By 
Aanu Omotosho
Instagram has followed the footsteps of Twitter, Facebook, Google and Microsoft to provide a better experience for users with limited network connectivity. The Facebook-owned Company has added an offline mode, that will cater significantly to 80% of its users (600 million users) outside the United States.
This was announced at the Facebook F8 developer conference, where Instagram said the offline mode allows for the liking of photos, comments, saving, following and unfollowing. When a data connection is re-established, the actions made will be uploaded to Instagram’s servers. Screenshots from Android Police show the app providing messages saying you’re offline and the actions will be “updated when you’re connected”. This means posts and comments can be made when browsing the app but they will only be uploaded when there is a data connection – either through mobile networks or Wi-Fi.
Instagram’s offline mode works the same way with Facebook’s where you may have seen the message that says “you can still post while offline” when using the social network. There isn’t support for Instagram stories at present, which may be due to a large amount of data used by the feature.
Instagram is said to be exploring moving the offline mode to iOS devices in coming months. But for now, much of this functionality is now available on Android, which is the preferred device type in the developing world.
It seems almost all social media platforms are providing an offline version of their applications, as they recognize the fact that everyone everywhere wants visual communication easily, and speedily… even in the developing world.
Where does this leave Snapchat?
