Instagram update brings long-awaited feature to individual profiles

Instagram users have been “blessed” with yet another long-awaited feature that will make it easier to open profiles from a camera app. Starting this month, Instagram users will be able to generate QR codes for their profiles, which can be scanned by other users and visualized without having to open Instagram.

The new feature was initially tested in Japan last year, but it's now making its way to all Instagram users around the world, The Verge reports. To take advantage of the new feature, users must open Instagram's settings menu on their profiles and tap on the new QR code option.

The image generated can be saved or shared to make it easier to open an Instagram profile. Up until now, Instagram allowed users to generate proprietary codes that could be shared and scanned using the app's built-in camera.

However, the latest update further improves the feature by moving away from the proprietary code generation and switching to standard QR codes, thus letting users scan the codes with any camera app, not just the one inside Instagram. It's a nifty feature that should have been implemented exactly this way from the start, but Facebook chose to take the longer route.