Apps/websites and users have a love/hate (mostly hate on the side of the latter) with the autoplay video. A lot of people find it quite annoying, but some actually like the fact that they find interesting videos because of it or that they don’t have to press play on something to watch it. Instagram, for one, is trying to find a good balance, particularly for autoplaying with sound. They seem to have quietly rolled out an update which sees videos autplaying with sound once you’ve watched one with audio. The good news is that if you close or restart the app, it reverts to the automatic muted sound.
Videos on your Instagram timeline automatically play with the sound off. But once you start watching one with audio, you will notice that the videos after that will also be playing with sound. That’s because they assume that when you turn on the audio (the speaker icon in the bottom left), then you are probably either wearing your earphones or you’re in a place where it’s okay to listen to things clearly and without being embarrassed or disturbing others.
But when you close your app and re-open it, it will automatically revert to the audio off setting. But if you don’t want to restart the app but also don’t want to have the audio play anymore, you can toggle a video back to silent and then the rest of your session will follow suit. This is probably the best compromise that they can come up with for those who hate autoplay audio and those who hate toggling the sound on and off.
When it comes to Instagram Stories, the videos will still follow the device settings. It will only play with the sound if you unmute the video. They assume as well that if you watch Stories, you’re prepared to see videos. Let us know what you think of this new Instagram feature.
VIA: TechCrunch
