You will no longer be able to see the Photo Maps feature on Instagram when you view someone’s profile. However, the feature for now is still available on user’s own profiles.
Among a hoard of recent updates, Instagram is making another update to its app, which is not really a feature addition but somewhat of a roll back. Remember the photo maps that Instagram had, which showed the map of the world with your pictures pinned in areas or places where you clicked them? Well, Instagram is killing that feature. While some users have already received the update with the Photo Map feature missing, it will soon be rolled out across all platforms and all users. The update began rolling out sometime last week, but many users who received the update missed out on noticing the change.
“Photo Map was not widely used, so we’ve decided to remove the feature and focus on other priorities,” Instagram confirmed to Mashable. It is important to note, that the Photo Maps feature in being removed only from profiles of other users, you will be able to see the feature in your own profile. Which means, when you now visit someone’s profile on Instagram, the third icon of a map drop pin, which you saw earlier, will no longer be there. On other people’s profiles, you will now only see, three icons, the icon for grid layout of images, icon for bullet layout, and the icon for viewing the tagged images of that user.
The image above shows what the profiles look like after the update. In the left image you can see the Photo Maps feature icon is shown on my own profile, but the right image shows the icon missing when viewing the BGR India profile on Instagram. Social media was quite surprised at the sudden dropping of the feature by Instagram. Many users expressed sadness over the maps being removed.
Urg @instagram, I love the photo map feature! It’s a way to document all my travels. Why the change ?
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— Ella Tran (@ellatran_) September 7, 2016
The map view of my Instagram account is easily my most cherished digital item.
Not at at thrilled to see it go. https://t.co/k0rHssXOab
— Ash Ponders (@ashponders) September 7, 2016
Really hate that Instagram is taking away the photo map. I loved being able to see all the places I’ve been. Served as a scrapbook of sorts
— Jay Crain (@jcrain23) September 6, 2016
i don’t know why @instagram removed the photo map feature. seriously one of the best features they had (very useful for planning vacations)
— roger cheng (@rogerYOcheng) September 1, 2016
However, even though the Photo Maps was one of my favorite features, it doesn’t really matter that Instagram has killed the feature, because I can still view it for my own profile, and that’s all I used it for all this while too. Besides, the location tags are still present if you want to know where someone has clicked an image. Also read: Apple iPhone 7 hands-on reveals new details ahead of tonight’s launch
Other than the Photo Maps update, Instagram has been making some significant changes to the photo sharing app. The biggest in the recent past was the introduction of Snapchat-like Stories, wherein users can share photos and video with a self-destructing life span of 24 hours. Other than that, Instagram also rolled out a much-needed feature update, which now allows users to pinch to zoom in and zoom out pictures and videos on the app. The features was first rolled out to iOS users, and has recently been made available on Android as well.
Instagram also added Facebook’s algorithm of ‘who to follow’ suggestions to its new Stories feature. Like the list of suggestions Facebook and Instagram gives for the people you could follow, the app will now show you suggestions for its new Stories feature. Essentially, users will now see photo stories of people on Instagram from people Instagram’s thinks you may want to follow’.