Square no more: Instagram now supports landscape and portrait orientations

In an unexpected twist, Instagram has announced it's now bringing official support for landscape and portrait photos and video.

The square format has long been a staple for the Facebook-owned social network, but with almost one out of every five photographs posted to Instagram containing unused white space, Instagram has finally decided to ditch the iconic 1:1 ratio. In their announcement blog post, Instagram says:

‘[The] square format has been and always will be part of who we are. That said, the visual story you’re trying to tell should always come first, and we want to make it simple and fun for you to share moments just the way you want to.’

Starting today, via updates to both its iOS and Android apps, you will be able to tap a format icon in the posting process, that will allow you to adjust the orientation of the image before it’s posted. For those wondering how this will affect the look of your square grid profile, no need to fret — your images will be center-cropped in the thumbnail to keep the clean aesthetic.

You can read Instagram’s announcement blog post and update your Instagram apps in their respective app stores. For those who haven’t yet downloaded Instagram you can do so via the Google Play Store and iOS App Store.

Edit (h/t jough22): It appears only photos captured outside of the Instagram app can be posted in landscape and portrait orientations. If you shoot photos or video inside Instagram, it's still limited to a 1:1 crop.