Pixel 7 Pro users, hold onto your Instagram mods for a bit! Recently, many users who tried sideloading an APK onto the seventh iteration of Pixel phones were greeted with the “You can’t install the app on your device” error message. This issue wasn’t related to any particular app, but rather all the third-party apps were affected, so that ruled out any issues from the app side.
Next up, the latest Android 13 OS was assumed to be the culprit but none of the other devices running Android 13 [including Pixel 6 Pro] had this error. So this all but concreted the fact that the issue is indeed with the Pixel 7 series. Upon further investigation, it was verified that it was indeed the case. The Pixel 7 series ships with a 64-bit only build of Android 13!
Modded Instagram APKs will not work with Pixel 7/Pro
This means that you wouldn’t be able to install the 32-bit apps on your Pixel 7/Pro. So why are only Insgtram mods affected by this? well, this issue isn’t just limited to modded apps, rather any 32-bit that you sideload will be affected by this problem. But since modded version social media apps were the most sideloaded apps [because they could not be published on the Play Store], they were mostly in the news.
Moroever, most of the other apps already have their 64-bit versions, so they weren’t affected. But why did Instagram mod APKS didn’t had their 64-bit versions? Good question! The reason for the same is the fact that the official Instagram app isn’t multi-lib, in other words, it doesn’t have the 32-bit + 64-bit in one single APK.
So modders had two options – either tweak both versions individually- which would require too many economies of scale, or tweak one of those two versions which were widely supported across numerous Android devices. That version was 32-bit and hence they only modded the 32-bit version of the app. However, now that Google had suddenly made this change, these apps will no longer be compatible with the latest Pixel devices.
How to Install 32-bit Modded Instagram App on Pixel 7/Pro
All this begs an important question- what could you, as a user do to address this issue? Well, first and foremost, you should notify the developers of this change right away. In this regard, two of the most popular Instagram mod developers are already aware of it and could release the 64-bit versions of their apps within a few weeks.
In the meantime, your best course of action is to have an ad-blocker-enabled browser, create a PWA for Instagram using that browser, and then launch Instagram using it. This way you will be able to at least put an end to those annoying ads, at the very least. So refer to the below steps to give this nifty workaround a try right away.
- Download and install a browser that comes with a built-in ad-blocker [such as Brave].
- Then launch it, open the Instagram website, and sign in to your account.
- Now tap on the overflow icon situated at the bottom right and select Add to Home Screen.
- Then select Add and tap on Add to Home Screen. It will now create a PWA of the same.
- As of now, you should access Instagram using it, till the modded version isn’t available.
On that note, we round off this post regarding the fiasco surrounding the Instagram mods APK compatibility issues with Pixel 7/Pro. We will update this post accordingly as and when there is further development regarding the same. In the meantime, you. could drop in your valuable opinions in the comments section below.
