Twitter rival Threads aiming to add edit button and other new features
Android users who want to get an early peek at new features and bug fixes will be able to download a beta version of Threads.
A week after its official launch, Threads is already eyeing a bunch of new features and fixes to satisfy disgruntled users and play catchup with Twitter. In a Tuesday post on Threads, Instagram head Adam Mosseri revealed that the new social network from Meta is working on an edit button that would let people modify their posts. Other items in the works include an option to see only the accounts you follow and search for posts.
Among the proposed new features, the edit button may be the one of most interest. Twitter kicked off an edit option in late 2022, but there are a couple of catches to it. You're granted only up to 60 minutes to revise your tweet. And you have to be a Twitter Blue subscriber, which costs $8 a month or $84 a year. As Threads is free, all users would be able to edit their posts once that feature goes live.
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And what of the other proposed enhancements? Any efforts in those areas will also help make Threads more usable, friendly, and Twitter-like.
For now, your feed shows all types of accounts -- those you follow and those you don't follow. There is a workaround for limiting the feed to only the accounts you follow. But giving people a choice directly in the app would be a better approach. Threads also includes a search feature but it will only find accounts. There's no way to search for specific posts.
In his Tuesday post, Mosseri acknowledged that "with so many people joining @threads so fast these last six days (six days!) the team has been entirely focused on keeping the lights on and fixing bugs, but we're starting to prioritize the obvious missing features, like a following feed, the edit button, and post search."
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Threads has so far proved a hit, reeling in more than 100 million users in less than a week. But that doesn't mean those are all happy users. People have been grumbling about certain limitations, missing features, and other bumps in the road, especially compared with Twitter. To assure users that the platform won't be standing still, Mosseri has been keeping them abreast of other improvements on the schedule.
One constraint with Threads is that your Instagram account is directly connected. This means that if you try to delete or deactivate your Threads account, your one on Instagram also gets the heave-ho. To get past this obstacle, Mosseri said that they're looking into a way for people to delete their Threads account separately.
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Another annoyance is that your feed randomly displays posts with no ability for you to sort them or change the order. To fix this, Mosseri noted that both Instagram and Facebook give you the ability to sort your feed in chronological order and that the same option will be coming to Threads. And there's more in store, according to another post from Mosseri, including a hashtag option and maybe even direct messaging.
Android users who want to get an early peek at new features and bug fixes will be able to download a beta version of Threads, which Mosseri cautioned would be more unstable than the release version. As for the official timeline, some of the improvements may be just around the corner. "We're clearly way out over our skis on this, but the team is pumped to start shipping improvements this week," Mosseri teased.