The launch of Instagram on Android made a lot of users on Google’s mobile platform very happy – but angered a huge number of iOS users, many of whom weren’t exactly subtle in denouncing their view of Android users as second-rate citizens, and condemning the decision to open up the exclusive Instagram club to such an uncouth bunch.
Neowin"s Jake Durasamy called for some perspective on the matter, reminding us all that Instagram is, after all, just a great way for photo enthusiasts to share their images – but despite his attempt to bring peace to an angry world, some iOS device owners remained so furious that they vowed to abandon Instagram, never to return.
Since those tense times, the dust appears to have (mostly) settled, although there are those who still believe Instagram’s decision to open its network up to Android was poorly judged. One high-profile Instagram deserter was Apple senior vice president for marketing, Phil Schiller. A reader from 9to5mac spotted that Schiller had deleted his account, and contacted him to find out more. Schiller replied, telling the user that he believed Instagram had ‘jumped the shark’ when it expanded to Android.
Schiller offered a bit more detail on his decision to terminate his account in an email to another user, in which he explained: “One of the things I really liked about Instagram was that it was a small community of early adopters sharing their photographs. Now it has grow [sic] much larger the signal to noise ratio is different. That isn’t necessarily good or bad, it’s just not what I originally had fun with.”
That might all sound very rational – especially compared with the hateful vitriol originally spat out by some iOS users towards Android owners – until you consider this: on the day that Instagram launched its Android app, it had 30m iOS users – hardly the ‘small community’ that Schiller describes. By the time Schiller decided to quit, just over 10m Android users had joined the Instagram community – a substantial increase, to be sure, but it’s difficult to understand how that growth would have so completely transformed Instagram to the point that Schiller found it so unbearable.
Have you experienced the kind of negative change that he describes? Do you think that Instagram has been completely ruined by the increase in users? Let us know your thoughts below.
Image via Electric Pig