Instagram reportedly working on their own in-app ‘Portrait Mode’

Portrait Mode is one of a few newer smartphone features that seems to have really struck a chord with consumers. After Apple introduced it on the iPhone, just about every major smartphone maker followed suit. These days it’s easy to find devices carrying the necessary dual camera hardware needed to make this feature happen — even lower-end budget phones.

With the release of the Pixel 2, Google proved to the world that you don’t even need dual cameras to take a convincing Portrait Mode shot, just a little machine learning to simulate the perfect bokehlicious background. It seems Facebook may have learned a thing or two about making this happen and soon will release their own in-app Portrait Mode for use inside of Instagram Stories.

The folks at TechCrunch dug up the details where references to “Portrait Shutter” were found inside the app’s code next to other Stories features like Rewind, and Boomerang, and more. It’s not clear when we could see the feature go live, but we’d imagine it’ll land first in one of the app’s beta releases. Portrait Mode inside of Instagram Stories could be yet another great way for the social network to differentiate itself and further drive the nail into Snapchat’s coffin.