Co-founder Kevin Systrom announced at SXSW Sunday that the long-awaited Android version of Instagram is finally here. He briefly gave a glimpse into the version on stage, but didn’t provide a demo. The Android version is currently being tested in private beta and will be released “very soon.”
“In some ways, it’s better than our iOS app. It’s crazy,” Systrom said. In a Q&A following his presentation, Systrom said the app is fast, can share photos to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and other networks and works great on large screens.
Answering the very popular question about what took the startup so long to bring the app to Android? Systrom said, “I don’t think it took us so long. We just had priorities. Had we tried to be both on Android and iPhone at the same time, it would’ve been tough to innovate in the way that we have.”
Systrom announced at LeWeb, in December of last year, that the Android app was in development.
Systrom also announced Sunday that the iOS version of Instagram — which was named Apple’s iOS app of the year last year — has surpassed 27 million downloads.
The company has already received a $7 million Series A funding from Benchmark partner and Facebook alum Matt Cohler, Baseline Ventures, Square CEO Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca and Quora co-founder Adam D’Angelo joined the board.
