Instagram Gets A Mild iOS 7 Redesign With Edge-To-Edge Images

Instagram has been updated for Apple’s iOS 7 today with a new design that puts photos front and center. The app has not been re-written or torn down for the logic of iOS 7 so much as trimmed and tucked to fit with the aesthetic.

Instagram’s previous designs had already been winnowed a bit to make them feel more in line with the Android app, so the design didn’t have to pull a full 180. Instead, borders were removed to take the images full bleed, buttons were flattened and menu bars trimmed of borders. The new profile view shows off the app’s adherence to iOS 7′s new default white background as well.

What you won’t find here, however, is a major change that takes into account iOS 7′s new layering features or its heavy use of dynamics and physics. There is certainly lip service paid to conventions like the circular profile pictures, but this isn’t a complete turnover of thinking with iOS 7 in mind. It myst be said, however, that not every app needs to make design decisions that use every tool in the toolbox. Instagram is about the photos and the team says that the changes it made are designed to put your photos first, which makes sense.

To that end, they’ve also increased the display resolution of images and tweaked the grid to make images bigger.

“We led our redesign with a focus on clarity to keep the feel of Instagram clean, simple and grounded in the photos and videos you discover and share,” says a company blog post.

Nonetheless, it should make Instagram feel more at home on your iOS 7 device. Notably, Instagram’s very three-dimensional icon remains the same, and still sticks out amongst all of the other re-thought apps on my springboard.