Instagram has confirmed that it’s currently working on a feature called Friend Map, which gives you a map-based view of where your friends are. That may sound familiar since it’s seemingly a rehash of Snapchat’s Snap Map trait that has been around since 2017.
A developer named Alessandro Paluzzi was the first one to point out the existence of Instagram’s Friend Map trait. Following that, a Meta spokesperson confirmed the same to TechCrunch, without revealing any more details.
So there’s no word on if and when this feature will arrive on Instagram. If Friend Map is eventually released, it will act as a way to keep track of your friends’ locations in real-time. Not just that; you will also be able to share short notes with your friends similar to the ones that currently exist in the chat section.
As per some reverse engineering that has been done by Paluzzi, there’s even a Ghost mode present in this feature, allowing you to hide your last active location. And you will even be able to choose the friends you wish to share your location with.
No need to mention that the location data will feature end-to-end encryption. Instagram already features a searchable map that was launched in 2022 and allows users to explore popular tagged locations around them. And there’s even the facility to filter location results by specific categories.
You can spot the alleged screenshots of the Friend Map feature of Instagram on this X post made by Paluzzi. However, how closely they will resemble the actual release is still open for debate, especially given Instagram has still not confirmed a release timeframe for it.
We’ll have more on the Friend Map feature on Instagram when additional details are available.