Social media giant spins off new app for disappearing photos — sound familiar?

When Meta launched Threads in 2023, it was fairly clear what the goal was. The app looked a lot like Twitter (as it was still known for another two weeks), and that was clearly part of the point. Meta now seems to be trying a similar play with its latest Instagram spin-off, Instants — except this time, the app it resembles most is Snapchat.

The new app was highlighted in a Threads post (via 9to5Google) from Instagram head Adam Mosseri, while the Play Store listing fills in the key details. Instants is described as an app from Instagram that lets you share disappearing photos with friends and “connect with your favorite people over life’s little moments.”

The app opens straight to the camera so you can send photos quickly, with no edits, and anything you share can’t be viewed again once it’s gone or after 24 hours. Meta also says you can share and view these disappearing photos in either Instants or the main Instagram app.

That last bit makes sense, because this sort of quick, in-the-moment sharing already existed inside Instagram, but Instants gives it a dedicated app of its own. Spinning it out into a separate experience is almost certainly a bid to rival Snapchat, which has spent years owning this kind of fast-and-loose sharing between friends. Instants doesn’t look especially subtle in that context, and Meta probably isn’t trying to be.

The problem for Zuckerberg this time around is that he doesn’t have the world’s richest man alienating parts of his rival’s user base. The Play Store listing says the app was updated on April 19 and currently shows just 100+ downloads, so the surge to try the app has clearly not yet commenced. Still, if you wanted this Snapchat-like part of Instagram as a standalone app, Instants seems to do exactly that.