Instagram has come a long way since its mobile-only days. While you still can’t access all the functionality of the popular photo editing and sharing app on your computer, you can do a whole lot more today than you could just a few years ago — and now, the latest improvement comes in the form of a desktop notification center. Because how else will you know how popular you are?
As of Tuesday, the Facebook-owned app began showing its users notifications in a drop-down menu located on the top-right corner of its desktop version. It’s the same familiar icon that you see at the bottom of the mobile app (a heart within a comment bubble), and it gives you the same sorts of updates. New favorites, followers, and comments are all displayed in the desktop-friendly format, so now, you can stay up to date on your Insta-activity no matter what device you’re on.
That said, while you can differentiate between “You” and “Following” on the mobile app’s notification center, this optionality is missing from the desktop version. So if you want to stalk your friends’ likes and followers on a larger screen, you’re out of luck. Gotta stick with the smartphone on that front.
Of course, the main functionality of Instagram (uploading, editing, and sharing photos) still remains strictly confined to the smartphone space, but perhaps this will change in the near future as well. And if nothing else, this latest change could increase usage of Instagram across platforms, which never seems like a bad idea for an app.
This is not the first time Facebook has driven one of its mobile apps to the Web — WhatsApp took on a www address last year, and messenger.com is another Facebook service that took the leap from the small screen.
So hang on to your hats, Instagram users. The app keeps improving, and there’s no telling what’s next.