Introducing Instagram for Windows Phone | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Instagram for Windows Phone

blog.instagram.com

64 pointsantr50 comments

This conveniently rolls out at around the same time as sponsored updates. It's important to note that there are a lot of Instagram clients on Windows Phone already including the more popular 6tag (http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/6tag/7d795cdf-fb...).

One of 6tag's features is supposedly 'hide sponsored posts (beta)' which really highlights the urgency as to why Instagram would need to build their own client.

    >One of 6tag's features is supposedly 'hide sponsored posts (beta)' which really highlights the urgency as to why Instagram would need to build their own client.

It would take all of 10 minutes for Instagram to shut down 6tag if they decided to kill it because of the ad hiding feature.

All they would have to do is call Microsoft and tell them to shut it down, an OFFICIAL Instagram client has been one of the "must haves" for the platform and is often cited when tech pundits complain about the anemic Windows Phone app ecosystem. If Microsoft caved on their own WP Youtube app that hid ads they wouldn't hesitate to nuke an indie dev's app if it threatened the adoption of WP with a high profile service provider like Instagram.

Not refuting what you're saying but also... they could just kill the API keys.

Recreating the core Instagram experience is directly against the ToS for the Instagram API.

Why use the official API? Just MITM a 1st party client to find the endpoints it uses. Last time I checked IG only used SSL for login, everything else was clear text. Why no one hasn't has made a firesheep for IG I do not know. Think of the mischief one could cause!

Are you sure that they don't enforce SSL all over? That's the whole point of OAuth2 getting rid of signed request :(

IIRC I don't think it's OAuth. It's (or was when I last looked ~6 months ago) a different API using a session cookie, and yes I'm sure :)

I would be shocked if the timing on this release wasn't at least tangentially related to sponsored posts.

I think this is going one of two ways: Either the official client is a quick bid to incentive Microsoft to remove 6tag the same way Microsoft replaced their YouTube app with a gutted one, or Instagram think their official client is going to rapidly eclipse the "knockoffs" and they won't have to worry about it.

Keep in mind that while Microsoft did cave on their own YouTube app, it wasn't in exchange for nothing at all. They still got to keep a gutted "official" YouTube client in order to fill checkboxes in pundit comparison reviews.

    >I would be shocked if the timing on this release wasn't at least tangentially related to sponsored posts.

I'd agree with that, I was just disagreeing with the theory that an indie developer's app that allowed ad hiding somehow forced Instagram's hand.

They didn't 'cave' on the YouTube app. Google wouldn't allow it and was using it as a means to wage ecosystem warfare.

It was a pretty stupid/ugly fight that went back and forth: http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/15/4624706/google-blocks-wind...

Google enforced their pre-existing API terms, that's not "Waging warfare".

They also stipulated that Microsoft's app be an HTML5 app, and not a native app (which is what the iOS/Android clients are), for no reason I was able to discern or theorize at the time. And thanks to deficiencies in the Windows Phone web engine, that proved impossible to do effectively.

They also refused to provide whatever information was necessary to allow their native app to display ads appropriately.

Basically, regardless of how Google explains their position, it really feels like their goal here was to prevent YouTube from being easily/effectively accessible on Windows Phone devices. Or at the very least, they had zero interest in getting WP owners onto YouTube.

They stipulated that the player use HTML5 so that it could show all of their ads and overlays correctly. That seems pretty reasonable.

Microsoft couldn't have just the player in HTML5 because their embedded webview can't play video -- which is where the stories of "Google wanted the whole app to be done in HTML5" came from.

IMO an embedded webview should be able to play video, or Microsoft should have been able to get something together just for youtube.

Bizarre choice to launch without core features like image and video capture. I understand the anxiousness to launch, but I wonder if this was somehow due to pressure from Microsoft or investors or something to launch before the app was actually ready?

I like that they're using the platform to its fullest with the live tiles and what not, but it's still strange.

It does image capture as well as selection.

The 'no image capture' story is not true. Apparently there was some bad information given out by an Instagram public rep. See https://twitter.com/zpower for more info.

For those that are curious, this release is 3 years + 1 month after the initial iOS release, and 1 year + 8 months after Android.

Better late than never, I suppose...

Market dynamics. Windows Phone is only gaining traction now so it makes sense to invest now, not before (unless we want to be a beta testar of the platform).

An official Instagram app for iPads would be better news.

I installed it. The "forgot password" feature doesn't work, so after I finally guessed my password I noticed that it was showing the text I entered in the password field in plain text. I want to go back and see if I can reproduce this, but I can't find an option to sign out of the app anywhere.

Some mobile app does that on purpose because people tend to make typo when the password is masked. I think it is not a very bad practice considering you entered it a few times already. People who want your password can look at your fingers to guess it anyway.

It's worth noting that I'm not related in anyway to Instagram. I also haven't downloaded the app, yet. I was speaking in common sense.

I like 'show password' buttons.

One of the reasons my WP is a POS is that when I search for "instragram" in the App Marketplace, the actual intstagram beta app is like the 20th thing.

How can a single word search for an app with basically one word in the name have such bad search results???

Because it is just launched and has comparatively few clicks and downloads. As of now (30 minutes after your comment,) it is already second. I imagine that in no more than a couple of hours it should be the first.

Maybe your spelling of "instagram" wasn't quite right, as evidenced by the two mis-spell's in your comment above: "instragram" and "intstagram".

Not trying to be cheeky, but that could be why.

lol! That must be it because it's #2 in my search results, under 6tag, atm.

Maybe, but 30 other apps did better in search for mispelling of instagram -- and they were all related to instagram.

Anyway, it soon jumped to #2 like for everyone else.

Maybe it's just me, but this app seems to ignore basically all of Microsoft's Metro UI guidelines except for "make things flat." Looks more like an iOS7 or Android app to me than something truly thoughtfully designed for the WP platform.

Coming next to Windows Phone: Snapchat with photos that stick around forever.

Snaphack's already available on iOS and Android, doing a WP release would just be bringing it up to parity.

Your missing the point.

What's the point?

I believe it's related to this, basically dropping/obscuring core functionality:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/20/in-dumbest-possible-launch-...

*You're

I see your point just fine; my point is that SnapHack lets you save snapchats (and it needs more press).

No need, the NSA is already archiving them for us.

I think we need a HN corollary to Godwin's law to describe the near certainty that every HN thread will eventually have someone mentioning the NSA.

How about "Alexander's Law", named after NSA director General Keith Alexander? Seems fitting.

I like it :)

So is Snapchat...

Yeah, I saw that tweet too: https://twitter.com/m4tt/statuses/403227577151918080

Now what's the next big app that's still missing?

If you are talking about "official" apps, then it would be Snapchat and probably Youtube.

For me: Strava (although workarounds exist) and Pebble connectivity.

I'd go with Mint.

mint.com is coming. I got an invite to the beta for WP8 and Win8.

...an official remote access client and the ability to join a domain (file browser). They have a huge opportunity to make this the phone of business but they are so intent on playing catch-up to Android and iOS. I just can't figure it out.

Google Hangouts.

Google will not be bringing their apps to Windows Phone anytime soon, since their interest in helping Windows Phone is zero and the market size is currently small enough that Google believes it can safely ignore it.

It will be up to Microsoft to prove them wrong. If Microsoft can continue to grow the number of countries where WP has already relegated iOS to 3rd place, perhaps there could be some sort of tipping point. But that's a ways off...

That's awesome...I really like windows phone. I have had several Iphone's and used one android phone at work and WP is just hands down better...of course, I don't use as many apps as a lot of other people. I mainly use the web browser which is awesome.

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