Snapchat is redesigning its app again — several years after a disastrous overhaul that tanked its stock price.
Its goal is to simplify the app by reducing the number of tabs from five to the original three.
While Snapchat will still open to the camera, allowing you to capture and share filtered selfies and videos, it will now be flanked by two sections. In a major departure from the current design, the chats tab to the left will also house your friend’s stories above your conversations.
At the bottom of this tab will be a button that opens Snap Map, which marks your friends’ locations and allows you to view public stories from around the world.
The new design, being tested before its wider rollout, essentially consolidates Snapchat’s main features to make navigation easier.
Swiping to the right, meanwhile, will take you to a new tab that allows you to swipe through Stories and Spotlight videos. The feed will be powered by a “unified recommendation system” (read algorithm) that prioritises your friends’ posts — while displaying popular clips and videos trending among your inner circle.
Why was the last Snapchat redesign controversial?
In 2018, Snapchat was forced to walk back a massive redesign after it provoked a backlash. This refresh also combined top features by integrating Stories with private messages, which many users found confusing and counterintuitive.
The changes led to widespread dissatisfaction among Snapchat's user base, with more than 1.2 million people signing a petition on Change.org demanding a return to the previous layout.
The negative response was so intense that it reportedly resulted in a loss of more than $1.3 billion (£980 million) in market value for Snap after Kylie Jenner criticised the redesign on social media.
In response to the revolt, Snapchat announced a "redesigned redesign" in early 2018. It reverted some features to their original format, such as restoring chronological order for Snaps and chats.
Despite being eclipsed by TikTok and Instagram, Snapchat has quietly carved out a substantial niche by appealing to teens and young adults. The app’s focus on visual messaging between friends has helped it to stand out from its bigger rivals, which have increasingly leaned towards recommended content. Snapchat had 422 million active users daily at the last count.
About 11 million users also pay to use Snapchat+, giving them access to perks including custom wallpapers and cartoon pets for their avatars.
You can’t buy Snapchat’s new Spectacles
Snap debuted the new app design at its Partner Summit on Tuesday (September 17). It also unveiled the fifth generation of its Spectacles augmented reality (AR) glasses. The shades, which resemble the progeny of Prada’s signature sunglasses and Magic Leap’s AR goggles, can overlay digital visuals in the real world.
Tech companies have had trouble convincing the public to buy their augmented specs and VR headsets, which range from the £3,499 Apple Vision Pro headset to the £329 Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
For its part, Snap was forced to write down nearly $40m (£30.2m) due to losses from unsold Spectacles in 2017. That may explain why the latest pair aren’t available to the public. Instead, Snap is offering to rent them to developers in exchange for $99 (£75) per month.
