Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey is not the only photo-loving business executive upset by Instagram in recent weeks. While Dorsey stopped posting photos on Instagram after Facebook reportedly beat his Twitter to an acquisition of the app, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller quit Instagram for another reason: Android.
A reader noticed Schiller deleted his Instagram account (@schiller), and then reached out to Apple’s most visible public speaker by Twitter for confirmation. Schiller told the reader that he quit the rising photo-based social network, because the app “jumped the shark” when it launched on the Android platform.
In terms of iOS marketing, which is something that Schiller runs at the highest level, Instagram could have been seen as a pull for smartphone buyers to the iOS platform. The fun, convenient, and growing network was featured several times in Apple’s App Store—even winning “App of the Year” recognition. As marketing chief at Apple, seeing one of the platform’s most popular third-party pieces of software running on millions of Android phones is a disappointing sight.
Update: 9to5mac reader Clayton got in touch (we verified headers) with SVP Schiller who clarified his position… a little:
In case you cannot read the above, this is what he says:
Instagram is a great app and community. That hasn’t changed.
But one of the things I really liked about Instagram was that it was a small community of early adopters sharing their photographs.
Now that it has grow(n) much larger the signal to noise ratio is different.
That isn’t necessarily good or bad, it’s just not what I originally had fun with.
Congrats to @foofighters @instagram and all the iTunes Rewind 2011 winners! (btw: @schiller on Instagram ;->)
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Philip Schiller (@pschiller) December 09, 2011
“@therealpavell: @pschiller Hi! What iPhone apps do you use to edit your photos?” > Aperture on Mac. Best Camera and Instagram on iPhone.
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Philip Schiller (@pschiller) December 08, 2010
Some reactions to the news:
RT @Google_Play: Apple marketing svp phil schiller dumps instagram over expansion to android 9to5mac.com/2012/04/19/app… pic.twitter.com/XmXnFbgh
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Mark Gurman™ (@markgurman) April 20, 2012[
RT @Zee: @pschiller this you leaving instagram story because of expanding to Android can't be true...can it? bit.ly/HWXyop
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Mark Gurman™ (@markgurman) April 20, 2012
Gonna call fake on this until proven otherwise 9to5mac.com/2012/04/19/app…
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Alex Heath (@AlexEHeath) April 19, 2012
tip @Techmeme cultm.ac/IbNMLf
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Alex Heath (@AlexEHeath) April 15, 2012
Related articles
- Famed ‘Instagram’ app is now available at Google Play (9to5google.com)
- ‘Instagram’ for Android gets 10M users in 10 days, launching service to 40M users total (9to5google.com)


