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Hidden portrait mode in Instagram could up your selfie game
June 30, 2025
At the end of last week, we postedsome exciting newsabout the potential ofInstagramintegrating voice and video calling into its app. The source of that information was the Instagram app itself; unused code buried in the APK points to a future rollout of such a service.
Now,Ishan Agarwal, the enterprising individual who discovered that hidden voice and video calling code, has found some new code that points to Instagramsupporting portrait mode in photos.
Portrait modeis a popular feature in the camera apps of newer smartphones, like theGoogle Pixel 2, theMotorola Moto X4, and theOnePlus 5T, among others. It digitally creates abokeh effect, focusing on one aspect of a still photograph and blurring out the background. Traditionally, this kind of effect could only be done with professional-grade gear like DSLR cameras, but advancements in software and hardware within smartphones enables a digital facsimile.
If Instagram supported this feature in the native app, it would enable users to create bokeh photos within the app itself, rather than taking a picture with their phone’s native camera app and then uploading that pic to Instagram. Eliminating that extra step would certainly make things easier.
Since Instagram isall about photography, it makes a ton of sense for it to introduce this feature. However, the discovery of the unused code doesn’t mean that the feature is coming soon or at all. Sometimes developers will put code into APKs for testing purposes. If the function doesn’t pan out, they just remove the code later on.
With the portrait mode trendpretty hot right now, it seems unlikely that Instagram would insert this code and not use it. If the company can figure out a simple way to integrate portrait mode into the user experience, it would undoubtedly put it one more step ahead of rivalSnapchat, whichisn’t doing so hot right now.
Would you be excited about an Instagram portrait mode feature? Let us know in the comments.
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