So it finally happened. Instagram showed up on Android yesterday and I've had it installed since about 7am this morning, before I'd even had coffee, which tells you something about how long I've been waiting for this.
If you're not familiar (unlikely if you read this blog, but whatever), Instagram is the photo app with the filters, the one that's been iPhone-only since it launched back in October 2010. Almost a year and a half of every single one of my iPhone-owning friends posting square, faux-Polaroid pictures of their lunch while the rest of us on Android just had to sit there. I switched to a Nexus S over a year ago and honestly don't regret it, but this was the one app I actually missed. Not Angry Birds, not some game. A camera app with orange-tinted filters. Weird what gets under your skin.
They opened pre-registration for the Android version back on March 24th and apparently got something like 430,000 people to sign up just to be notified when it dropped. That's a big number for an app that didn't even exist yet on the platform. And then when it actually went live, it did over a million downloads in under 24 hours. I don't know the exact number as of this morning but I'd bet its climbed a lot since I started writing this paragraph.
The app itself
It's basically identical to the iOS version, which is the right call honestly. Same 16 (I think?) filters, same square crop, same double-tap-to-like feed. It works on Android 2.2 and up which is generous of them considering how fragmented the Android version landscape still is right now — I know people still running 2.1 on old phones who are going to be annoyed they cant get it.
One thing I noticed: the camera capture inside the app is noticeably slower on my phone than just using the stock camera app and importing after. Maybe thats a Nexus S thing, maybe its universal. Either way if youre taking a photo of something that moves (kids, pets, whatever) you might miss the moment waiting for the shutter. Not a dealbreaker but worth knowing.
Also the upload can chug if youre not on wifi. I tried posting a photo over 3G on the way to work and it just sat there spinning for a solid two minutes before I gave up and figured it'd post itself once I got to the office, which it did, eventually.
A small complaint that has nothing to do with Instagram
Can I just say, the whole Android app ecosystem still has this weird problem where a huge app takes forever to show up and then everyone acts like its some kind of miracle when it finally does. It shouldnt be a miracle. It should just be normal for popular apps to launch on both platforms around the same time, or close to it. I get that building for iOS first made sense for a two-person startup in 2010, resources are resources. But its 2012 now and Android has a real userbase, arguably a bigger one depending whose numbers you believe. This gap thing needs to stop being the norm.
Anyway. I'm not going to pretend Im some Instagram power user now — I've posted exactly one photo so far, of my coffee mug, because apparently thats a rule everyone has to follow their first day on any photo app. But its nice to finally be in the club. My camera roll on this phone has been sitting there un-filtered for way too long.
If you're on Android and havent grabbed it yet, its free on Google Play, just search Instagram. Took them a year and a half but here we are.