Instagram update could bring the best iPhone 8 Plus and Pixel 2 feature to your phone

Instagram is hard at work on new features for its hugely-successful app, including a new camera mode that will purportedly bring a Portrait Mode-style effect to your photos.

Apple introduced its Portrait Mode feature alongside the dual-camera system that debuted with the iPhone 7 Plus back in September 2016.

The secondary telephoto lens allows Apple use to separate the subject in the foreground from the background of the image, adding an artificial bokeh to the latter.

This creates a similar effect to a photograph taken with a camera capable of a shallow depth of field, like a DSLR.

Google introduced the ability to take portrait-style images with a blurred background with a single camera set-up with the Google Pixel 2 smartphone range in October 2017.

Since Google only needs a single Dual Pixel sensor to create the effect, it was able to add the functionality to the front-facing camera.

Like Apple, Samsung requires a dual-camera set-up for the functionality, which it dubs Live Focus.

The Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S9+ are currently the only handsets in its line-up which are capable of adding an artificial bokeh blur to the background.

Samsung allows uses to adjust how much blur is applied in software.

However, the feature could soon be available to a slew of other smartphones, thanks to a new feature purportedly planned for photo-based social network, Instagram.

According to code unearthed in a new build by technology blog TechCrunch, Instagram looks set to introduce a new feature called Portrait Shutter.

When confronted about the discovery, Instagram declined to comment to TechCrunch.

However, the technology blog notes that the Facebook-owned company had a very similar response when evidence of the integrated with GIFs via GIPHY was discovered ahead of time, only to release the feature to the public a week later.

TechCrunch discovered the icon hinting at the Portrait Mode-style feature in the Stories interface within the Android app.

However, this is unlikely to be an exclusive feature, with development and testing on iOS probably ongoing as well.

It’s unclear how development of this feature is progressing. Instagram tests a slew of new features internally, with employee reaction sometimes leading to features being dropped or delayed.