Here Are the New Changes to Snapchat in 2017

Snapchat is undeniably a fun app. You can play around with your friends and stay in touch with family, all by sending photos and videos that disappear within seconds. You can also draw and write on the photos, which makes the experience more personal. You can follow your favorite celebrities, too.

But despite its appeal and huge popularity, the Snapchat app wasn’t always the easiest to navigate. In early 2017, the app’s difficulty with navigation changed, with the introduction of a new search bar for the Android app. The following will talk about the search bar feature and why it’s going to make your life — well, at least your life on Snapchat — that much easier.

Read More: The Best Celebrities to Follow on Snapchat

What was the issue with Snapchat’s navigation?

In the past, users found Snapchat time-consuming because they had to swipe around to find past messages and other features. In 2016, Snapchat added navigation buttons, and to make it more user-friendly, they recently added a search bar feature. Before, Snapchat’s search interface had three separate search boxes to search through conversations, favorite accounts, and Discover channels. Now, there is only one.

What does the search bar do?

The search bar lets you search through all of the app’s different features, such as stories and friends’ messages. For example, the search bar lets you search for a term or phrase to let you find a certain message from a friend.

How does it work?

You can use the new search bar in several ways. To go to your own profile, you can tap the Bitmoji on the left. To talk with a friend, you can tap their name in your search result, or click on their Story thumbnail to watch their video in full-screen mode. If you tap and hold someone’s card on the search bar, too, you can see their full profile.

What could be some of the issues with the search bar?

Now that many different elements turn up in the search bar, companies could start paying Snapchat to occupy a top spot in a search. This way, companies could start influencing users of the app in ways they currently cannot.