While it’s quite possible many upset iOS users have wiped Instagram from their iPhone following its recent launch on the Android platform and the even more recent takeover by Facebook, the deletions haven’t stopped the two-year-old photo-sharing app from topping the iOS App Store chart on Tuesday — for the first time in its albeit short history.
In fact, it’s largely because of all the fuss surrounding the app over the last few days that it now sits atop the free-app chart, having knocked off Draw Something, which was beginning to look like it’d never relinquish the top spot. Yes, all that extra publicity has evidently piqued the interest of those iPhone owners who’d never tried it before, with their downloads pushing the retro-styling photo app to the number one.
The San Francisco-based start-up is bound to be somewhat relieved to see that its Android debut and Facebook takeover hasn’t scared off all iOS users. “Instagram is #1 in the @AppStore for the first time ever! Thanks everyone!” the company said on its Twitter feed on Tuesday.
Instagram for Android launched on April 3, and picked up a million users in just 12 hours. But very quickly, a number of iOS users of the app began to complain, seemingly upset that it was no longer an iOS-exclusive club.
Digital Trends’ Molly McHugh wrote that the main thrust of the attacks centered around the notion that “Android users have a) no artistic ability and b) bad imaging technology, and that this results in c) a sullying of the Instagram feed and app itself.”
And then a few days later, on April 9, Facebook announced it had acquired Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock. For some iOS Instagram fans, that’s when the post-digestion waste really hit the spinning-blade contraption.
Accusing the company of selling out and worried that Facebook will change the unique app beyond recognition, some users again threatened to wipe Instagram from their Apple device. Whether they have or not isn’t clear, but what is clear is that all the publicity of the last week has kept Instagram in the headlines and helped to make it more popular than ever.
And, once the dust has finally settled, we wonder how many of those iOS Instagram users who deleted the app in a fit of fury will be discreetly — and without telling anyone — uploading Instagram back onto their device….
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