Apple launches official Instagram account to show off iPhone photographers’ work

Source: TheVerge

Apple officially has its own Instagram account. The company launched its @apple handle on Monday, which for now, features a series of photo sets comprised of iPhone photographers’ work. Apple bills the effort as “a look through the lens of iPhone users around the world.” Each album asset is actually a video slideshow of a photographer’s work with an accompanying sound clip of her or him talking about the subject matter. Apple encourages other Instagram users to participate through the hashtag “#ShotoniPhone.”

Apple already maintains multiple verified Instagram accounts, including one for Apple Music, iTunes, Beats 1, iBooks, Carpool Karaoke, and even Planet of the Apps. Oddly, though, it never had an account to highlight iPhone photography, which is a massive part of the company’s brand and marketing. Apple has used the same “Shot on iPhone” phrase on billboards around the world. Instagram, the primary photo-sharing app for nearly every smartphone user, seems like a logical place for Apple to further push iPhone photography and the results its most popular device can produce.

#ShotoniPhone by… – 1. Maurice H. @bloomandplume “If people like photos of flowers and people like photos of me, why not just put the two together?” – 2. RJ P. @rockadeezy “The landing is the hard part. If I really want to be horizontal I land on all fours. Like a cat. But if the ground’s too hot, or it’s hard terrain I’ll land on my feet.” – 3. Jeryl T. @j9ryl “Just because I’m colorblind doesn’t make photography a guessing game. There’s always a direction I want to go. A mood I want to create.” – 4. Britainy W. @lanadeathray “Owls are kinda like the ninjas of the bird world. Like, that mouse never saw it coming.” – 5. Koci H. @koci “I can walk outside, tap a piece of glass, and suddenly I’ve captured something. With another tap, I can share it with the entire world. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.”

A post shared by apple (@apple) on Aug 7, 2017 at 5:19am PDT

Apple possibly waited until now to launch its official account because of past tension between the company and Instagram. Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, deleted his Instagram account in 2012 after the app launched on Android. He said at the time that it actually had nothing to do with Android and rather with the idea that the platform got too big for his liking, even after Apple named it the app of the year in 2011.

Instagram now has 700 million monthly active users across Apple and Android, so Schiller was probably right. The app is big, but it’s also impossible to ignore, particularly if you want to show off how good your phones’ cameras are.

Apple’s Instagram account at the time of writing of this article has almost 330,000 followers.