#2 Whatsapp — EditText moved from Rounded to Oval Corners

Whatsapp went through a lot of changes this month. From shoehorning the entire Snapchat app as a Status feature to feature memes and unnecessary images (while completely forgetting who it’s target audience is), to today — where I woke up, tapped on the Whatsapp icon, moved to a chat and freaked out on seeing the radius of the EditText where you’re supposed to type increase to go from Rounded to Oval corners along with changes of positioning of the icons.

Before — Rounded Corners Custom Edit-Text with Camera Icon to the Right.

Now — Oval Corners Custom Edit-Text with Attach & Camera Icon to the Right. Also notice how the camera icon now looks like Instagram. (Smooth move, Facebook!)

How does this small change affect one? Aesthetically, you may never notice — like a few of my friends who I asked did not.

But if you’re like me, who loves to tap on the EditText with your thumb, I choose to tap on the closest possible area from the right — which used to be besides the camera icon.

Here’s the problem I face now

Red denotes the point of contact I had with my thumb on the EditText area.

My point of contact is the same, but due to the new icon — I have to stretch my thumb further or else I’ll trigger the pop up menu for Attachments.

The Detail:

The Attach Icon moved from the Toolbar to the Custom EditText View for easier access. Toolbar got replaced with Video Calling icon to increase video calls?

These small aesthetic changes is what Whatsapp had been lacking from years. After Facebook’s acquire — visual changes has been an important aspect of the updates Whatsapp makes.