Threads rolls out new features, including a chronological "Following" feed on iOS and Android
In today's increasingly competitive social media landscape, it can be tough to keep up with all the changes and new apps that keep spawning up. Fortunately, Meta is now making our decision-making a bit easier by finally giving us the chronological following feed we have been clamoring for in Threads.
Threads is a new Instagram-based social network launched by Meta earlier this month. The app immediately garnered a ton of attention just as thousands of users signed up in the midst of Twitter (X) enforcing post rate limits in order to combat spam. Having an already existing user base in the form of everyone who already has an Instagram account, it wasn't difficult for Threads to gain popularity amongst those that were perhaps looking for a Twitter (X) alternative.
However, the "following" feed was noticeably absent from the app in favor of a non-chronological algorithmic feed. This forced users to mute and block accounts they didn't necessarily want to see on their feed in an attempt to train the algorithm, however futile those efforts may have seemed.
Fortunately an update to the iOS app last week and several smaller updates on the Android beta app, laid the groundwork for this new feed to roll out. This is exactly what is happening today and the new reverse chronological following feed is finally making its way to both iOS and Android users via a server-side rollout.
This was confirmed via a post by Mark Zuckerberg earlier today in reply to yet another post requesting the feature. Immediately after, several users began to report that they could see the following tab available in their home feed, as well as follow-up post by the official Threads account in the app.
Note, however, that the following tab isn't immediately noticeable when you launch the app as it is hidden behind a clever little trick. To see the new feed you will need to either tap on the Threads logo at the top of the feed, or tap on the Home icon on the bottom left. Tapping on either one of these will reveal the new "Following" tab right beside the existing "For You" feed.
In addition, to the new feed, this update introduces new features such as translations, notification filters, an updated follow button, and a way to approve all follow requests at once. The official @threadsapp account also promised new features will be coming. Hopefully, one of these is direct messages, as this has also been high on the list of user requests.
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