After announcing it would pull back the full-screen feed mode it was testing in July, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the company will soon start testing ultra-tall 9:16 photos “in a week or two.” The company head made the announcement during his weekly Q&A.
“You can have tall videos, but you cannot have tall photos on Instagram,” Mosseri said. “So we thought maybe we should make sure that we treat both equally.” Instagram lets users share photos in 9:16 on the Stories for now, and photos shared on the feed top out at 8:10 when cropped correctly. The announcement’s timing comes after the company rolled back a similar test for its feed after attracting widespread criticism for trying to be like TikTok.
In an interview with Platformer last week, Mosseri said, “for the new feed designs, people are frustrated and the usage data isn’t great.” The company head also promised the rollback was only temporary and that the company would “need to take a big step back and regroup.” The ultra-tall photo test indicates Instagram still will go ahead to make itself look like TikTok.
When Instagram starts testing the ultra-tall 9:16 photo “in a week or two,” it will be interesting to see how its users receive it.