Instagram Tested a Horizontal Feed and People were not Happy

Instagram briefly tested a horizontal feed on Thursday. The Verge reported that the test was pushed to a wider than expected audience. Not surprisingly, people freaked out. However, normal, vertical, service resumed after a short amount of time. The horizontal feed essentially turns a user’s feed into an Instagram story and makes it harder to quickly scroll through lots of posts.
Instagram has quietly started testing a horizontal feed for some users, a huge sideways shift from the vertically-scrolling user experience that’s been the norm since the app launched. The company had previously been testing the feature back in October, but it seems that it’s rolling it out more widely to users starting today. The new feed basically turns all posts into a single, giant Instagram story, complete with tapping to advance and a scrolling bar at the top to show you how far you’ve progressed. It’s certainly a jarring change for Instagram’s community, which has grown accustomed to the old feed.