Instagram is introducing Instant today, which is both a feature and an app. Instants is billed as “a new way to share the moment – with spontaneous, unfiltered photos that reach out to your friends.” These are short-lived for viewers, but are saved in your archive for up to a year and can be re-shared as recaps of stories.
Your friends can react and reply, replies will go straight to your DM. The new Instants “Companion App” feature provides instant camera access and is now being made available for iOS and Android “in select countries.”
So Instants are basically a way for you to share photos with your close friends or your followers that you follow, photos that disappear after being viewed. Instants live as a mini stack of photos in the bottom right corner of your Instagram DM inbox.
When you share an Instant, you can add a caption (which goes first, unlike Stories) but no further editing is possible. You can always choose with whom to share the instant. There’s also an Undo button if you want to quickly undo something. In the top right corner of Instants you can access your collection, which is visible only to you.
