Photo sharing service Instagram has begun storing pictures at 1080×1080 pixels, a big increase over the standard 640×640 pixel resolution, as spotted by The Verge. While Instagram is still displaying images at the lower resolution on its web and mobile apps, it's thought the move indicates the company will soon implement a full and public switch to the greater resolution size.
The 1080px photos were discovered in the source code of Instagram’s webview, but it has been reported that some users are also seeing it in previews.
Many believe moving to a standard 1080×1080 resolution is a natural evolution for Instagram; virtually all smartphones have screens many times larger than the app's default image size, while download speeds have increased drastically in the years since the company's launch.
Increasing the resolution would not only lead to higher quality photos on the app, but also allow for better prints from services like Shutterfly and Social Print Studio.
To see your own uploaded 1080px instagram photos, use a desktop browser like Chrome or Firefox to open up an Instagram photo page's source and search for ".jpg" within the HTML code. The first result should be the URL to the larger version of the picture.
Instagram has not made any comments regarding the switch.