Instagram announced today that users are now able to upload photos and videos in either portrait or landscape mode, on top of the current square format that has became a marquee feature of the app. Available via the Instagram app update version 7.5 on iOS, this new capability will certainly be welcome by many users, as Instagram notes in a blog post that nearly 1 in 5 photos or videos posted on the service aren’t in square format.
Up until now, users had to use third-party apps to touch up portrait or landscape photos in order to make them fit right in Instagram’s square format. This is now a thing of the past.
How does it work?
Now, when choosing a photo or video, you can tap the format icon to adjust the orientation to portrait or landscape instead of square. Once you share the photo, the full-sized version of it will appear to all of your followers in feed in a beautiful, natural way. To keep the clean feel of your profile grid, your post will appear there as a center-cropped square.
As noted above, this new feature is available with Instagram’s latest update, which is now available in the App Store.
Excited?
Update: few people are able to see the new Format option for the time being. Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger noted that it is because they are rolling out the feature server-side over the next day or so. So just hang in there!