Instagram on Windows Phones : Review

After a Long Wait A popular app is now available on Windows Phone

The wait for a Windows Phone version of Instagram has been a long one indeed. You know that an app is highly anticipated when third-party apps granting minimal access are in demand even before their release. Instagram’s arrival on Windows Phone, however, may not live up to the hype and expectations long-time users have been drumming up. Here’s a closer look:

Instagram on Windows : User Interface:

Right from its flat icon live tile to the sign up screen, Instagram has embraced the Windows Phone ecosystem, and how! If you stretch your memory a bit, you’ll recollect how the Android release of Instagram was marred by accusations that the app was pretty much ported from iOS. Windows Phone users are definitely in for a treat since Instagram on the platform has an absolutely unique user interface.

The Home, Explore, Activity and Profile tabs have been shifted to the top on Instagram and only the ability to add new photos retains its original position smack in the middle of the bottom bar. The refresh button and the search button are both placed on the bottom bar too, making it pretty easy to access when you need them the most.

Scrolling is smooth – even snappy – with the translucent bottom bar making the action feel very natural. You can even swipe to the right or the left to switch between tabs, something that you cannot do on the very rigid interface of Android and iOS.

Live Tiles and Filters are just how you expect they would be

Instagram on Windows : Usability:

Unfortunately, here’s where the butter-smoothness exuded by Instagram ends. The moment you decide to stop looking around at your friends’ photos and start posting some of your own, you’ll realise that Windows Phone has been given the short end of the stick with a “beta” sticker stuck on it.

First off, when you click on that petite looking camera icon at the bottom of the screen, do not stand ready in position to aim the camera at your subject since it will take you to the Gallery instead. Yep, clicking on a camera icon takes you to the gallery and not the camera. Here, frustrated, you hit on yet another icon to finally take you to the camera.

If you thought this was it – one extra click to start adding filters to your images, I’m sorry to burst your bubble. You may want to imagine a square box over the camera when you try and click since once you’re done, you will be expected to scale and fit it. For those of you who have used Instagram on iOS or Android before this, you will remember this as the extra step you need to undertake when you’re using an already existing image from your photo gallery on Instagram.

You, of course, need the image to be square in shape for Instagram. However, it does not allow in-app camera features that you can use on iOS and Android. When you fire up the camera on the other platforms, the interface allows you to take only square images, but you cannot do the same on Windows Phone. As frustrating as being sent out to the camera app to take a picture is, compulsorily cropping them into a square is more heartbreaking, especially if the image is good.

The filters are exactly as you would expect them to be, though, with most of the post-clicking process going as smoothly as you’ve come to expect from the app on other platforms.

Please fix these, Instagram!
Video?
Right, you thought we were done with the disappointments Instagram was bringing along. Sorry. Yes, you cannot shoot and upload videos on Instagram for Windows Phone. This ought to anger a huge load of users who had been thinking it was a given when Nokia announced that Instagram is coming to Windows Phone. Alarm bells were set off when Instagram, in the announcement blog stuck a caveat emptor saying that the app still has a lot of work to do and was being released right away minus a few features because the company wanted Windows Phone users in the fold sooner. However, we’re still going to take Instagram’s promise at face value, hoping video makes its debut on the app soon.

Chinks:
Once you’ve clicked a picture of your friend, don’t expect to be able to tag him or her on it. You cannot tag or be able to view maps of geotagged images in the app. The app will not even permit you to view tagged images of yourself or your friends. Frankly, the lack of permission to check out even the images you’ve been tagged in is appalling. With the kind of spam that goes around on Instagram, one should be able to have quick access to your own tags. You can still access it using Activity, but it makes it tedious to search for older images.

Overall, Instagram beta is still very buggy. Live tiles fail to prompt you about new notifications and there are times when the app just won’t refresh, even with Wi-Fi connectivity. There still does not seem to be any way you can open up Instagram images within the app from external sources like Twitter or the web.

A little buggy

Verdict:
I don’t need to tell you that the application falls far behind its iOS and Android counterparts. Even compared to some third-party apps available for Windows Phone itself, Instagram seems very bare-boned. Frustrating as it may be, the “beta” tag works like a promise that there’s more in store for Windows Phone users.

That said, let’s look at Instagram for what it is right now and not what it could be over the next few updates. All in all, while the app looks beautiful and is smooth it has its chinks and it has major features missing. The fact that the camera button takes you to the gallery – which takes a really long time to load if you have a tonne of images – and then to an external camera is something that Instagram should be looking at closely to change. Video shooting capabilities won’t hurt either. You wouldn’t want to delete 6tag from your phones just yet.

Instagram beta is available for handsets running Windows 8 and is available for free from the Windows Phone Store.  Don't Forget to Like us on facebook →