Instagram has introduced a slew of changes to its app in the past few months. Now, its navigation bar is getting a design overhaul with the introduction of the Reels tab and a Shop tab. While the former lets you discover the short videos from creators, the Shop tab will allow you to connect with brands and creators and discover their products.

Instagram says, “we’re rolling out the Reels tab to be a kind of a stage, a place where people can share their creativity with the world and have a chance to break out and find an audience.” On the other hand, the Shop tab brings shopping to your fingertips on the photo-sharing platform. You can find personalized recommendations, editors’ picks curated by Instagram’s @shop channel, shoppable videos, new product collections, and more.

Instagram Reels and Shop

While two new buttons come to the navigation bar, Instagram is moving the notification button and ‘add new media’ button at the top of the screen. They’ll now be located adjacent to the Instagram DMs button. Meanwhile, the Explore button is back to the navigation bar and lies second to the Home button. Personally, I’m not a big fan of these changes. I never liked the introduction of the Reels button, which replaced the Explore button. And, Instagram never officially rolled out this update. It looks like that was the testing phase, and it is now settling on a new design.

Instagram recently rolled out a new feature called “suggested posts” that appear when you’ve finished reading recent posts from those you follow. These posts are related to what you normally see. Luckily, these don’t include IGTV or Reels posts, while the company is making a push to its TikTok rival.

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