In the latest beta version of Instagram for Android, everyone’s favorite selfie app has revealed a major upcoming change: the ability to add multiple photos to a single post. The change, first spotted by Droid Life, takes a feature that’s been available to advertisers for a while, and rolls it out to mere mortals.
The change creates quasi-photo-albums by putting multiple photos into a post. According to The Verge, you long-press on a photo when you’re making a new post. That takes you to an options page, where you can add up to 10 photos or videos which are then posted as a gallery.
@AndroidPolice @droid_life @instagram is testing post multiple photo at one time. V10.7.0 pic.twitter.com/31sdC77klt
— Philip Chang (@Philip_Changg) February 1, 2017
For viewers, the effect is much like the multi-photo posts of Instagram’s parent company, Facebook. If you’re scrolling down through your timeline, you swipe horizontally on the first photo of a post to view the entire gallery. Again, if you’ve been using Instagram to look at promoted posts before, this interface won’t be new to you.
The capability is built into the current Android beta, but users can’t post galleries to their timelines yet. Still, if we assume that this isn’t the work of some rogue programming hero, you can expect the change to roll out within weeks, or a few months at most.
Photo galleries would just be one of many new features Instagram’s been rolling out lately. Other features have been shamelessly copying Snapchat, which has positioned itself as Instagram’s biggest rival for teen eyeballs. With Snapchat rumored to be floated in an IPO this spring, it’s crunch time for Facebook (via Instagram) to cannibalize Snapchat’s users and keep its crown as the most valuable social app.
