Surely you have heard the mythical phrase “if you upload your photo to Instagram from an Android it looks bad” or, “record the videos with the camera and then publish them on Instagram, so they will look better”. The truth is that we have all said or done these things once because the difference was evident, but something seems to have changed on this social network. We have been conducting various tests with publications both in the post on our wall as in the stories and we will show you that, after some of the latest updates from this application, the difference between making a post on Android and iOS is not so obvious .
Uploading photos to Instagram from iOS is not always the best option
There are many articles, videos and recommendations from experts on the platform that encouraged us to follow some tips to improve the posts made from Android on this social network. But, it seems that something has changed in some of the latest updates and Instagram has gotten its head on the Google operating system.
Until recently, the difference in quality, sharpness, colorimetry and practically any nuance that we could take into account when evaluating a photograph or video was influenced by two key aspects:
- Operating system : the difference between making a post from Android or iOS was very clear in favor of the iPhone.
- Capture application : if the video or photograph was made by the smartphone’s own camera app and later published on Instagram, the final result was of higher quality than if it was made directly from this social network.
But, as we mentioned, it seems that Mark Zuckerberg workers have made some adjustments optimizing the processing system. Let’s see little by little each of them and their comparisons.
What do we find when publishing something from Android?
It seems that, after some of the latest updates to the app, when publishing photographs both in the stories and in the feed itself, the processing system has changed on Android.
In the case of stories , we can now see photos with greater sharpness and contrast whatever the terminal we are using with this system. Making comparisons with the same photograph published from an iPhone and a Samsung phone, for example, we can see how the publication from the Google operating system looks slightly better than on iOS.
However, in the case of the photographs published in the feed , the novelty is that we do not see a clear difference . This is a good thing since, before these changes occurred, uploading a post from iOS better saved the details, contrast and overall quality compared to Android.
Knowing these aspects that we are now in, let’s analyze each possible scenario to know which combination leaves us the best results.
Android vs iOS, the eternal fight
One of the biggest conflicts so far was the loss of quality suffered by the stories published on this social network from Android. After the improvement in the processing system, things change and, at this moment, it depends more on the quality of the smartphone’s lenses than on the operating system itself.
In this first comparison we see a photograph taken with the main camera of a Samsung Galaxy S10 + and an iPhone 11 Pro respectively. As you can see in the cut (400%), the sharpness and detail that are captured in Android is superior to the result that we see in iOS. In addition, since it is a photo with higher contrast, in this case the shadows and highlights are slightly more accentuated in the first example.
If we go to indoor photography, a somewhat more complex scenario for any phone, the shots show results similar to the previous ones. While the dynamic range is superior in photography taken with the iPhone 11 Pro, the capture of the Galaxy S10 + has greater detail and contrast, which may give the impression of a non-professional eye a better result.
To corroborate that the differences were not exclusively due to the terminals used in these tests, we have made two more runs. In the first scenario, you can see the comparison between an iPhone X and a Oneplus 7T where, once again, greater sharpness and contrast is obtained on Android.
And finally, to check if we reached the same conclusions using a lower-end Android phone, we compared the shots with the selfie camera of an iPhone 11 Pro and the realme 6 Pro .
Native camera or Instagram
Another of the big differences that we found so far was in the camera app that we used to take pictures or record videos. We have all given the recommendation to use the native camera application of the smartphone and then publish that content on Instagram with higher quality. But, this seems to have also changed.
If we perform this check from a phone with the Google operating system, we can see that the change in the Instagram processing system wins in this case. If we make the captures from the app of this social network, we can obtain results with greater clarity, better contrast and a representation of the highest quality colors. This test has been carried out with a Oneplus 6T .
However, if we do this same comparison on iOS, the differences are not so obvious. It is true that, if we look closely, we will be able to appreciate greater detail if we make the captures directly from the Instagram application. But, as you can see, the changes are practically negligible.
If you want to publish the best photography, you don’t need to have an iPhone
In short, now that the Android processing system has been improved, it is not strictly necessary to have an iPhone to be able to publish the best photo on Instagram. At the moment we depend more on the optical quality of the smartphone’s lenses than on the operating system that we have.
It is true that the latest models of Apple phones provide us with great photos. But, if your purpose is to make your publications look their best, you can opt for an Android phone without fear of the loss of quality that we previously suffered with this system.
