Instagram Update: You Can Now Post Using The Mobile Web Version Of The App

If you use the mobile web version of Instagram, you may have noticed changes on the site as of Monday — possibly the biggest enabling users to post directly from the mobile site instead of having to use the mobile app.

Instead of solely featuring your feed, the mobile site now gives users access to explore, home, post, notifications and profile buttons just like the app does. One difference is that these options are across the top of the page rather than along the bottom as they are in the app.

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This is great news for anyone who lacks storage space for the mobile app or who doesn’t have the data capacity to download it. On the mobile site, the explore portion is a lightweight version of the explore users will find in the app so it uses less data, also making it more accessible to a diverse group of users. The post function works similarly to the app, and users can either take a picture on the web version or upload a photo.

“Instagram.com [accessed from mobile] is a web experience optimized for mobile phones. It’s designed to help people have a fuller experience on Instagram no matter what device or network they are on,” an Instagram spokesperson told International Business Times via an email Monday.

In April, Instagram announced it had more than 700 million users. “We’ve made it even easier for people across the globe to join the Instagram community,” read a statement on the statistic. The app also reached 200 million daily users for the “Stories” feature. That’s more people than use Snapchat, the app many have accused Instagram of copying. This statistic sparked the question of which app was better and whether Instagram would be the end of Snapchat. The stories feature is still only available on the mobile Instagram app and not the mobile web version. Instagram did not say whether it would be coming to the mobile web version anytime soon.

This addition to the mobile web version of the photo sharing app is particularly appealing to global markets where solid cell service and internet connection aren’t always reliable. Some users in global markets don’t have as much data to use so creating a version of the app that relies less heavily on data access opens up possibilities for global users. This is a market in which Snap CEO Evan Spiegel expressed disinterest and called “poor,” a lawsuit filed by a former Snapchat employee alleges. This comment launched an #UninstallSnapchat campaign in India last month.

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This step is the latest Instagram is taking to compete with Snapchat. The first sign of competition was the introduction of “stories” last summer followed by a full-blown Snapchat copy with stickers and geofilters and tags. Next came disappearing direct messages (including photos) and now the app may be pulling ahead in the competition for users with this accessibility change.