Here's how an inventive programmer uncovered Instagram's Pride Month features
Snapchat's continuing implosion is Instagram's gain.
As more users flock to Instagram, primarily to share Stories, the Facebook-owned company is testing a long list of new features that'll further accelerate growth and leave Snapchat in its dust.
A couple of weeks ago developer Jane Manchun Wong shared a list of new, unreleased Instagram features the app was privately testing. Then, on Saturday, Wong unloaded even more possible features that may or may not ever see the light of day.
I caught up with Wong over Twitter DM to get a better understanding how she was making these discoveries.
Wong says she keeps a copy of each new public version of Instagram (for Android) and then decompiles the app's code using a publicly available tool capable of reverse engineering closed Android apps (she requested I not include the tool's name because she's not an advocate of people using it for hacking or other malicious purposes) and a custom Python script she wrote herself.
"The more I find, the more I learn. I see this as my hobby. It's like treasure hunting."
She then looks through the new code to see what's changed and what new features have been added that haven't been made public. "It requires reading through assembly code and it's a pain to make some of the finds possible."
What Wong doesn't have is access to any developer preview version of the app. "I don't have a developer preview. If I do, all of these will be a breach of a NDA (if there's one)."
Reverse-engineering the code is painstaking for sure and one would think Wong is doing it for the fame. But that's not the impression I got from our conversation.
"The more I find, the more I learn. I see this as my hobby. It's like treasure hunting," Wong said. "Sure, it takes some of my free time, but the treasure is the bugs and hidden features that I can get some laughs from."
Wong pointed me to a recent tweet response from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in response to a hidden end-to-end encryption Twitter DM feature she discovered:
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
"Sometimes I just do that for the lolz and see how they would react to it," Wong says. "For example, Jack the CEO of Twitter handled my find very well lol."
With that light-hearted mentality, here are some of the new unreleased features Wong's discovered.
Rainbow hashtags in captions for Pride Month:
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Rainbow stickers and hashtags for Pride Month:
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Rainbow hearts on Instagram Live for Pride Month:
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Send multiple photos and videos in Instagram Direct:
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Slightly tweaked Instagram Direct UI and emoji:
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
A way for business accounts to "request verification badge":
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
More detailed mute features:
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
A new way to display private accounts:
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Topics Instagram Social Media
Raymond Wong is Mashable's Senior Tech Correspondent. He reviews gadgets and tech toys and analyzes the tech industry. Raymond's also a bit of a camera geek, gamer, and fine chocolate lover. Before arriving at Mashable, he was the Deputy Editor of NBC Universal's tech publication DVICE. His writing has appeared on G4TV, BGR, Yahoo and Ubergizmo, to name a few. You can follow Raymond on Twitter @raywongy or Instagram @sourlemons.
