Six years later, Windows Phone finally has an official Instagram app (still in beta, though)

The six years of desperate waiting for a native Instagram app on Microsoft's mobile platform have finally paid off! Available on Windows 10 (older builds are not supported), the long-awaited application is still in beta-testing, but it unquestionably looks, feels like, and does Instagram things. Being a port of the iOS app, it even comes with an emulation of Apple's Peek-and-Pop 3D Touch feature, letting you press and hold an image to preview it. This functionality is also present in the Android version.

Being in beta, Instagram for Windows 10 still has some kinks to be ironed out. For starters, some users can't log in with their Facebook accounts and are unable to use the "share to" function. It also crashes occasionaly, and moves a bit clunky. The app is certainly far from the polished experience offered on Android and iOS, but we imagine team Instagram is hard at work polishing the code for Microsoft's faithful users.

Good things come to those who wait!

While it's at it, the company is assuring its fans that both videos and photos will be editable with free, specially-tailored filters. 10 creative tools are promised to those wishing to get creative with their photos. Users will be able to tweak highlights, perspective, shadows and properties like contrast, brightness and saturation.

So, what took so long? Well, Instagram and parent company Facebook weren't all that interested in Microsoft's operating system with its diminutive market share (about 3% worldwide). However, it appears Microsoft and Facebook have shaken hands in Silicon Valley, for the Instagram port actually happened via Project Islandwood. This is one of the four Windows Bridge programs that let coders migrate apps to Windows from other platforms.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg promised the company will take advantage of Windows Bridge to bring apps to Windows 10 back in October 2015, and Instagram's release for Windows 10 Mobile that Zuck is staying true to his word. We guess that's what you should expect from a CEO that still spends his leisure time coding to keep up with technology.

source: Microsoft via TechTimes