Coming soon to iPhone
Search or browse for a real place, then open that place's Instagram location page — Top, Recent, or In the area — right inside Spot.
Not affiliated with Instagram or Meta.
Instagram took the Places tab out of Search around May 2026, but location pages still exist. Spot finds them and opens the grid.
How it works
Type a name, or tap a category chip — gyms, cafés, restaurants, bars, nightlife, beaches, parks, shopping, hotels, landmarks — to see what is actually around you. No typing needed.
Results stream in nearest first, with the distance on every row. Flip between list and map; tapping a pin opens the place.
Spot opens the place's Instagram location page — Top, Recent or In the area — in its own browser, and keeps your Instagram session between visits.
Features
Everything below is in the app today.
Chips pull what is actually around you. The block you're standing on lands first; the wider city sweep merges in behind it.
Apple Maps suggestions answer on every keystroke while the full search runs behind it. Each new keystroke cancels the last search, so results never lag behind your typing.
In kilometres or miles, sorted nearest first. Set the search radius anywhere from 1 to 50 km in Settings.
The same results, either way. One tap in the toolbar flips between them, and tapping a pin opens the place.
Search Mexico City from Rio. Every distance and search re-centres on the pinned city — no GPS needed.
Filter, sort (my order, distance, name, recently saved), drag to reorder, swipe to remove, and see everything saved on one map.
Share a place, get directions in Maps, open it in Google Maps, or copy its name ready to paste — from a row's long-press menu or the place screen.
Nothing in search is tied to one city. Category phrasings are expanded in English, Portuguese and Spanish, and the sweep samples a ring around wherever you are.
Export saved places as a JSON file from Settings. Choose light, dark or system appearance too.
Search that finds the right one
“cafe” means show me cafés, so Spot sweeps the city and ranks by distance. “Cafe Lamas” means find this one — the words have to match, and a real match 3 km away outranks a non-match next door.
Matched across the name, the street address and the place's city and country together.
“Bluefit Rio” matches, even though the address alone stops at the neighbourhood.
Used only when strict found nothing nearby.
“Aeroporto Santos Dumont” reaches Santos Dumont Airport.
Venues only, so a café search never answers with a whole district.
“Cristo Redentor” reaches Christ the Redeemer.
Apple throttles heavy Maps use. When that happens Spot says “Maps is busy” instead of “No places found”, because the two mean very different things.
Found location pages are remembered for 60 days, and “this place has no page” for 7 — so searches for “gym”, “academia” and “smart fit” don't repeat work.
Inside Spot
Screens above are illustrations drawn to match the app's layout, not screenshots. Place names and distances are examples.
Private by design
Spot has no account and no Spot server for your places. Search works without an Instagram login — Instagram only comes in when you open a location page.
Spot is coming soon to iPhone. Want to hear when it's ready?
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