Well dick move of the year goes to Instagram. The Verge are reporting that Windows Phone users who upload using 3rd party clients like Instance are having photos removed. While Instagram seemed to be ignoring the cries for Windows Phone users and even Nokia themselves for a native app, until now they seemed happy for 3rd parties to fill that void.
It seems now that those bastards over at Instagram are actively detecting images coming from that service and deleting them. As suggested by Instance creator Daniel Gary, the photos would upload fine, then appear on Instagram, only seconds later to be removed.
Personally I’ve been using Instance lately to upload photos to Instagram and a few I did over the weekend are still up, however like many users are discovering, we can no longer log into the app. At this point it wouldn’t surprise me if Instagram got Twitter to revoke the developer keys to the app.
Seriously not cool Instagram, you became a phenomenon by supporting and embracing your community, I struggle to see how 3rd party apps hurt your service or business. If you wanted to put out a Windows Phone app, then just do it, you don’t have to crush the competition. Jerk move Instagram.
I hope this motivates someone to create a service that directly competes with Instagram and does it better. New crazy UI and who knows, maybe 16:9 images as the standard seem it’s 2013. As a Lumia 920 owner and Windows Phone fan, I’m seriously pissed off at this unwarranted business decision by Instagram. While the Windows Phone numbers aren’t massive, I hope all of them revolt against this change publically and do significant PR damage to Instagram, this is seriously not ok.
At this point this reflects badly on Facebook as the owners of Instagram, while they are supposedly continuing to work independently, Kevin Systrum is pretty likely to listen to Zuckerberg over his billion dollar cheque. It’s also important to understand the dynamic that’s underlying this situation, Microsoft has a $240 Million investment in Facebook, yet they still can’t get Instagram to build an app for their platform. Who knows, maybe 3rd party clients on Windows 8 are next.
More info @ The Verge
Image credit: Kevin LaCamera on Flickr
