I just don’t understand why companies like snapchat, Instagram and Facebook somehow manage to make the app worse with each big update, this Snapchat one is easily the worst, was hoping they’d admit they got it wrong and went back to the old format.
I've never used Snapchat, so I suppose it's possible that 1.2 million people are correct that this was a terrible. awful change. On the other hand, I expect that in a few months most users will realize that they now "get it" and wouldn't want to go back. We're just creatures of habit and scream to high heaven when someone moves our proverbial cheese.
Perhaps, but the more likely explanation is the changes aren’t for users but for business. The same reason Apple charges a lot for their products. Shareholders come before users far too often. The ills off this capitalist world. Rest assured if the company’s survival depended on it Snap would be after rushing back to make those changes. Their users are chewing gum stuck to the sole of their shoe.
It’s like the horrible changes to Skype, I just stopped using it.
Holy crap Skype has to be one of the worst UI’s I’ve ever seen. My brief single time using it in the last five years recently was hell on earth. Microsoft have no clue what they are doing. They are like the Donald—a toddler driving a bus.
I had snapchat for over a year and I cannot stand it. It has horrible UX and there is nothing consistent nor intuitive about it. I deleted it and I announced it on Facebook to let them know that I am not going to use Snapchat with anyone.
The UI before the change was pretty bad and unintuitive, now it's even worse. Previously I'd only discovered the news stories by accident (swiping left on the photo/snap page). Now they're on their own tab which was originally friend stories. This detracts from it being an app for friends to being another algorithmically created video "news" app. It just feels like your friend group has been invaded by strangers. One of the many bad UI design changes they made is tapping an icon next to someone's name in the friends list now does something different to tapping their name. It's really poor.
It’s all a way to show you some translation of ads.
The complaints I heard from people in my family who use it said the change just happen, they did not install a new version, it was like going to a website, one day it looks one way and the next day it is completely different. Everyone did not see the change immediately. It happen over a week time frame. One day one person saw the new interface and then a few days later another person's update.
This is the problem with today's software, you no longer control what you use, the app developer can make decision on your part whether you like it or not. I personally held off on updating some software because I did not like the changes. In this case no one had a choose they were able to update the GUI without your knowledge or input.
I suspect most people will just keep using it even though they do not like it since they are so addicted to using these programs. This why their complaints are falling on death ears, they even went so far to say too bad they are not changing back.
Face it Snap needs to get the stock price up and get revenue coming in, so they need to market their product which is the users to those who pay them.
If its the iOS app they use and have automatic updates enabled then SnapChat would have updated automatically for them without them even knowing thus, to them it just all of a sudden changed.
I know the wife's phone does not, since the App stores shows she has lots of updates, she learned from me do not update unless you have too or you know what the update does for you. She has updated in the past and found she did not like the change or it caused her an issue. Before we update to the next major release of iOS we always go to the Apple store and play with it to make sure we like the changes before updating. However. more and more this control is being taken from your, not sure why people use the auto update feature, can imaging one date going into an app to find out the change the GUI on you without any idea it was coming.
Then another possibility (and I don’t know for sure because I don’t use it) is that Snapchat isn’t an app at all. It might be an iOS frame running a web page.
I've never used Snapchat, so I suppose it's possible that 1.2 million people are correct that this was a terrible. awful change. On the other hand, I expect that in a few months most users will realize that they now "get it" and wouldn't want to go back. We're just creatures of habit and scream to high heaven when someone moves our proverbial cheese.
You're right that people will adapt, but only because they are being forced to.
Apple is guilty of making changes "for change sake". The macOS user interface used to have a much better "feel" to it. Menus just felt better to use. Windows had a more consistent appearance. Visual glitches in the UI did not exist. Things felt solid. Then they begin making changes and ignored user feedback. Apple of old days used to invest into perfecting what they had, but now they just focus on the next "great feature", allowing what's in place to wither on the vine. It's really sad. I wish I didn't feel that way, but it's gone on for too many years now, time and again.
It could instead be that you’re getting older and more resistant to change? That happens to most people, well intentioned and experienced, without them even noticing for a while. I’ve noticed that for myself and I sometimes have to make a concerted effort to assess myself to see if I’m simply being resistant or if I have a genuine case. When we’re wishing for the past we should be wary. Not to say the past is bad, in general I think it was much better than now (our culture is getting more and more lost), but give changes an unbiased assessment and be willing to rethink your expectations.
I’ve been using Macs since the early 90s and I feel that overall macOS is making progress. I don’t wish I could go back to any previous version and I just ignore new features I don’t care about.
Snapchat is free, so it’s hard to complain about an update. If it was a paid app then complaints would be in order. For Snapchat 1.2 million complainers + those who don’t like it might move to Instagram or other products and never look back.
Those 1.2 million complainants aren’t the customers. They’re the product. They now answer to shareholders first. They only have to keep the users happy enough not to leave in droves. They need to get more eyeballs onto the revenue generating content.
They only have to keep the users happy enough not to leave in droves.
There's always going to be a successor to SnapChat. The only Q is how quickly or slowly SnapChat will cede ground. Right now they're ceding it very quickly.
It’s like the horrible changes to Skype, I just stopped using it.
Exactly. My use of Snapchat has plummeted after this update. Good work, product management team!
I was previously using it daily. After the update my usage dropped to every few days and now it's been a week since I last opened it.
However use cases vary and I believe there was a story a couple of weeks after the update stating that while some users had been lost the engagement levels for most users had increased. Especially in key advertising demographics.
Would be interesting to know if this has been sustained or was just a result of users trying to familiarise themselves with the new interface.
Apple customers go through something akin to this all the time, but 99 times out of 100 ... particularly with time ... they discover that the developer knew what they were doing. Pages and iMovie are perfect examples of this: it took *quite a while,* but they are now handily superior to the versions they replaced.
I don't think the new design it that big of a deal. It does seem all a bit cluttered now though. For example, the side where you watch your friends snaps, their stories, open their chats. And then also the other side where you watch advertisers stories, and see public friends stories. Those are all cluttered and disorganized to me. I've heard they are going to make it clearer by putting them in different tabs in an upcoming update.
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I’ve been using Macs since the early 90s and I feel that overall macOS is making progress. I don’t wish I could go back to any previous version and I just ignore new features I don’t care about.
I was previously using it daily. After the update my usage dropped to every few days and now it's been a week since I last opened it.
However use cases vary and I believe there was a story a couple of weeks after the update stating that while some users had been lost the engagement levels for most users had increased. Especially in key advertising demographics.
Would be interesting to know if this has been sustained or was just a result of users trying to familiarise themselves with the new interface.