Instagram was once the most-popular app, before it isn't anymore. Business is business, and improving is a must to thrive.
The social media that is owned by Meta has seen furious challenges from TikTok. In order to remain competitive, the company is giving the app an upgrade, which should make it more compelling than ever.
The upgrade its video feature, makes it possible for a;; Instagram users to download Reels, as long as their public.
The enables users to save Reels to their phone, and watch them later at any time.
The feature appears as a new 'Download' option on Instagram's mobile app's share button.
Announced by Instagram boss Adam Mosseri to his broadcast channel, the feature was previously available only to U.S. users.
While the feature should come useful to many of its users, there are some limitations.
First of, when users download a Reel that uses a licensed audio clip, the downloaded video will not have any audio. Only Reels with original audio tracks will have sound in the downloaded clip.
Then, besides being available to public accounts only, Reels that are downloaded will have a watermark on them to show the name of the account it was downloaded from.
It's worth noting that that creators can choose to opt out of downloads for specific posts or for their entire account.
The feature is also turned off by default for users under the age of 18.
When the download feature is not available in these circumstances, users can still save the Reels to their collection.
While this feature makes it similar to the downloading feature on TikTok, Instagram's parent company Meta has made it very clear that it sees TikTok as a key rival.
Meta is known for copying competitors' features, but in this case, it doesn't want people to judge it that way.
Back in 2021, Instagram stopped recommending users from uploading videos from TikTok due to their apparent watermark.
In August 2022, YouTube began embedding a logo-based watermark on downloaded Shorts, in order to deter cross-platform sharing.