Faced with the prospect that an official Instagram client will never come, Windows Phone developers have resorted to the potentially untenable path of creating unofficial apps for the platform. While Instagram doesn’t currently have a write API, meaning that while third party apps can access photos already posted to the service, they cannot add new content.
This is a big deal: it means that unlike Twitter, Rdio, Dropbox, Evernote and a number of other applications with detailed and extensive Write API privileges, Instagram is only available on two platforms, Android and iPhone.
But that is all about to change, or it already has, depending on how you look at it. Two apps, one already available to Windows Phone users and one currently in closed beta, promise to allow the growing user base an opportunity not only to read, but to write to Instagram. In other words, these apps let Windows Phoners use Instagram.
How do they do this? The app currently available, Instagraph, uses a server hosted by the company to queue and insert photos to Instagram’s host. While it won’t share the secret sauce, it’s clearly using a workaround to access the company’s closed write APIs, and is limited to what it can accomplish. For instance, it only allows five photos a day per user, and these uploads are not instant — they have to follow a queue. Instagraph also doesn’t use Instagram’s native filters, something that will come as a disappointment to the average buyer. It does, however, use Aviary’s excellent photo editing SDK to enable crops, touch-ups and, yes, filters, though they don’t compare to the real deal.
And, in order to ensure the company can scale with the growth, Instagraph’s developers are charging $1.99 for the app. Considering Instagram is free on iOS and Android, this may come off as a cash-grab, but the developers claim it is the cost of doing “unofficial” business.
Another upcoming app, Itsdagram, also appears to thwart Instagram’s uploading roadblocks, and goes beyond Instagraph in terms of design and features. For starters, you can actually create an Instagram account from within the app, something Instagraph lacks. Itsdagram can also receive notifications when followers like or comment on a post, and there is social sharing for those cross-network posters.
Itsdagram also looks much more like a native Instagram app than the aforementioned Instagraph, which is black and dull-looking. Itsdagram can pull content in the background, delete photos and search for new users. It appears to be the first fully-featured Instagram client for Windows Phone.
Considering the developers of Itsdagram plan to charge $1.49 for the app, and Instagraph costs $1.99, the possibility of either or both of them getting shut down is a very real prospect. While the impact to the Instagram ecosystem will be limited, likely small enough to warrant being ignored by Facebook for now, if more developers decide to contravene Instagram’s terms of service and work around its write restrictions, we could see a fully-fledged abrogation from Facebook HQ.
There’s a reason Instagram doesn’t allow third-party apps from creating new material, as the need to confine the experience to exact specifications has taken precedence over a potentially wider audience. This doesn’t appear to be changing, and though we’ve heard whispers of official apps coming to Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10, the likelihood seems increasingly remote.
If Instagraph and Itsdagram get blocked or shut down, users won’t be out more than a few dollars, but it will be interesting to see how the company responds to their presence, and whether they want to prevent a precedent from being set.
