There was much fanfare and rejoicing when the official Instagram app for Windows Phone finally launched. This was to be the final, massive missing piece of the phone's much-disparaged "app ecosystem." I jest, but Instagram is a huge hit, with over 150 million active users—50 million of them joining since the app's acquisition by Facebook. Unfortunately, this maiden attempt at a Windows Phone Instagram app's entry in the store is plastered with "beta," because some major Instagram features are missing.

The company's blog entry about the release states that the beta app only includes "core features," and that they're "not finished, and our team will continue developing the Windows Phone app to keep releasing features and bringing you the best Instagram possible." So there is hope.

Setup and Signup

I tested the new app on both a Nokia Lumia 928 and a crave-worthy Nokia Lumia 1020, with its fabled 41 megapixel shooter. A simple yet beautiful screen with but two choices presented itself to me on first run: Register and Sign in. Though I already have an account, I went through the registration process for your benefit, dear reader. You can add a user photo, username, password, email, and full name.

I was surprised that I couldn't simply sign up with my Facebook credentials, given that the social network megalith now owns Instagram. On the other phone, I simply signed in; I couldn't use Facebook Connect to sign in there either, as other apps allow.

After logging in to a new account, a gray bar exhorts you to "Find Friends on Facebook," but this, too, requires a separate Facebook signing—the app doesn't use Windows Phone's built-in Facebook integration.

Interface

The interface of this Windows Phone app will be familiar to all Instagram users. One Windows Phone-style interface touch is that you can swipe back and forth between your feed, discover, activity, and profile views. The activity button lights up with an orange bar indicating new likes and comments when they arrive.

I was disappointed that the app only takes minimal advantage of live tiles: If you pin the main app to the home screen, it will display a number indicating new activity (likes, comments, follows). Pinning a favorite user's tile would be an obvious addition. Also, there are no lock-screen notifications, though that's probably not as important for a casual app like Instagram.

Looking at Pictures

That subhead is a little misleading—for you can use the app watch Instagram videos as well as photos in your image feed. You can participate in all the social functions that the hit app is known for: commenting, hearting with a double-tap, and check out  users' followers as well as the people they follow. You can search people and hashtags. There's no map view, which you can get on the third-party 6tag app, but you do see the location name if the uploader has included one.

Shooting

Some media have been reporting that it's a bummer you can't shoot photos from within the Windows Phone Instagram app. It's true that there's one more click to get to the camera interface, but since it uses the native Windows Phone camera, you get some benefits that aren't available in the iOS Instagram app. For example, you can change the exposure, ISO, white balance, and (perhaps most usefully) zoom. On Windows Phones with their often good cameras, that's a real plus. I did notice on the Nokia Lumia 1020 there was a wait time to take a shot, but that's because of the camera's large sensor, rather than anything about the Instagram app.

Once you've snapped the shutter, tapping the check mark to accept the shot puts you right in the familiar Instagram process of cropping, applying filters (Amaro, Mayfair, and so on), and the rest of it. You even get the tear-drop selective focus (aka "tilt-shift") tool and frames. As with Instagram on other platforms, I'd love to see a brightness control other than Auto, and maybe contrast and saturation adjustments, but you can always do this in another app and then upload the shot through Instagram.

Video shooting is a no-show in this app, for now. The video camera button on my phones appeared but were grayed out. Another missing Windows Phone integration is that it doesn't use the OS's "lenses" feature, which adds an option in the default camera app to shoot through a specific photo or video app. Again, 6tag has this, but its absence in the Instagram app kind of makes sense, since it switches to the camera app as it is.

Web and Sharing

The only sharing option in this app is to copy the embed link; this pales against the iPhone app's ability to email or share directly to Facebook. Another thing I couldn't do was tag people in my photos, though I could see tagged people in others' photos. The Instagram Web presence has improved, but it still doesn't let you cruise through user's follows and followeds as you can in the app. As in the app, the website's sharing is limited to creating an embed code.

If you having dived into the Instagram waters before, it's an amazing and varied trove of images of all stripes. And now videos as well, which seem to last an eternity for anyone familiar with Vine's 6-second nuggets. Of course, in each category, you'll find plenty of monotony among the gems—selfies and plates of food abound.

Wrap

Up to now a bunch of third-party Instagram-viewing apps have appeared in the Windows Phone app store to fill the gap—6tag, Instance, and Metrogram, just to name a few. And several of these get high ratings. But there's nothing like the real thing. Getting an official Instagram app on Microsoft's mobile platform is a real validation for Windows Phone. While this app has some shortcomings compared with its iOS and Android siblings, it's a good start. But for a fuller Instagram experience at this point, try 6tag, which offers video shooting, lens integration, and an attractive interface.