Instagram

Instagram is the most popular photo service in the world, allowing you to take pictures, instantly process them with preinstalled effects, and publish, and then communicate over them. You can download Instagram for any actual mobile device, if you haven’t yet, and master it in minutes.

Functionality — 5/5

Take a pic with a built-in square camera or select a pic from your gallery. Choose the filter. Crop or rotate the picture. Publish it on your account. Collect hearts. Read the comments and reply. Comment others’ photos. That’s what Instagram is about. Mark your friends on photos taken together. Subscribe to celebrities and see them live. Thus you share your life in the most graphic manner and enjoy others doing the same.

Design — 5/5

Instagram is designed to be as insta as can be. It takes seconds to understand the way it works, and several more seconds to select the right filters and adjustments. And it may take you hours to scroll the feed, as it’s made for you to sink in. The app as it just follows the tabbed pattern of social media apps. So far, it only lacks night mode, but it probably will appear after Android and iOS start supporting it.

Usability — 5/5

To publish your photo, you need to go through three steps. Fires, you take the picture with a built-in camera module or select it from your gallery. By default, the photos are cropped down to be square-shaped, but now you can also publish landscape or portrait pics or videos. One post can place up to ten photos and videos.

Second, you apply the filter and do other manual adjustments. You can zoom or crop it again, apply filters that add some mood and atmosphere, adjust brightness, contrast and other parameters, add text, date, and other metadata. In fact, you can do all this work in a third-party editing app, and then select the processed photo and skip this stage.

Third, you write your caption and add hashtags for your photo to be easily found and better displayed in search results. At the same stage, you can mark other users on your photo, attach your current location, and so on.
The app also lets you share videos, exchange private messages, share pictures from within other apps, and so on. But you cannot just save or share other people’s photos, even if you are marked on them. You’ll need extra apps or a modified version of Instagram.

Cross-Platform Use — 4/5

The app is now available for iOS and Android. Since April 2019, Instagram is no more available for Windows Phone/Mobile, and it’s never been fully functional on desktop platforms (unless you install BlueStacks or any other Android emulator). Still, there are some tricks to make the service misrecognize your device as mobile.

In-App Purchases

Instagram is completely free to use, no matter how many photos you publish and how much you earn on them. But you can promote your pages via ads that look just like regular posts and appear in your selected audience’s feeds, just like it works on Facebook.

The Bottom Line

Instagram review could have remained intact for the latest years; it offers the perfect way to share your life in pics. It may lack spicing it up with AR stickers and effect the way Snapchat does, but that’s a different genre. If you don’t use it, download Instagram at least to follow those of your friends who do.

• Graphics 5
• Gameplay 5
• Controls 5
• Replay Value 4

Pros

The most popular photo-sharing service in the world;
Easy to make your pics look great;
Various ways of communication;
Most celebrities and influencers are already there;
A great service to place your ads.

Cons

Can take too much of your time to scroll the feed;
Cannot save or share photos without extra apps or mods.