Instagram for Windows 10 is today receiving an update with new
features and improvements. The changes implemented by the new
update is not available on Windows Phones and the app has been
removed from the Microsoft Store. While
Instagram is no longer available for Windows Phones, the
latest update for the app brings a couple of useful changes.
The version 30.1569.12133.0 of Instagram for Windows 10
adds the capability to archive a photo. In other words, the
photo will not be deleted from Instagram but it won’t show up
on your profile or to your followers. In Windows 10, you can
enable the feature from Profile page -> Select a photo ->
Click (…) three dots and select archive.
You can now share the stories with your friends, reply to
individual comments and view the last login of your friends
from the message section. You can also expect general bug fixes
and performance improvements in this release.
While Facebook has removed the Instagram app for Windows
phones, it still works on devices where it’s already installed,
but needless to say, it may stop working in near future when
the company pushes a big update. It is also worth noting that
no new features and updates would be released for Windows
Phones.
Although the app has been removed from Windows Phone store, the
official confirmation from Facebook is not available. It could
be possible that the app is not available for phones due to
Store certification issue and it could return at some point in
the future. In the meantime, you can use Instagram’s mobile
site which is actually a Progressive Web App.
Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 Mobile works nicely with Instagram
and you can also pin it to the Start screen, although it is a
clear compromise as the PWA is not as good as a native app on
phones due to certain limitations.
Developers abandoning Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile isn’t
something surprising as Microsoft itself has already confirmed
that no new features and devices are planned for the platform.
Microsoft is, however, betting big on Progressive Web Apps and
it could fix the app gap problem for all devices in the long
run.
