The square format of pictures posted on Instagram has long been a distinctive aspect of the app. But on Thursday, Instagram announced that it would also accommodate portrait and landscape pictures.
Instagram acknowledged that the square format is not always most convenient for users. According to Instagram, almost one-fifth of photos uploaded to the app are not in square format. Forcing those photos into a square often cuts friends out of group pictures, truncates a scenic landscape view, or forces close-up pictures to be a little too close. “The visual story you’re trying to tell should always come first, and we want to make it simple and fun for you to share moments just the way you want to,” Instagram wrote in a blog post.
The update is available on Instagram 7.5.
This is bad news for third-party apps like Squaready, which help Instagram users format their landscape and portrait photos into a square without cutting off parts of the picture.