Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, sure are churning out the updates ahead of Christmas and New Year’s. Today, Instagram is getting even more Snapchat-like with the addition of stickers in its Stories section.
After you’ve captured a photo or video for an Instagram Story, you can now tap a Stickers button, located next to the drawing and text buttons. You can share stickers depicting the current time, the weather, or your location. You can also customize them, adjusting their size, their positioning, or their visual style.
Holiday stickers are also being tweaked in the coming weeks: You can choose from things like gingerbread men, dreidels, and snowmen right now, and New Year’s–flavored options are coming in the near future.
With the way Instagram is trying to embrace signature Snapchat features, such as Stories and now Stickers, it’s clear that Instagram is trying to play catch-up to its competitor. However, it also seems that Instagram is trying to offer a more true-to-life, less picture-perfect platform for users who may be growing tired of a feed filled with expertly edited, cropped, and filtered photos. Currently, Stories is a place for fun and spontaneity—things that may be lacking in your main Instagram feed.
That’s not all that’s changing in the app, though. Instagram is also adding a hands-free option to Stories. Instead of pressing and holding to record your video, you can just tap and record, like you would record a video normally with your phone’s camera. iOS users can also now save their Instagram story from the past 24 hours as a single video in their camera roll—the better for re-sharing those stories on other social media platforms later.
These updates are available in Instagram version 10.3, available through Google Play and the App Store today.
