Instagram Direct messaging app is being killed off as the Facebook-owned giant photo sharing platform will no longer be supporting the app. Users of the app have been getting notifications that Instagram Direct will no longer be supported in the coming month.
The app has four tabs, Camera, Messages, Stories and an Instagram button that sent you to the main app. Installing the app meant that your DM inbox on the main app disappeared and could only be seen on the Direct app.
According to Matt Navarra and user submitted app reviews on the play store, no definite date has been set. Your messages will be transferred to the main Instagram app. Instagram assures users that their DMs won’t be deleted.
Confirmed: Instagram is killing its standalone Direct Messaging app pic.twitter.com/owt2gXtfCE
— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) May 16, 2019
The standalone Direct Messaging App was launched in a few countries in late 2017 adding features such as Gipghy gifs even getting a web version of the app four desktop use. The app was still in beta up to now. It was Facebook’s attempt at unifying messaging on all of its apps.
We can presume the app is being shut down since it has failed to gain significant traction but who is to blame when users are spoilt for choice between Facebook’s very own messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger which boast of having 1.3 billion users and 1.6 billion users respectively compared to the 375 million users of the service as of 2017.
“We’re rolling back the test of the standalone Direct app. We’ll focus on continuing to make Instagram Direct the best place for fun conversations with your friends,” an Instagram Spokesperson said in a statement to Techcrunch.
