In March, Snapchat introduced a new update with one of its most annoying features to date: Auto Advance. The change meant that stories automatically played one after another. Even though you could swipe left to skip one and move to the next story, or swipe downwards to return to the main Story menu, users were quick to express their dissatisfaction in a series of spot-on memes.
Now, the terror is over: You can return to watching individual Stories of your choosing. On Friday, Snapchat announced that it is rolling out an update to remove Auto Advance.
"Sometimes we just want to see what our close friends or family are up to — not all of our friends — and Auto Advance prevented that," the company said in a blog post.
In its place is a much smarter tool, called Story Playlist. Pressing the circular thumbnail to the left of a friend's name will add their story to your Playlist. Then, when you press the centre "play" button along the bottom of the screen (the one you would usually press to return to your camera), you can watch the stories you chose one after another. Of course, if you do just want to watch one Story, you can do that by tapping on it.
Over the past few weeks, Snapchat has been busy rebranding itself as Snap, Inc. ("a camera company," according to its Twitter bio) and preparing for the launch of its first physical product, Spectacles. This update to its flagship app is a nice way of signalling that there are still plenty of in-app changes to come — and that Snap is actually listening to how people want to use its products.
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