Instagram Direct Updated To Support Different Orientations Of Photos, Videos

Instagram’s Direct messaging feature has been updated to support different photo orientations and web links. The update to Instagram is signaling the company’s attempt to make the platform more of a full-featured instant messaging app.

With Instagram’s latest update (ver. 10.22), users can share photos and videos on Direct messages in either landscape or portrait orientations. Previously, users were only allowed to share square images and videos on Instagram Direct.

“Now, whenever you send a permanent photo or video to your friends in Direct from your camera roll, you don’t have to worry about cropping it,” Instagram said on its blog.

In addition to that, Instagram Direct now fully supports website links. Links will now be shown on Direct messages with the page’s main photo, title and a part of the page’s text. Previously, sharing links on Direct only shows the URL itself without giving anymore information about it.

Instagram also said that Direct also supports links for phone numbers and addresses, as well. When a user shares a phone number or address on Instagram Direct, it will appear as a link.

Tapping on a phone number will bring up option to either call the number or simply copy it. Tapping on an address will bring up the option to open it on Google Maps or Apple’s Maps app.

“Since introducing the new Instagram Direct in April, we’ve been excited to give people more ways to have fun, visual conversations. We’ll continue to make improvements to Instagram Direct throughout the year,” the company said.

All of these new features are now available for the Instagram iOS app. The added link support for Direct messages is not available yet on the Android version of the Instagram app, but the company said that it was coming “soon.”

Becoming The Go-To Instant Messaging Platform

Instagram has been adding more features to its mobile app to further compete with other photo and messaging apps. Last month, it was reported that Instagram Direct had 375 million monthly active users. It’s still way behind Facebook Messenger’s 1.2 billion monthly active users, but it does prove that Instagram Direct is one of the biggest instant messaging service worldwide, as pointed out by TechCrunch.

The sheer number of active users also prompted Instagram to add support for disappearing photo and video messages, a feature that was popularized by one of Instagram’s major rivals, Snapchat. That feature has also been merged to its Direct messaging platform. At launch, Instagram’s disappearing photo and video messages were kept in a different section of the app.

Instagram has been copying most of Snapchat’s features. It started out with adding Instagram Stories, a feature that lets users share a series of photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. Most recently, Instagram added Face Filters to its Stories feature; the company’s own take on Snapchat’s augmented reality lenses.

With today’s latest update to Instagram Direct, it’s very clear that Instagram wants to stay ahead of the curve by giving its users what they want, as pointed out by Android Central.