Snapchat abandons plans for a simplified version of its app

As part of its Q1 2025 earnings release, Snap said it’s scrapping plans for a simplified version of its app. The news comes seven months after Snapchat began testing a redesigned version of the app without the Snap Map or Stories tabs. The new version consolidated the app’s navigation bar around three icons: chat, camera, and Snapchat’s TikTok competitor, Spotlight. Instead of continuing to test the simplified version, the social network is now going to begin experimenting with a “refined five-tab interface” that keeps all of the app’s existing tabs and makes it easier to access Spotlight. “In terms of the simple Snapchat design, we learned a lot from the redesign, but ultimately found that it was difficult, especially for power users, folks who really love Snapchat the way that it is who use the map and stories all the time, to really adopt the three-tab design, which made it harder to find stories and subscriptions and harder to find the map,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel on a call with ... Read full article.