Recently, WhatsApp had rolled out an update that copied lots of Snapchat’s features. If the developers there were hoping for some huge success with this move, well, they were in for a big disappointment. App Store reviewers offered them a huge backlash soon after the release. Up until now, the app had awesome reviews, but after the change, people started leaving 1-star and 2-star reviews, complaining that Facebook ruined the experience they had with the messaging app with the new Status.
What made people angry
The main reason for which people left bad reviews was the fact that Facebook copied the “Stories” feature from Snapchat. Briefly, this features allows you to share photos, GIFs and videos which you can customize with drawings and emojis, which will be gone in a day. People complained about the fact that the app was not necessary and that WhatsApp was perfect just like it was.
The developers have to change it all
While the developers did not take back the new Status feature, they decided to bring back the old type of Status. The old one relied only on text, and it was placed next to your profile. It said by default “Hey there, I’m using WhatsApp!”, but you can customize it as you wish. According to a spokesperson from the company, the old update will appear in the list of contacts next to the profile name.
The response from the company was quite swift, which shows that they do not intend to lose any of their over 1 billion worldwide users with the new feature. Ever since the app was released more than 8 years ago, the user interface remained pretty much the same, which probably made people prefer it over other messaging apps. As such, making this move might have been a major mistake.
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