The short-form video gold rush and the looming uncertainty around a TikTok ban in the U.S. may have inspired Meta to consider spinning off Instagram Reels as a separate app.
Instagram’s vertically scrolling video feature could be reimagined as a standalone app, separate from the photo-sharing features and purely focusing on short-form videos. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, reportedly informed the employees about the development, the Information (via Reuters) has learned.
It’s unclear whether the pivot Reels app will be limited to a simple interface with video and discover feeds or also have a separate messaging feature. Meanwhile, if you’re already looking for a photo-sharing app that doesn’t compel you to doomscroll the endless pit of videos, Foto is a newly introduced app without these distractions.
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Where TikTok stands in the U.S.
The development comes after the U.S. president Donald Trump signed executive orders on January 20th and gave TikTok a 75-day respite from the ban proposed by the previous Biden administration. At the time, Trump had proposed a 50-50 partnership with an American company being a joint owner along with China’s ByteDance.
A day before Trump’s inauguration on January 20, TikTok went offline briefly, and the apps were taken offline from the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store. Although services resumed in a few hours, the apps did not return to the stores until mid-February.
TikTok’s parent ByteDance has received several offers for sale, including those from Microsoft, Elon Musk, and a group of independent investors that includes YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson aka Mr. Beast. Since the unbanning of the app, Trump has expressed optimism about TikTok’s (full or partial) sale to a U.S.-based company.
But, ByteDance has yet to issue any official statements apart from Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, thanking Trump for helping it “fight to protect the constitutional right of free speech” for over 170 million of its users. So it’s safe to say TikTok’s future in the U.S. is still uncertain, and Meta is looking to grab a share of users, as it has in regions like India, where TikTok has been banned.
Another standalone app by Meta
Meanwhile, Meta recently showcased another standalone app called, called Edits, aimed at creators who make videos primarily from on phones. Besides video editing and sharing features, Edits offers extra tools currently unavailable in the Instagram app, such as a higher quality camera for the iPhone, and an Inspiration tab to help creators track trends.
With these features, Edits takes CapCut, a similar app by ByteDance designed for creating TikTok videos. In 2023, Meta announced Threads, another app linked to your Instagram — but working independently — to serve an X-like feed.
As a large company, having separate entities for different portfolios perhaps allows Meta to manage them more effectively. But two apps instead of one could lead to hiccups for users and might even force them to abandon one of the apps entirely.