Good news for iPhone photography buffs who love to show off their snaps on Instagram. The Facebook-owned photo sharing service announced Tuesday that people can now view their entire feed of photos in any web browser, including Instagrams shared by the folks they follow on the service.
Commenting and liking is supported and the web app is optimized for both desktop and mobile browsers.
With these new capabilities, users can bypass the mobile app and instead interact with their followers using any device that runs a standards-compliant web browser. That’s a new territory for Instagram as it was dependent on the free iOS/Android app. There’s one thing missing from the new web app, however…
Instagram explains in a blog post that the web app works much like its native mobile counterpart.
“You can browse through the latest photos of people whom you follow with updates as people post new photos”, the blog entry reads.
See a nice photo?
Double click it to like it (or hit the big heart icon).
You can also comment on photos and other people’s comments and browse through a feed of the most recent images from the people you follow, in realtime.
One thing you cannot do: upload photos.
We do not offer the ability to upload from the web as Instagram is about producing photos on the go, in the real world, in realtime. On the other hand, Instagram for the web is focused on making the browsing experience a fast, simple and enjoyable one.
The web app is simple: just visit instagram.com in your browser and log in using your credentials. Then click on any of your photos and you’ll see the new like and commenting buttons. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate through your Instagrams.
In case you were wondering, the new web view works great on the iPad (so you no longer need an app for that), though I couldn’t double-tap to like a photo.
At first blush, the web app feels pretty snappy and sleek. It’s definitely optimized for both desktop and mobile devices. You can even shrink the view to a single column layout so your resembles the mobile app.
Recently, Instagram’s made a few moves to bolster its online presence. For example, it enabled web profiles, mulled controversial data sharing and hinted that Instagram and Facebook accounts will eventually merge into one.