Users on Instagram who have missed the chronological feed might be getting a new way to see the most recent pictures and videos from the accounts they follow.
As Instagram has been spotted internally prototyping a “Latest Posts” feature. This feature will appear as a pop up over the main feed and bring users to a different page showing them the newest content from their network.
Currently, this prototype does not look like a full-fledged “Most Recent” reverse-chronological feed option. However, if launched Latest Posts could help satisfy the users who want to make sure they haven’t missed anything.
This prototype was discovered by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, who provided this tip to TechCrunch. Instagram will basically show a pop up screen saying “Welcome Back! Get caught up on the posts from (names of people you follow) and 9 more”, if users tap on “See Posts” instead of “Not Now” they’re sent to a separate screen showing recent feed posts.
“This early prototype is from a recent hackathon – it is not available to anyone publicly, and we have no plans to test or launch it at this time,” Instagram confirmed to TechCrunch.
However, a feature like this is first prototyped internally and then – sometimes – will be tested externally if it melds with Instagram’s objectives and finally it will be launched officially if the test results come out positive.
In mid-2016, Instagram switches away from a reverse-chronological feed showing all the posts of people you follow in order. Now, it has forced all users to scroll through an algorithmic feed of what Instagram thinks its users will like best. This triggered significant backlash as some users thought they were missing posts or found the jumbled timestamps to be confusing.
Latest Posts could be another way to let frequent Instagram users know that they’re totally up to date and that they haven’t missed out on any posts.
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