When Facebook first “forced” users to download a stand-alone Messenger app to remove it from the main app, people complained left and right. But now, we’re used to having two separate apps to go through our timeline and to send messages to contacts, family, and friends. Better brace yourself for another change, this time on Instagram. The photo-sharing app is testing out a new separate Direct app to replace the current Direct Messaging inbox that is built-in within the main Instagram app.
Instagram obviously wants to develop this private messaging service, but putting it as part of an app whose primary goal is to share photos and videos in public doesn’t seem to be a match. Direct wasn’t a big deal in the first few years of Instagram, but now they have been introducing features that people seem to find interesting and worth using. By April this year they already have 375 million monthly users, and this actually coincided with the introduction of Instagram Stories.
The Direct app functions like your Inbox in your Instagram app. When you open the app, the main screen is your camera, just like Snapchat. This is to encourage people to take and send photos to their contacts. But you don’t have to take one if you don’t want to. If you swipe right, you’ll see your profile screen while swiping left is where you’ll see all your messages. You can do all the things you can do when you send messages to your friends, including adding filters, doing boomerangs, rewinds, etc.
For now, Direct is only available in 6 countries: Chile, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, and Uruguay. No news yet if they will expand their beta testing to other countries and regions. If you live in any of those countries, you can download the app for free from the Google Play Store.
VIA: The Verge
i’m in Turkey and can’t download it lol