced on stage at Nokia World in late 2013. I remember it well, I was sat in the audience in Abu Dhabi with Daniel Rubino and Sam Sabri. And it was huge news. All those frustrations folks have with Snapchat today, that was Instagram in 2013. When it launched, the CEO of Instagram had this to say:
"Our ultimate goal is to bring Instagram to everyone who wants to use it…We're looking forward to watching the Windows Phone community use Instagram to capture and share beautiful moments in the coming weeks."
And then all work stopped on March 22, 2014. Not all that long after the announcement, considering Nokia World 2013 took place in October.
So the Instagram app for Windows Phone seems to have been left to wither and die. But I did say that we can do something about it.
Use 6Tag. It was probably the best Instagram app at the time the official client launched, and it's probably the best still to this day. Especially when you consider it has some features, like Re-gram, that even the official apps on iOS and Android don't have. It sucks that Instagram (and or Facebook, its owners) seem to have abandoned us. But at least the Windows Phone developer community has something even better to fall back on.
Update: Clarified that this new app is in fact for iPhone only. Sorry folks.
