When it comes watching videos on Instagram, things can be annoying.
For one, users have to tap each post individually to enable sound. It's a frustrating setup, especially if one is on a video-watching spree and doesn't want to tap every content one by one. Luckily, Instagram just found a way to fix this.
Instagram Will Now Play Audio For Autoplaying Videos
Several users reported over the weekend that some Instagram videos in the feed were autoplaying with audio.
Instagram has since confirmed that an "update rolled out recently" brought the change. Here's what'll happen going forward: When the user launches the Instagram app, videos will still autoplay without sound, but if the user turns one video's sound on, every other video will have sound turned on automatically, at least until Instagram is closed. Fire it up again, and it will retreat to its default state.
But supposed the user wants to turn sound autoplay off after turning it on in the same session. Simple. Just disable one video's sound, and the rest will follow suit. Basically, what the user does with a single video is mimicked by the rest so they don't have to toggle it on or off each time.
Hence, autoplaying videos with sound only lasts per session and resets upon closing the app. Whether sound was toggled on or off previously, Instagram will default to off when opened again, which is pretty neat.
But There's One Problem
This is a logical setup, not to mention smart. If the user has volunteered to turn the sound on, the app assumes they're in a place where it's safe to play all videos going forward. But the next time the user opens the app, especially when they're somewhere in public, it won't offer any rude surprises.
It all looks great on paper — until one factors in advertisements. Toggling on sound means video ads will automatically play with sound too. This is a boon for advertisers who will see their ads play with sound moving forward. However, it's easy to imagine that many will dislike this setup just because it means ads will autoplay as well.
Alternatively, a user can toggle a video's sound on and then off just to avoid having to listen to an ad, but that could be a chore overtime.
All told, this is just one example of Instagram's increasing efforts toward video, which has become extremely popular on its app. Instagram Stories, carbon copied from Snapchat, is a big component of Instagram as a video platform. It'll be interesting how it grows from here.
