Instagram is all-set to pull the plug on its standalone ‘Direct’ app next month

Introduced back in December 2017, Instagram’s standalone 'Direct' app is a messaging application. It comes with its own set of filters and animations for the camera just like Snapchat. After the tweet from Matt Navarra, it's official that the Facebook-owned service will kill off this app in the coming month. The previous conversations on this app will automatically move to the main Instagram app so that the users don’t lose their data.[caption id="attachment_5575361" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Instagram Logo art.[/caption]“We’re rolling back the test of the standalone Direct app. We’re focused on continuing to make Instagram Direct the best place for fun conversations with your friends”, a spokesperson told TechCrunch. The Direct app was just available in particular markets that included as Italy, Turkey, Israel and Chile among others.The company did try to keep the photo messaging app, Direct interesting in the past by introducing new features so that the users have a more secure and comfortable experience using it but it indeed could not work its charm and the company has now decided to switch it off.Earlier this year, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, confirmed the merging of Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram by 2020.  Zuckerberg explained that combining these three platforms will provide more secure end-to-end encryption. While end-to-end encryption is currently available only on WhatsApp, this move is said to benefit Messenger and Instagram users as it would enable them to send end-to-end encrypted messages across these platforms. Right now, end-to-end encryption has to be activated on Messenger whereas it's not available on Instagram DMs.End-to-end encryption, if implemented properly, ensures that conversations between users are private. In theory, even Facebook will not be able to read such encrypted messages.