Instagram looked a lot different on Thursday morning, and it unfortunately wasn’t because chronological timelines had made their return. Instead, the company introduced a horizontal feed for some users.
Rather than scrolling down to see new posts, users had to scroll sideways (similar to Tinder and other swipe-based apps). The new design — which only affected the main feed, not individual profiles — appeared to resemble one long Instagram story.
This new Instagram update pic.twitter.com/9rzcn607uF
— Zara Larsson (@zaralarsson) December 27, 2018
These Instagram updates are weird. I think Instagram wants us to leave. Like when a guy goes “you’re just to good for me.” We should listen.
— Quinta. (@quintabrunson) December 27, 2018
instagram when they saw the update wasn’t a hit:
when they quickly remove it:#instagramupdate pic.twitter.com/UHqrOxphRb— ? ?????? ? (@localsatanicboy) December 27, 2018
us: pls chronological timelines
insta: what? insta stories?
us: nonono chronological timelines
insta: did you mean IGTV
us: NO CHRONOLOGICAL TIMELINES
insta: ohhhh you want to scroll horizontally #instagramupdate— ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ? (@triviastigma) December 27, 2018
Instagram should of sent out this lol #Instagramupdate pic.twitter.com/A8l5Hd6gI6
— Marisol✨ (@MarisolEquihua) December 27, 2018
But as it turns out, the change wasn’t even supposed to happen. “Due to a bug, some users saw a change to the way their feed appears today,” Instagram’s company page tweeted. “We quickly fixed the issue and feed is back to normal. We apologize for any confusion.”
Within minutes, Instagram reverted users back to the vertical feed.
Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s VP of Product, also addressed the unexpected update. “Sorry about that,” he tweeted. “This was supposed to be a very small test but we went broader than we anticipated.”
Just a test.
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) December 27, 2018
Mosseri didn’t clarify whether the change would be implemented in the future. He did, however, respond to a tweet that said “So is this coming to all or still just ‘testing’?’ with “Just a test.”
According to The Verge, Instagram actually began testing the feature back in October in the Explore section of the app.