Instagram adds an offline mode and a new collections feature

As announced this week on its official blog, Instagram is rolling out a new feature available from version 10.17 of the Android and iOS clients to let you make custom collections out of posts saved as favorites. Plus it’s possible to organize them into themed folders to keep track of everything in a move that brings it closer to the approach of Pinterest. Plus it’s rolling out a new offline mode that lets you like, save, and make comments on posts when you have no connection, and sync everything automatically whenever you go back online.

To mark the Facebook Developer Conference, some stats of interests have been published about Instagram, like the fact that in December 2016 it hit 600 million active users – a very significant figure the reveals an acceleration in growth since it was released in 2010 for iOS (check out the graphic below from TechCrunch).

In December 2016 a feature got added to save favorites to check out later (not to be confused with the standard Like), which you can find by going into your profile and tapping on the ribbon icon (it looks the same as the one you tap to save a post there in the first place). As of now some 46% of Instagram users have used this feature at least once.

We should point out that, just like what happens with your saved posts, all content in collections is private. You can create new folders to save the images in or add new content to the already existing ones, and can even name them and set a certain image as the collection cover. You access your collections through the same ribbon icon as before, though now the section is divided into two.

Instagram is continuing with its tour de force in its attempt to become an all-in-one made up of the most polished features of other social networks. In recent weeks it’s added Snapchat-esque disappearing messages, seasonal stickers with geolocation, and the option to add several images or videos in a single post. All an unmistakable sign that they’re feeling a need to keep evolving to stay afloat in a market that’s as tight as it volatile.