Instagram’s Threads App Was Briefly Listed on Google Play Over the Weekend

Threads, the ActivityPub-compatible Twitter clone from Instagram, briefly (and presumably inadvertently) was listed in the Google Play Store over the weekend. The app itself wasn’t available, but Alessandro Paluzzi captured screenshots. The icon is plain but clever: a thread in the shape of an “@”. It’s showing up in the Play Store in Europe, too.

That Threads is seemingly very close to launching makes Twitter’s rate-limiting all the more baffling. Twitter users want an alternative, and Elon Musk is now actively pushing them away. (Dave Lee, in a column for Bloomberg, dismisses Mastodon in a single painful sentence: “One of them, Mastodon, saw a big spike in users this weekend, but can’t shake its reputation as being overly complex for non-techy users.”)

Update: Threads is now pre-listed in the App Store, marked as being available on this Thursday, July 6. Here’s the icon. Shit’s getting real.

★ Monday, 3 July 2023