A week after Instagram confirmed its plan to shut down its standalone IGTV app in order to better focus on initiatives, like Reels, the company confirmed it’s pulled two more of its older apps from the app stores. This includes its timelapse video app Hyperlapse, first launched in 2014, and looping video app Boomerang, launched in 2015.
According to data provided to TechCrunch by Apptopia, Hyperlapse and Boomerang’s last day on the app stores before their removal was March 1, 2022.
Of the two, Boomerang had a larger install base. Apptopia data indicates Boomerang had seen 301 million lifetime global downloads, compared with just 23 million for Hyperlapse. In addition, Boomerang was still averaging 26,000 downloads per day at the time of its removal, the firm noted. However, Boomerang benefitted from a presence on both the Apple App Store and Google Play, while Hyperlapse was only available on iOS.
Instagram did not make a formal announcement about the removals on its blog, but a few people today tweeted about the apps’ removals, including social media consultant Matt Navarra, and Twitter users @KenSchillinger and @WFBrother.
Instagram has removed its standalone Boomerang and Hyperlapse apps https://t.co/ovoSOLuPKr
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) March 7, 2022
Direct link is still working! https://t.co/VMKdQjvsoF pic.twitter.com/z7Lewt4n8d
— ㆅ (@WFBrother) March 7, 2022
It’s not surprising to see these two apps get shut down. Both were originally intended as a way to give Instagram users new creative tools without bogging down Instagram’s flagship app. But the company’s concerns about over-stuffing its main app with too many features have long since passed. Today, Instagram offers access to photo and video posts, Stories, short-form video content like TikTok (Reels), live video, online shopping, limited-time product drops and more. In fact, there’s so much now going on inside Instagram that the company even relocated its main creation tool, the “Compose” button, to the harder-to-reach spot in the top right of the screen instead of the bottom-center.
Meanwhile, the need for dedicated creative effects apps no longer makes sense for Instagram, either, as it has long since integrated its suite of creative tools right into the Instagram camera. For instance, when Instagram rolled out new Boomerang effects a couple of years ago — like SloMo, Echo and Duo — it did directly in Instagram itself. And now, when Instagram wants users to get creative with video, it adds features to its Reels product.
Plus, as the company said when it confirmed the IGTV shutdown, it now wants to make video as simple as possible to both discover and create from within its main app.
It’s also worth noting that a former Instagram rival known as Phhhoto sued Meta last November over being cut off from Instagram’s social graph, even as it copied Phhhoto’s core feature, looping video, for Boomerang.
While Hyperlapse and Boomerang have been pulled from the app stores, Instagram’s Layout, which lets you organize photos into collages, remains available for the time being. Instagram confirmed it is not removing Layout and Boomerang’s features will continue to be supported in app.
“We’ve removed support for the standalone Boomerang and Hyperlapse apps to better focus our efforts on the main app,” a spokesperson said. “We’ll continue working on new ways for people to be creative and have fun on Instagram,” they added.
Updated 3/7/22, 4 pm et with Instagram’s official comment
