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How to view Instagram on the iPad: Instagallery

Looking for an app to view your Instagram feed on the iPad? Look no further than the $1.99 Instagallery.

Matt Elliott Senior Editor
Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.
Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms
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Matt Elliott
3 min read
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Sure, Instagram is a fun and easy way to share photos from your iPhone, but the app itself is less appealing for viewing photos because the images are so small on the iPhone's display. Enter the iPad. Or rather, enter third-party apps for the iPad, since Instagram has yet to release an iPad app. One such app is Instagallery, which is fully featured, yet easy to use. It costs a reasonable $1.99. Let's take a look at what it can do.

After launching Instagallery, you'll be off and running immediately. There is no need to sign into your account first. Instead of an account sign-in page, you're taken right to a random assortment of popular Instagram photos. Tap on one and you'll see a larger version of it along with the author, tags and how many comments and likes it has received. You can tap on the comments link to read the existing comments or leave one yourself. Same for likes; tap the likes link to see who has liked the photo, and tap the heart to like a photo. For a cleaner presentation, you can also view photos without any of the associated data by tapping on a spot above or below a photo.

You can swipe through the photos, or you can start a slideshow by tapping the play button in the upper-left corner above a large photo. Tap the gear icon in the upper-right corner for settings, where you can set the duration of each slide (0.5 second to 30 seconds). In settings, you can also choose from among five backgrounds (black, white, and three shades of gray).

Instagallery lets you view large Instagram photos and start slideshows. Matt Elliott/CNET

By tapping on the people icon in the upper-right corner, you can choose to view your feed, your photos, your likes, or popular photos. You can also search by tag or user to find different sets of photos. If you find a tag or user you like, you can add them to your favorites, but you'll first need to back out of the search screen. Tap the Photo Sets or Back button in the right-hand column and then tap the Add to Favorite Sets link below whichever tag or user you are currently viewing. An easier way of adding to your favorites, however, is to tap the name of the tag or user at the top of screen. You can add the tag or user you are viewing from the small menu that appears, and you can also refresh the page. You can also follow a user by tapping on his or her name/thumbnail and then hitting the Follow button.

You can add a user or tag to your favorites by tapping the link in this right-hand menu or by tapping on the name of the tap or user at the top of the screen. Matt Elliott/CNET

Lastly, the arrow icon in the upper-right corner lets you e-mail a photo (done within the Instagallery app) and share on Facebook or Twitter. You can also show show the photo in the Instagram app or Safari, or copy it to the iPad's clipboard. I don't know why you'd want to view in the Instagram app on the iPad, which gives you the option of viewing a small, iPhone-size version of the photo or a grainy 2x version.