Hacker News Reader

Comment by hnriot | Hacker News Reader

many might be surprised that instagram only keep 612x612 images, so if you were hoping to download full resolution images,. you're out of luck...

that, however, also makes the whole issue moot since the images are so small to be of little/no use in any commercial sense.

flickr's iOS app, by comparison, stores on their server the full resolution image.

#nofilter FTW

> since the images are so small to be of little/no use in any commercial sense

The most likely scenario for Instagram photos being used in advertising would be online, not in print. So the size is fine.

Probably even more likely is that they would be used on mobile.

> many might be surprised that instagram only keep 612x612 images

How do we know that for sure?

They could easily have the full res versions stored elsewhere. They own them, after all.

Because the resolution shift happens client side, before the photo is transmitted to their servers.

They couldn't have the full res version stored elsewhere.

That's how we know.

How do we know the resolution shift happens client side? I did a quick google and found nothing.

One could watch the traffic when posting a photo.

It also uploads before you confirm your posting to make the process faster.

Because the uploading is damn fast.

> that, however, also makes the whole issue moot since the images are so small to be of little/no use in any commercial sense.

612x612 images as ads on instagram would make a whole lot of commercial sense.