Facebook's new Threads app is a more private Instagram minus all the fun

Facebook has launched yet another standalone app called Threads From Instagram. As the name suggests, the app is an Instagram spin-off. However, it’s meant only to share photos and messages with your close friends.

Remember when Facebook introduced the Close Friends feature on Instagram last year? To recall, the feature lets you create a list of close friends from your Instagram contacts and allows you to share Stories with them privately. No one else can see these stories, except the chosen ones.

Now for some reason, Facebook has decided we need a new app altogether for talking to those close friends. Threads is a messaging app which allows you to privately share pictures and messages with your group of close friends. While you can already do so on Instagram, Threads makes it faster by giving you contact shortcuts on the camera UI itself.

In fact, the app opens directly on the camera UI (see image above) so if you want to capture that rare moment before it passes, you can quickly do so and share it instantly. You can rearrange eight contact shortcuts on your camera app. If you don’t already have a close friends list set up on Instagram, you can make a quick one while signing up for Threads.

Besides this, Threads allows you to customize your app and icon look. This doesn’t really add to the app’s appeal, apart from the fact that you can switch from a light theme to several dark themes. Theming options include — Midnight, Aurora, Sunrise, Twilight, and Daylight.

Sadly, this is where the usability of the new Threads app ends. It’s like they took Instagram and stripped it of any fun elements to create a barebones messaging app. Threads is devoid of any color or face filters. There’s no GIF support for Stories. In fact, it skips on all of Instagram’s other customization options such as location mentions, questions, music, polls, countdowns, and more.

The camera app is boring and does not support Boomerangs or anything else you get on Instagram. It does, however, let you add text and doodles to your images and videos.

What you also get is an option to customize your status on Threads. You get to choose from status options like ‘On The Move,’ ‘In The Wild,’ ‘Chilling,’ etc. These are accompanied by matching emojis that will show up next to your picture.

Facebook calls Threads a camera-first messaging app, but beyond popping open the camera on startup, there’s nothing to rave about here. We get that Facebook wanted people to be able to snap moments quickly and be able to share them swiftly. But there are so many ways of doing that already that downloading another standalone app for it seems pointless.

It’s possible Facebook will improve the functionality of Threads going forward. However, for now, this app isn’t worth your time. Still want to check it out? Then you can download Threads via the button below.