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Snapchat Finally Upgrades Android App, But Does it Matter Now?

The once popular photo messaging app known for its Stories feature is making another attempt to succeed on Android.

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Photo-messaging app Snapchat has finally released its rebuilt app for Android users in a bid to bring the performance of the Android version up to par with the iOS version.

According to reports, the redesign does not implement any major changes in the user interface (UI) or navigation on Snapchat, but the new version is expected to be much faster than the old version with lesser bugs.

But it is important to note that Snapchat, till now, has been focusing its ideas for iPhone users, residing in countries like the US, UK and various parts of Europe. The shift to make its Android app as effective, is a change in the right direction and much needed.

With Instagram slowly and surely aping all its features, including Stories, Snapchat missed out on connecting with millions of Android users, especially in a country like India.

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Snapchat says the new app is designed to factor in things like the huge Android ecosystem, with its wide breadth of hardware – particularly for cameras and processors – that means that different phones can have widely differing capabilities.

Compared to iOS, with minor changes over the years, Android has transformed itself into a power-packed platform, which supports many features (at least camera-wise) that iPhones are yet to get hold of. In addition to that, the new Snapchat app for Android is likely to support multiple networks on a device, and work even when the internet speeds are choppy.

Snapchat is probably going to work on its future features for Android first, and iOS after that.

The company had been working on this new version for Android users since the beginning of 2018.

The company first tried to simply patch its way out of the issues with the old app, but eventually realised that it would have to rewrite the Android version from scratch to achieve the results the company wanted, as mentioned to us by the company last year.

Snapchat seems to have come a long way, especially with how it sees India as a potential market that has more than 400 million users waiting in the wings.

This is Snapchat’s second big announcement in the space of one week. Earlier this month, the social messaging platform launched its own gaming platform, which will support games from various publishers later this year.

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