Exhibit One

Instance for Windows Phone – created by Windows Phone developer Daniel Gary (@danielgary). Daniel began his development of this third party Instagram app in late February and ultimately published the first version of it in early May. This was the first third party app for Instagram that supported account creation and direct uploads to the service.

Oh by the way, he was doing this development in between working his day job, building a house and having a family including two kids.  Daniel confirmed for me via Twitter that it was probably a solid two months worth of development time.

Exhibit Two

The yet to be released 6tagram for Windows Phone – created by Windows Phone developer Rudy Hyun (@RudyHuyn). Rudy is known for his 6sec app on Windows Phone, a third party client for creating and posting Vine videos from Windows Phone, because he developed that app in one calendar month while he also worked his day job and took care of other business. It was following the development of 6sec that Rudy turned his efforts to Instagram and in less than 10 days, reutilizing a lot of base code from his 6sec app, he is ready to publish a private beta of 6tagram at any time.

Exhibit Three

Instagram Begins Deleting Instance App Photo Uploads – Earlier today The Verge reported on the fact that it appears Instagram may have begun a systematic removal of photos being uploaded to the service by Instance. I can verify that this is happening myself as I successfully uploaded an image today and within just a couple of minutes it was gone after having initially appeared on my Instance timeline. The remaining 48 images I have uploaded to Instagram from Instance are still in my timeline for now.

So as you might imagine there is a pretty steady gnashing of teeth and complaining against Instagram for shutting out the third party apps.

I think my friend Romit Mehta (@TheRomit) nailed it on Twitter:

So if two Windows Phone devs working independently can make this work in a relatively short period of time – just what exactly is Instagram aka Facebook’s excuse for not publishing an official app for Windows Phone?

Unfortunately, I am not sure we will ever get an answer to this question.

Then again maybe it is just like Ed Bott (@EdBott) said on Twitter earlier:

What do you think?