An official Instagram iPad app is coming in 2025. Meta is now “actively testing” a native tablet interface as square images are apparently no longer a concern.
Using Instagram on an iPad is a miserable experience because the iPhone-only software looks fuzzy in the oversized 2x compatibility mode. This is why many iPad owners run Instagram on their iPad in a browser, as the web app is pretty capable.
But nothing compares to a native experience, and it seems Meta has finally relented because a native Instagram iPad app should hit the App Store later in 2025. Mark Gurman reported on Bloomberg that “development work is full steam ahead,” with Meta aiming to release the app “later this year”.
Instagram for iPad is on track for a 2025 release
The Information was first to break the news in April 2025, saying Meta started the project to capitalize on the looming TikTok ban in the United States. And now Gurman has corroborated the report with his own sources.
Mark Gurman:
Fifteen years after the first iPad went on sale, WhatsApp is now on the tablet. And, yes, it’s just a precursor to the most highly anticipated iPad app ever: Instagram. I’m told that employees on the Meta Platforms Inc. campus are actively testing Instagram for the iPad and that development work is full steam ahead. I would expect it to be released this year if all goes to plan.
Meta recently released a native WhatsApp iPad app that supports group chatting, video calling and multitasking features in iPadOS.
Meta, which owns WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, has had a long history of shunning the iPad, dating back to the tablet’s debut in 2010. CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared early on that Facebook wouldn’t come to the iPad, calling the device a “computer” and saying that users could just tap into Facebook.com on the web.
We all know how that ended. Zuck was banging that drum for a while until eventually changing his tune and releasing an official Facebook iPad app in 2011.
With Instagram, there were concerns about square images and how they’d look on an iPad. Pictures also have often been low-resolution, something that would be more evident on a larger screen. The technology has now caught up, though, and the dream of an iPad-optimized Instagram experience is finally close to becoming a reality.
I’m not sure how “the technology has now caught up.” Instagram’s image and video resolutions have not increased in years and Instagram’s grid layout, once predominantly square, is now a rectangular format. Perhaps it may have something to do with a recent change in Instagram’s standard photo aspect ratio.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on Threads that the app now supports 3:4 aspect ratio so you can finally publish your iPhone photos without cropping, black bars or other workarounds to preserve the original framing. “From now on, if you upload a 3:4 image, it’ll now appear just exactly as you shot it,” Mosseri said.
Instagram as a killer iPad app
If there ever was a killer iPad app, Instagram could be it. The platform is home to the world’s biggest celebrities, vanities, influencers and so-called “influencers” that want to rob you of your hard-earned cash with sleek videos and visuals selling you on the idea that everyone is living a more spectacular life than yourself and all you need to to is buy whatever they’re selling via link in bio to change your fortunes.
The iPad is by far the most popular tablet, period. In fact, the device has become synonymous with tablets. And yet, it lacks one of the most popular apps in the world that’s all about visuals. A proper native app optimized to take full advantage of the iPad’s bigger canvas may be fifteen years late (the iPhone app debuted on the App Store on October 6, 2010), but it’s still going to rock the charts and every iPad owner who uses Instagram on their iPhone is going to want to use the iPad version.