Meta-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram is reportedly testing Stories redesign with vertical scrolling in its app.
As noted by social media consultant Matt Navarra, some users located in Turkey have received an Instagram update that brings vertical scrolling to Stories, reports 9To5Mac While Stories from the same user can still be viewed by tapping the left or right side of the screen, jumping to the next user’s Stories requires a swipe down.
According to the report, tech journalist Thassius Veloso also received the same update in Brazil, which suggests that Instagram has been rolling out the new vertical scrolling design to more countries. The change probably comes as an attempt to compete with TikTok, which already offers vertical scrolling in its app, the report said.
As a result, Instagram has also been making Stories more focused on videos rather than static content, it added.
Back in December, Instagram was also testing an increased maximum limit for videos in Stories, which went from 15 seconds to 60 seconds.While users can already post videos of up to 1 minute on Instagram Stories, they become segmented into four videos of 15 seconds each.
It’s not clear when the new method of Stories’ scrolling will arrive for you, and even if it’s certainly coming. At this point Instragram might just be doing A/B testing and decide against rolling the feature altogether.