It’s the end of the era.
Instagram today announced that its users are now able to upload portrait and landscape photos and videos to the popular social network. This is in addition to the 1:1 square format photos users have always been able to upload to Instagram.
“Square format has been and always will be part of who we are,” says the company in the blog post accompanying the announcement. “That said, the visual story you’re trying to tell should always come first, and we want to make it simple and fun for you to share moments just the way you want to.” According to the company, nearly one in five photos uploads to the service was artificially rendered in a landscape or portrait aspect ratio using external apps.
As part of the update, Instagram has also unified filters; photos and videos now share all the same filters.
If you’re the cynical type, it’s tempting to believe that Instagram implemented this change based on advertiser feedback. Moving forward, brands no longer need to create ads specifically geared for the platform. Case and point: Disney just shared the latest trailer for the Force Awakens, which it obviously couldn’t do before.
Still, it’s a long overdue change that will do more good than bad for the platform.
Instagram version 7.5, which enables the above changes, is already available on the Google Play Store and iTunes App Store.
[source]Instagram[/source]
