What you need to know
- Instagram is getting a new full-screen feed that looks more like TikTok than the Instagram of old.
- Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that Instagram has begun to roll out the new interface to some users and is asking for feedback.
- Instagram has been changing up its app to try to woo users back from other media-heavy social apps like TikTok and Snapchat.
Instagram's new full-screen feed view is beginning to roll out for select users in order to gauge interest in such a feature. CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, confirmed that Instagram wants to "make it easier to discover content and connect with friends" with the new interface. How, exactly, that will be achieved with the new interface is not entirely clear, as all the forward-facing buttons appear to be the same as the current layout.
We first saw the new layout back in early May when a Meta spokesperson said it was designed to "bring video more front and center" than Instagram's historical layout. As the best smartphone cameras equally focus on photo and video quality these days and video-heavy apps like TikTok have sucked in users by the millions, Instagram has been looking for a way to carve out a piece of this new, more animated social space.
Since Instagram began as a photo-sharing app and later had video features tacked on, it makes sense for Meta to redesign the app to better accommodate both features. But Zuckerberg said Instagram hasn't forgotten photos and is "working on ways to improve the way they show up in a full-screen Feed too." That's great since viewing Instagram on foldable phones and other large-screen devices isn't a great experience in its current iteration.
Zuckerberg wasn't clear which users would be seeing the new UI but said that "some people will start seeing this test soon." If you happen to open up Instagram over the next few days and notice that things look drastically different, Meta is encouraging feedback of all kinds from users about the new interface.
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