Instagram goes high-def just in time for summer sunsets

Those sunset photos uploaded to Instagram will finally look as breath-taking as the caption claims they are. The photo-fawning app said yesterday it’s upgrading the resolution it stores pictures within the app from 640 x 640 pixels to the high definition resolution of 1080 x 1080.

It’s a welcome change for a few reasons. First, Instagram is finally realizing that its users snap photos with higher quality cameras that come standard on new phones, like the iPhone 6 Plus. Also, screen resolutions have dramatically improved, so making the picture quality correspond to that makes sense.

Larger images are also good business for third party printing services like Instaprint or Shutterfly because shopper’s photos will finally look decent stretched out on a canvas.

Instagram confirmed the change to the Verge, who first broke the story. A spokesperson told the website that 1080 resolution pictures are “gradually rolling out” to iOS and Android apps last week. People will only see the better quality photos on the app as Instagram has “no plans to share on web.”

Photo via Flickr

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