‘Threads’ was launched a couple of days ago in some countries. This new Meta app is supposed to compete against Twitter. I have tested it and I already discovered a misleading feature. Is Zuck already lying to us?
Threads hits 100 million users today. The launch is clearly a success for Zuck. On this new social network, we can already find a lot of familiar faces. Even some European ones, despite the app is supposed to not be launched in the EU. Many EU users changed their app store to the US one or simply downloaded the APK app on Android.
The app do not have a lot of features. The timeline is only an algorithmic feed where it is difficult to find the messages of the people you follow. Hashtag do not exist so you cannot find people with similar interests. Direct messages are not available too. But the app is promising. It wants to be fediverse-compatible for instance!
Time limit
The Threads app also has a very cool feature called « Take a break ». After a certain amount of time, the app will show a black screen with a message saying that you spent X minutes on the app and advice you to take a break.
On the Instagram help page, Meta give some « tips from experts for what you can do on your break »:
- « Take a few deep breaths. »
- « Write down what you are thinking. »
- « Listen to your favorite song. »
- « Do something on your to-do list. »
It is great to have such feature implemented early into social network app where you can spend hours without noticing. Please note that it is a voluntary feature: you can have no time limit.
Speed x0.5
After some use, I did received the ‘take a break’ reminder. I was writing a some messages when it interrupt me without further notice. I had two choices prompted on screen: to « Edit the reminder » or to do it « Later ». A quite interesting choice of working. Instead of providing a « Continue to use Threads » button, the app wants you to deactivate the reminder. But I noticed a much more interesting stuff.
When I received a first reminder, I wrote down the time when I received it in order to measure the time between two reminder. It should be 10 minutes as I choose the lowest time period in the app’s settings. But I received the next reminder after 20 minutes!
A bug in the Threads app? Another deliberate lie from Zuck? If the feature is cool, it should respect with the time period it announce.