Instagram for TV Makes Reels More Accessible

Meta-owned Instagram this week announced Instagram for TV. The app is launching first on Amazon’s Fire TV platform (!) and is intended to enable users to watch Reels, alone or together with friends, on a much larger display than on one’s phone or tablet.

“Today we’re excited to start testing Instagram for TV, bringing reels from your favorite creators to the big screen so you can enjoy them with friends,” Instagram said in its post. “We’ve heard from our community that watching reels together is more fun, and this test is designed to learn which features make that experience work best on TV.”

Instagram says the TV launch is a “test,” adding expansion is planned for the future.

I don’t have a Fire TV device handy to try Instagram TV, but it nonetheless strikes as a good move. From an accessibility perspective, even the relatively big screen on, say, an iPhone Air or iPhone Pro Max is decidedly dwarfed by a 55- or 65- or 77-inch TV screen. This is precisely why FaceTime on tvOS is so smart; I haven’t used it yet because I don’t do a ton of videoconferencing, but just knowing I can do it from my massive LG C3 OLED is pretty cool. It’s more accessible to look at a person on a TV than on my comparatively tiny phone screen. Ergo, the same argument applies to Instagram for TV. I quite enjoy watching Reels—especially for food-oriented content—and can attest to the fact Reels is a super conduit towards bed rot and thus utterly losing all track of time and space. Bed-rotting whilst watching umpteenth Reels is admittedly unhelpful to someone who copes with severe anxiety and depression, but I speak the truth from experience.

Instagram for Fire TV is available to download now.