Instagram is testing a new photo feature that appears to be an almost exact copy of a popular new photo app.
According to leaker Alessandro Paluzzi, Instagram is experimenting with a new feature called ‘IG Candid Challenges’, where users are prompted at a different time each day to capture and share a photo within two minutes. Images will then be shared with other users taking part in the challenge.
Instagram is testing a new feature that looks remarkably like a rival app.
According to Paluzzi, IG Candid Challenges use a dual-camera mode where both front and rear cameras are activated simultaneously, capturing an image of the user along with their photo.
Paluzzi revealed his findings on Twitter, along with screenshots of the so-far-unreleased feature which has since been confirmed to Engadget as an ‘internal prototype.’
If any of this looks familiar, it’s because IG Candid Challenges bears more than a passing resemblance to the popular new app, BeReal.
Both use daily notifications to prompt users to take images within a two-minute window and both capture images from both front and rear cameras simultaneously. However, BeReal additionally bans the use of photo filters or image editing, while it’s unknown whether IG Candid Challenges would do the same.
Billed as a new and unique way to discover who your friends really are in their daily life, BeReal is currently the No.1 most popular app in the iOS App Store in the United States. It should come as no surprise then that Instagram, currently sitting in the No.8 spot, must prepare a response.
BeReal is available for Android and iOS
While the current IG Candid Challenges prototype appears to be incredibly similar to BeReal, it’s important to remember that it’s currently meant only for internal testing and may eventually appear in a somewhat different form — assuming it is released at all.
BeReal is intended as an antidote to the highly curated, edited, and filtered influencer-centric world of social media apps, so it would be a shame to see its core features swallowed up by Instagram. However, even if this were to happen, simply adding IG Candid Challenges to the mix wouldn’t provide users with the escape from Instagram that users appear to want — away from follower counts, filters, influencers and recommended posts from strangers.
That can come only from switching to an entirely separate app.
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