After reaching 10 million users few hours after its public launch, Instagram new Threads app for iOS has received its first upgrade, Version which supports compatibility for the iOS 17 public beta.
Cameron Roth, an Instagram software engineer, announced the Threads Version Supports . He listed the latest build’s features and changes, including the app’s ability to run on iOS 17 without crashing.
Other changes are minor quality-of-life enhancements, not big additions like a chronological feed, an edit button, multiple account support, or the ability to search posts, which Instagram head Adam Mosseri has promised.
Instead, the app update adds features like the ability to double-tap the search tab to start a search and expand profile pics, support for extra tall photos that are fully viewable, a refined “facepill pill” (the list of people that appears at the top of the screen when there are new posts to read), and bug fixes. For instance, Threads now has better scroll dismiss handling on profiles and corrections to random images on the threadline (Threads’ timeline). Roth said that it fixed several minor problems. Adding that the app’s binary size has been reduced.
The engineer responded to other users’ requests for features by saying that alt text, an accessibility feature for low-vision and blind users that adds text to photos, would be coming soon and that you would be able to see an indicator in your followers section next week. He also confirmed Mosseri’s pledge to add a following feed to Threads and said the app’s core algorithm and other accessibility features were being “continuously improved.”
Roth responded to a criticism about Threads’ lack of a desktop version, saying it’s not as simple as “turning it on.”
He remarked, “It didn’t exist and needs to be built.” Thus, that change appears to be delayed.
Threads was launched while still a work-in-progress because Meta wanted to capitalize on Twitter’s chaos, which was sending users fleeing again after Elon Musk reduced the number of viewable tweets due to data scraping activity. (Musk raised Twitter’s API prices, leaving some developers unable to pay for Twitter’s data, which boosted scraping.)
As a result, several Twitter alternatives gained popularity, notably decentralized Twitter rival Mastodon, which saw its monthly active users rise from 1.4 million to 1.9 million by June 11. Masoton founder and CEO Eugen Rochko noted in early July that active users increased by 294K over the weekend and posting activity tripled. Yesterday, he promoted a piece that indicated Mastodon has reached 2 million monthly active users, suggesting the Twitter exodus is ongoing.
Like Mastodon, Threads promises to link with ActivityPub, allowing users to move their accounts to other ActivityPub-connected servers and engage with and follow other Mastodon users.
According to new CEO Linda Yaccarino, Twitter had its biggest usage day since February last week.
Follow our socials Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google News.
