The release of Instagram for Android has, understandably, been met with a great deal of fanfare, with 1 million downloads in under 24 hours. The release has also been accompanied by a surprisingly vile backlash from a group of iPhone users who are annoyed, to say the least, with the appearance of Android users in their previously exclusive space.
The comments on Twitter were filled with complaints about the app losing exclusivity, among other things:
EW why can Android users get instagram now? #bs #teamiPhone
— ali ovenshine (@heyyali) April 3, 2012
If instagram gets lame we ALL know who to blame #Android
— Anthony Velarde (@AntTwitty) April 3, 2012
Ew. Gross. Android users have Instagram now.
— EDGAR. Ж(@EDGARRmunoz) April 3, 2012
The tweets were littered with the highly eloquent tid bits: ew, gross, lame. You get the idea, right?
Cnet took an in-depth look at the reaction which it labels as classist, adding:
“…which smartphone we own has begun to inform our identities. In our gadget-filled lives, our phones have become another way for us to organize ourselves into separate groups, to label each other as “other” and “apart.” Our tech has come to define us.”
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So what has this meant for Instagram’s competitors who remain available only on iOS? One iPhone only app we’ve covered in the past, PicYou, says that it has seen an influx of new users in the past few days.
In the four days following the launch of Instagram for Android, PicYou received over 125,000 downloads, a huge boost from its average 1,000 to 4,000 daily downloads.
Are some iPhone users actually abandoning Instagram in favour of other iPhone-only apps out of a sense of betrayal?
Members of The Next Web noticed a sudden increase in followers on PicYou, starting on April 4, exactly one day after the Instagram for Android launch, despite not having used the app recently.
While there’s no hard and fast proof that the two are connected, it also makes for quite the coincidence. After all, while we saw a renewed set of flamewars sizzling their way to the forefront, we never would have imagined such an angry outburst from some iPhone users.
Keeping that in mind, ditching Instagram, if even just for a while, until they get over themselves, seems pretty par for the course, at least for those who felt the burning desire to speak out against the introduction of the Android app.
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