Instagram introduced on Monday that it’s updating its Map function to make it simpler to see whether or not you’re sharing your location. The social community additionally introduced that it’s launching the Snap Map-like function to customers in India, following the preliminary rollout to customers within the United States and Canada in August.
When the function first launched, it brought on widespread confusion, with quite a few social media posts urging customers to show off location sharing, incorrectly claiming it was enabled by default. On the time, Instagram head Adam Mosseri reassured customers that their location is barely seen to others in the event that they determine to share it.
Now, two months later, Instagram is including a extra outstanding indicator on the prime of the Map to remind customers whether or not or not they’re sharing their location, or if they’ve their machine location off solely. There’s additionally a brand new indicator that seems beneath their profile picture within the Notes tray on the DMs web page that clarifies in the event that they’re not sharing your location.
Moreover, customers initially believed that tagging a location of their posts meant they have been sharing their actual time location on the Map, as their profile image would seem over the content material. Nonetheless, this isn’t the case because the function merely pulls in posts with location tags. To scale back confusion, Instagram has now eliminated profile images from Map content material to make it clear that it doesn’t point out somebody’s present location.
Instagram can also be going to show an academic reminder notifying customers that after they add a location tag to a narrative, Reel, or put up, it’ll in style on the Map. It’s price noting that this isn’t precisely new, as Instagram already had location tags seen to customers in its map view.
And to make it even clearer, Instagram will now present a preview to point out customers how their content material will look on the Map after they add a location to Instagram content material.
With its new Map function, Instagram copied yet one more in style function from Snapchat, after cloning the app’s core Tales performance again in 2016.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
When Instagram first introduced the function, it mentioned it’s designed to make it simpler for associates to coordinate and hyperlink up for hangouts. It additionally lets customers discover location-based content material that their associates and favourite creators have shared or engaged with.
No matter whether or not you select to share your location, you should use the map to discover location-based content material, Instagram mentioned.