Image from Wikimedia Commons
Most users of popular social media app Instagram know the frustration of wanting to share a photo or perusing your friends posts only to find out you can’t do anything because there’s no Internet connection available.
With the new functionality announced at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, Android users will be able to do stuff offline, like view, heart & comment on previously downloaded posts & have them updated automatically as soon as they get back online.
Up til now offline Instagram users were pretty much out of luck if they wanted to use the app. Now, most Instagram features will work offline, like liking (hearting) posts, unfollowing & saving media… The explore tab will now also function offline & you’ll be able to look through previously visited profiles & posts you’ve already downloaded.
The announcement was just made by Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, at the parent company’s annual developers’ conference in San Jose, California (USA).
Apparently the move is aimed at getting more of a foothold in developing countries throughout the world, where data plans on mobile phones are not as common as in the developed world & are often unreliable. Although I’m sure the rest of us will also appreciate the move.
Analysts at the F8 conference have said that Instagram plans on rolling out more offline functionality soon. It’s not clear if the Stories feature will be supported offline in this new version of Instagram.
Instagram is already used by 600+ million users around the world & the Stories feature, which was introduced last year, has been a big hit with 200+ million people using it.
An offline version similar to that announced for Android will also be forthcoming for the iPhone & iOS. The current iOS app already caches previously loaded posts & comments, but interaction with the app doesn’t work without an internet connection.
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