More than 680,000 Snapchat users have signed an online petition asking parent company Snap to revert to the old version of the app, complaining that the redesign is “annoying” and “useless”.
Snapchat has irritated “teens and celebs alike, and may put the fragile company in more trouble”, reports The Daily Beast. Technology news website Mashable says the update is a “major #facepalm”.
Snap, which turned down Facebook’s $3bn (£2.16bn) offer to buy the company in 2013, has faced increasingly pressure from Wall Street since Facebook introduced Snapchat-like sharing feature and camera filters in “Facebook Stories”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The California-based company reported fourth-quarter figures last week that beat forecasts, despite racking up a loss of $350m (£251m). Analysts had expected losses to be bigger.
Snapchat’s “drastic” new layout, debuted last week, was supposed to make the app simpler to use and thereby broaden its appeal. “Unfortunately, a lot of people found it to be a confusing mess,” says the CNBC website.
The unsnappy new design condenses Stories (photos and videos that disappear after a day) and Snaps (real-time conversations) on a new “Friends” page, but not in chronological order. Instead, a Snapchat algorithm ranks friends believed to be the user’s priority. In another change, the “Discover” page now consists entirely of sponsored or featured content.
Everyone went “a bit bonkers” after the redesign, BuzzFeed says, with many using social media to complain and share tips about how to revert to the old Snapchat.
Snap chief executive Evan Spiegel told Wall Street analysts during an earnings conference call that the company is monitoring the roll-out and will adjust features based on user feedback, CBS News reports.
-
Gripping political thrillers to stream nowThe Week Recommends From power struggles to deadly conspiracies, these addictive shows are nail-bitingly tense
-
What to know before turning to AI for financial advicethe explainer It can help you crunch the numbers — but it might also pocket your data
-
Book reviews: 'The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction—and a Search for Relief' and 'Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run'Feature The search for a headache cure and revisiting Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album on its 50th anniversary
-
How cybercriminals are hacking into the heart of the US economySpeed Read Ransomware attacks have become a global epidemic, with more than $18.6bn paid in ransoms in 2020
-
Language-learning apps speak the right lingo for UK subscribersSpeed Read Locked-down Brits turn to online lessons as a new hobby and way to upskill
-
Brexit-hobbled Britain ‘still tech powerhouse of Europe’Speed Read New research shows that UK start-ups have won more funding than France and Germany combined over past year
-
Playing Cupid during Covid: Tinder reveals Britain’s top chat-up lines of the yearSpeed Read Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and Dominic Cummings among most talked-about celebs on the dating app
-
Brits sending one less email a day would cut carbon emissions by 16,000 tonnesSpeed Read UK research suggests unnecessary online chatter increases climate change
-
Reach for the Moon: Nokia and Nasa to build 4G lunar networkSpeed Read Deal is part of the US space agency’s plan to establish human settlements on the lunar surface
-
iPhone 12 launch: what we learned from the Apple ‘Hi, Speed’ eventSpeed Read Tech giant unveils new 5G smartphone line-up
-
Russian agency behind US election meddling ‘created fake left-wing news site’Speed Read Facebook says real reporters were hired by fake editors to write about US corruption
