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- Instagram launched as an iOS app in 2010, and became available for Android users in 2012.
- Instagram of 10 years ago looked different from the app we use today, and was missing many features that now seem vital.
- The original app didn't have messages or stories, and photos had to be cropped to square images.
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When Instagram launched in 2010, using it was a much different experience than the Instagram of today.
Instagram started as a photo-sharing app, but it didn't have the additional features it boasts today, including Instagram live, stories, messaging, and more. The company has made other changes in the past decade, like changing the algorithm the determines what photos you see rather than showing them in chronological order.
This year, Instagram has experimented with removing some early features. It nixed the following tab in October, which had existed as far back as 2011 as a tool for keeping an eye on what posts your friends interact with. Even more drastically, Instagram is now testing out removing likes worldwide, an experiment that started out this summer in several countries, including Canada and Australia, and spread to the US a few weeks ago.
But 2010 was a simpler time - it was two years before Facebook bought the app for $1 billion. In other words, Instagram was just getting started. Here's how it looked a decade ago compared to today.
