As expected, the long-awaited Instagram for Android has proved to be a big hit, netting more than 1 million downloads before the app had been out for 24 hours.
Stats from Google Play peg the number of downloads between 1 million and 5 million, a wide target. By the time the app went live on Tuesday, some 430,000 people had preregistered for the app via a signup page that Instagram had created on March 25.
There had been a huge pent-up demand for the Android version of Instagram. Though Android now has more than 50% market share of the smartphone market in the U.S., Instagram had only been available to iOS since October 2010.
Since that time, Instagram has topped more than 25 million users according to estimates, making it the largest mobile-based social network in the world.
Despite the enthusiasm for the Android version, we found some notable differences between it and the iPhone iteration. For instance, the app lacks some of the iPhone version’s image editing features — most importantly tilt shift, which allows you to focus on one area of the photo while distorting the rest of the image.
However, the Android version does have one feature its iPhone counterpart lacks: “Advanced Camera.” When you turn this on, it will automatically resize your photo, so you don’t have to recrop the image in Instagram’s interface. In the iPhone version, you can only resize or crop if you select a photo from your photo library
What do you think? Have you downloaded the Android version yet? Is it all you hoped for? Sound off in the comments.