Instagram isn’t done taking Snapchat's features, introduces ‘face filters’

Instagram adds one more missing piece to its Story feature: Snapchat lenses. Those augmented reality-based filters that lets you add things like bunny ears or a dog’s snout on you. Of course, Instagram can’t call these lenses so they opt to call them “face filters.” You can access the feature at the bottom right of the Story window. It looks like a face icon with sparkles on them. And just like Snapchat lenses, you can go through the different filters to play around with.

As Mashable’s Raymond Wong points out, this blatant copying of Snapchat might not look good but it has been paying off for Facebook. Last month, Instagram garnered 200 million daily active users using Stories, which is already more than the entire daily active user base of Snapchat.

Instagram now has 700 million users, with 100 million added since December

Facebook-owned photo sharing app Instagram now boasts 700 million active users, with 100 million coming on board since December. Instagram has added various new ways to share photos, boomerangs, videos as well as stories. 

Facebook bought Instagram for 1 Billion when it realized it could not compete with the popular photo sharing app. Since then, Instagram's evolved by emulating features found on other popular image sharing services, most notably Snap.

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Get Instagram photo backgrounds on your Michael Kors smartwatch

In a couple of days, the My Social app for Michael Kors will let you use photos from your Instagram feed to become your watch face. That is, if you own one of the brand’s Access watches, specifically the Dylan and Bradshaw models.  The app will be coming to these smartwatches via an over-the-air update on April 25^th. The video above shows just how you can make the change. You just need to sign into your profile, select the photo you want to use and the filter for it, and then select the watch style.

There’s no word yet if they plan to integrate other social networks into the app or if more models will be added. It makes sense to start with Instagram though as the app has visually stunning images with some users opting to use the service as a visual portfolio of sorts.

Source: Engadget

Instagram announces Android to get offline mode

Reaching out to Instagram users with limited network connectivity or those without data plans, the social network is bringing offline support for its Android app as announced at Facebook's F8 developer conference. They started with Android first as it’s considered the preferred type of device in the developing world. According to Tech Crunch, Instagram is exploring the possibility of bringing it to iOS, too.

In offline mode, you will be able to see previously loaded content in your feed, profiles you visited before and old versions of the Explore tab will be visible, too. You’ll be able to leave comments, like photos, unfollow people, or save media. All these actions will then be carried over once you reconnect.