Instagram search is getting better -- although the experience is still very different for different people.
Photographer Anthony Quintano noted on Twitter that searching for someone in Instagram's "People" search tab on your phone will now immediately show you which users follow you, and vice versa.
You can now see who follows you back on Instagram!! pic.twitter.com/ElpWkJ5Avj— Anthony Quintano (@AnthonyQuintano) January 14, 2016
There's other info in there as well: For users with a very large following, you'll also see a number of followers. For other users, you'll see which of your friends are following them. Instagram will also highlight users who have recently posted a new photo.
But this is where things get confusing. On my iPhone, I saw this extra info, but Instagram would not show who's following me. And on my Instagram app on Android (see comparison below), I just got a plain list of names, without any extra info.
It's hard to say how long have these search features been around, but it seems Instagram is currently testing a variety of configurations on various subsets of users. We've reached out to Instagram, and while a company spokesperson confirmed these features are being tested, he had nothing to share about a wider release.
While far from groundbreaking, the new features do make the app's search function much more compelling. Perhaps Facebook -- the owner of Instagram -- has finally decided to trickle down some of that social graph voodoo into Instagram as well?