This possibly new feature was spotted by reverse engineering expert and app developer, Jane Manchun Wong who is known for diving deep into code to find hidden upcoming features. Jane Manchun Wong tweeted some screenshots of the DMs feature on desktop highlighting that Instagram Direct for the desktop web has a similar interface to Messenger, as the conversation threads show up on the sidebar towards the left, and the thread info sidebar on the right with a thread displayed in between. The thread info sidebar shows a list of members in conversation as seen in Wong’s screenshots. Mark Zuckerberg had already announced his plans to allow you to communicate between Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp down the road, so it’s not surprising the apps would share a similar UI. What’s left now is wondering when IG will actually roll it out. However back in February Wong had tweeted screenshots of the Direct Messages for desktop claiming that Instagram was working on the feature. But shortly after she uploaded the screenshots, access to the feature was blocked by Instagram. Lately, Instagram has been releasing updates for desktop users as opposed to its previous approach that made them seem entirely focused on their smartphone platform. Instagram’s desktop platform gives users access to their feeds with the ability to like and comment, but as I said earlier, you still can’t upload images from a PC and can’t yet send direct messages. It is also not possible to upload stories or react to stories on the desktop. I think that if Instagram is interested in giving users more features and better accessibility on desktop soon we should be able to upload posts too. I mean this would make it a proper photography platform. What do you think?
