Some Instagram customers are feeling cheated out of a brand new characteristic, because the photograph and video sharing app on Wednesday introduced the launch of customized icons — however just for its teen customers.
Teenagers can now select from a set of customized icons that flip the normal Instagram brand into new variations that can be utilized because the app’s icon on their cellphone’s house display. The choice is accessed by tapping the Instagram brand on the prime of the house feed after opening the app.
Presently, the customized icons embody renditions of the Instagram brand styled as neon, clear glass, fireplace, flowers, inexperienced slime, and extra.
Within the replies to its announcement on X, customers are overwhelmingly pushing again towards the concept such a characteristic needs to be age-gated, noting that grownup customers additionally need to customise their house screens. Some accused Instagram of chasing Snapchat with the characteristic. (On Snapchat, customers want a paid Snapchat+ subscription to vary the app’s icon.) Others stated it gave them “MySpace vibes.”
Instagram’s teen accounts, launched in 2024, add further restrictions and built-in protections for minors, together with limits on content material to PG-13 materials. The corporate earlier this yr started utilizing AI know-how to determine teenagers who lied about their age on the social community and enroll them within the extra restricted teen accounts.
With customized icons, the corporate is making an attempt a distinct strategy: utilizing a carrot as a substitute of a stick, so to talk, to make the teenager accounts appear extra interesting.
Youthful customers do make sense as a goal for personalisation choices, as they’ve overwhelmingly embraced the iPhone Residence Display customization pattern, which noticed renewed curiosity when Apple launched widgets in 2020 with the launch of iOS 14. Apple additionally made it simpler to customise icons with enhancements to app shortcuts. Extra not too long ago, Apple has simplified the method with tinted icons in iOS 18, which had been up to date in iOS 26.
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Android customers have had these types of customization choices for much longer, although nearly all of U.S. teenagers are on iPhones.
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