Instagram Tests New Direct App

If you’ve been an active Instagram user for at least the last five years, you would agree that the app has evolved a lot from what we knew when Facebook acquired it in 2012.

Instagram Credit: Tech Crunch

From a simple picture based app, Instagram now has its own customized filters, gallery, boomerang, stories and other new features. Yesterday, Instagram tested out another new feature which the launch of a separate Instagram Direct app.

The functionalities of the Direct app are quite similar to the Facebook Messenger which was also a part of the parent Facebook app at a time before it was separated. This is what Instagram had to say on the test:

“We want Instagram to be a place for all of your moments, and private sharing with close friends is a big part of that. To make it easier and more fun for people to connect in this way, we are beginning to test Direct – a camera-first app that connects seamlessly back to Instagram.”

The app allows you to create and share stories, use Boomerang and gives you access to new exclusive filters. At the moment, the app is only available in Uruguay, Chile, Turkey, Italy, Portugal and Israel.