Instagram will test 9:16 aspect ratio photos to accompany Reels

Instagram will experiment with 9:16 aspect ratio photos to treat videos and Reels photos the same way. The platform continues to get closer to what TikTok offers.

A platform like Instagram must constantly innovate to offer an even more successful and user-friendly user experience. This allows, on the one hand, to maintain its user base, and on the other hand, to acquire new ones. Very important in such a competitive market. This often includes adding small features that may or may not matter. So there is a new one on the horizon.

Instagram will test photos in 9:16 format

Instagram may soon allow its users to post 9:16 photos to their feed. In any case, this is the subject of a test that the company intends to launch “in a week or two.”The information comes directly from a Q&A session with Adam Mosseri, the current boss of Instagram. “You can have great videos, but you can’t have great Instagram photos,”he explained. “So we thought maybe we should treat photos and videos the same way.”

treat Reels videos and photos the same

While it is already possible to share photos in 9:16 format on Instagram, this operation can only be done using the app’s Story feature. In other words, these images will disappear unless you save them as Highlight. Currently, the vertical photos you post to your feed are limited to an 8:10 aspect ratio and you must crop them properly if necessary.

The platform continues to get closer to what TikTok offers.

The time for this test comes shortly after Adam Mosseri announced that Instagram would be ditching its unpopular full-screen interface. The company has been testing this new design since mid-June, but learned that users didn’t like it. “People are frustrated with the new feed design and the data usage is not optimal,” Adam Mosseri told Platformer a few days ago. Among the most frustrated were photographers who found that this new interface put captions on their shots, obscuring some of their work. This upcoming Instagram test suggests that the platform still intends to provide a TikTok-like experience, but it intends to do so without causing anger among its users.

It’s been a busy week on Instagram. I will be hosting an AMA soon – https://t.co/aM4JODvskg – just like every Friday. Ask a question there and I’ll try to answer it.

— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) July 29, 2022