After adding a much requested pinch and zoom feature last week, Facebook-owned photo sharing giant Instagram is taking away a popular feature-photo maps.
According to technology news site Mashable, Instagram is killing the feature that allowed you to see a map of where a given user’s photos were taken (if they designated a location for the photo). You could also zoom in on maps to get a closer view of where photos were taken in a particular city or region. Instagram’s base of approximately 500 million users can still see their own personal photo maps, but just no longer access other users’ maps.
“Photo Map was not widely used, so we’ve decided to remove the feature and focus on other priorities,” the company said in a statement to Mashable.
The removal of a feature is a rarity for Instagram, which has been on a tear recently adding new features as it looks to compete with mobile messaging rival Snapchat.
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For example, with Pinch and Zoom, users can use the pinch and zoom gesture on their iPhone screen to zoom on photos and videos in the main feed, on other user’s profiles, and in the explore tab of the app.
A few weeks ago, Instagram debuted a new feature called Stories, operating similar to Snapchat’s feature with the same name. Like Snapchat’s Stories, the Instagram version allows users to collect a number of individual photos and videos into a “story” that they can share with their followers.
The Facebook-owned app also recently launched an events-themed video section, which is comparable to a feature that Snapchat has been offering for some time. Earlier this year, Instagram started filtering its main feed using an algorithm, following in the footsteps of parent company Facebook.
