Why I’m leaving Snapchat for Instagram Stories.

You know when you make something new, and it gets really popular, and nobody is really competing with you, and so you ignore the fact that you have a lot of problems because there’s no incentive to spend the time fixing them? After all — people aren’t going to stop using your app.

That’s Snapchat. Except now, Instagram Stories is here and it totally ate their lunch. It’s unashamedly the same concept as Snapchat Stories, except here’s the kicker — it actually works. Filters, texts, pics, videos, drawings — all there and all working perfectly.

I think I was using the Galaxy S2 in 2012 when Snapchat first launched on Android. Since then I switched to the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, the Nexus 6, and now the Nexus 6P. All premium phones with the latest processors at the time. Snapchat was consistently a terrible experience. On every device, it has lagged at times, crashed at times, and generally used a huge amount of RAM and caused phone slowdown.

On the Nexus 4, there was even a bug that made the phone reboot. Snapchat’s response? “It’s Google’s fault”. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But other apps — even ones coded by a single person — would be able to quickly develop a workaround. Snapchat, with an insane amount of funding that most companies will never see, apparently weren’t able to do this.

Think it’s just an Android problem? Nope. I used Snapchat for a while on an iPhone 5S and my iPad Mini 3. Arguably it was a little more stable, but still prone to causing lag and crashes. A common phrase you’d hear on Android forums, Reddit, and social networks was “Snapchat’s CEO hates Android!”. It’s quite likely untrue, but the subtext is true — that all Android users know that the app is a poor experience. That’s something like 80% of the global smartphone market. In some countries, like Spain, the marketshare is 93% Android compared to 7% iOS. Surely statistics like these should give you pause if the community universally acknowledge that your app doesn’t perform well?

It simply defies logic that time and money hasn’t been spent on improving the performance of the app — not just on Android, but on both platforms. It’s absolutely par for the course that apps can have bugs, but typically they improve a lot over time. When your app is that unstable after 4 years, it’s a problem. If you weren’t the only game in town, people would have left long ago. Adding a hundred different interactive filters is fun, but it shouldn’t take priority over the stability and performance of the app.

I have maybe 60, 70 friends on Snapchat. If you include the folks who are following me but aren’t my friends, it’s maybe 100.By contrast, I’m pushing 3000 followers on my Instagram. Frankly, it’s no contest.

So — I’m going all in on Instagram Stories for my ephemeral, 24-hours-and-it’s-gone social media needs. Where I don’t have to worry about whether the app will hang on my £500 premium smartphone. Maybe you’ll join me — @CaseyRain is the handle. Don’t follow me if you don’t like stuff about Prince, Michael Jackson, Technology and Funk ;)

Peace….. Casey