His advice? “Keep things as simple as possible.”
Rather than try and invent the wheel, Krieger suggests that app developers rely on already proven technologies.
“Part of our stability has come form choosing things that was trust,” says Krieger. “In your first version, don’t overthink things. Prove your concept, and then figure out where you want to go deeper.”
Building first for mobile, Krieger says, is also an advantage, because you’re restrained in what you can really do. When you have a particular lists of constraints in mind, then you can build your app better adjusting for those constraints.
Instagram’s picture size, for instance, is 612 x 612 because the Instagram team figured out that that resolution was the minimum pixel-density the app needed to display a full-resolution retina image on an iOS device.
“A big part of it is figuring out what you want to be good at, “ says Krieger.
For Instagram, the team focused on three things:
Speed
Getting the best possible photos using the existing camera hardware
Helping people to Communicate
Instagram saw itself as “filling the gaps in people’s lives,” so they needed an app that would work quickly while someone was waiting for a bus or their next meeting, as well as be something that people wanted to use. “A huge part is thinking about where people are going to be using the app,” says Krieger.
Earlier this month Facebook officially completed its acquisition of Instagram, a $730 million purchase.