Instagram Announces New Features for Stories: Stickers, Hands-Free Video Mode, More

Instagram has announced a slew of new features for Stories including Stickers, hands-free video mode, the ability to save story video, and more.

Here's a look at what's new:

Stickers
After you’ve taken a photo or video, you’ll see a new stickers button next to the text and drawing tools. Tap the smiley face to find customizable stickers for weather, the current time and even your location. Adding a location sticker works the same as adding location to the posts you share to feed — simply choose or search for your location. People watching your story will be able to tap the sticker to learn more about the location, but your story won’t show up on the location page itself.


It’s easy to make stickers your own: move them around, make them bigger or smaller and choose from different styles to match your mood. Subtle stickers let your photo or video shine, whereas vibrant stickers bring an extra pop of color to your story. And you can add as many stickers as you want to any part of your story.



Holiday Fun
You’ll see a set of holiday stickers available for the next few weeks. A special candy cane brush brings a sweet addition to your drawing tools, and keep an eye out for another set of stickers to ring in the new year!




Hands-Free
A new ‘Hands-Free’ option in the format picker lets you start recording a video with just one tap. Whether you’re playing a guitar solo, building a snowman or perfecting your handstand, there’s no need to press and hold.

Text Enhancements
You can add as much text to your photo or video as you’d like — simply keep tapping the text button to add more. Choose between left, center and right justified text, and a new slider lets you adjust size easily with automatic text wrap.

Save Story Video
Finally, on iOS, you can now save your entire story from the past 24 hours to your camera roll as a single video.

You can download Instagram from the App Store for free.

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