WeChat 8.0 is awesome! But it's fatter

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On January 21, 2021, WeChat celebrated its tenth birthday.

On this afternoon, the WeChat Annual Meeting was held in Guangzhou. Zhang Xiaolong was pulled onto the stage by the guest of the annual meeting, Ren Ke from Wu Tiao Ren, and they sang "A Zhen fell in love with A Qiang" together. On this day, we also welcomed WeChat 8.0 for iPhone. On the same day ten years ago, WeChat version 1.0 was given priority to iPhone users, and no objections were accepted from Android users.

However, many people seem to have not received the WeChat 8.0 update notification. For example, my colleague's two phones have been updated to 8.0, but I have to refresh it many times before the update is available. At the same time, some users cannot update their "status" for a while even if they have updated. WeChat officials responded that it is still in the grayscale testing stage.

This update fulfilled the "some interesting experimental projects" mentioned by Zhang Xiaolong in his speech at the "WeChat Night" two days ago, and also satisfied his so-called "whimsical ideas."

He said at the time: "What if you could take a picture of a person's head, what if you could throw a bomb at a friend you are chatting with and it exploded on the screen to scare him, what if you could see the pictures in front of other people's eyes while listening to a song, what if you could see other insomniacs when you can't sleep and then count sheep together. Even more, if you give a canvas and everyone draws a dot on it, if 10 million people take turns to draw a dot one by one, will a pattern be formed in the end? If 10 million people draw a pattern without any organization, what does that mean?"

So we saw the implementation of these features in WeChat 8.0.

The updates of WeChat this time are mainly reflected in expressions, status, listening to music, floating windows, and pull-down WeChat homepage. Of course, every time there is a major version update, WeChat's opening screen animation will play a philosophical game, from the Buddhist life of "one flower, one world" in 7.0 to "I see you/I see a smile/I see fireworks/I see a song/I see what you see" in 8.0, which basically covers the five major updates this time.

The emojis were undoubtedly the biggest surprise of the event, so much so that they instantly became a hot topic on Weibo. This time, the emojis that come with WeChat can move. In a world full of GIFs, it is rare that WeChat emojis can remain motionless for so many years. Zhang Xiaolong said: "Emojis are the basic elements of our expression. WeChat emojis have not been upgraded for many years." He thanked users for contributing so many custom emojis to WeChat.

Zhang Xiaolong seemed very unrestrained this time, especially the three expressions of the screen-exploding bomb, fireworks, and scattered flowers. All other expressions also moved, such as the "cracked" expression that Zhang Xiaolong specifically mentioned, which has the effect of a GIF or Live image. It is worth mentioning that Lian Xiang's expression also moved, but it was a little different from what I originally thought, that it would emit hot air.

Another update that Zhang Xiaolong described as “more than ten times more elegant” is the floating window.

Zhang Xiaolong was very dissatisfied with the previous floating window, saying it was "especially like a dog-skin plaster, occupying a position on your screen". So, we saw that this time WeChat 8.0 changed the floating window from floating on your WeChat screen like a dog-skin plaster to being placed on the side of the screen. When you click "Floating Window" for an unfinished article, it will enter a list. Click ".." in the upper left corner of the screen, and a list of articles will slide out from the left side of the screen, arranged in the form of cards. It is said that up to 50 unfinished articles can be placed in it. Elegance is real.

However, even though this new floating window function is extremely elegant, many people still complain privately or in their Moments that it is not as good as the previous "dog skin plaster". Zhang Xiaolong must be vomiting blood.

Zhang Xiaolong said that he has never been satisfied with the experience of listening to music on WeChat. He especially doesn't understand why all the players are like a record player. In addition, he hopes to see something when listening to songs. Just listening without watching is unimaginative. With the help of Tencent's own QQ Music, his imagination has been exerted. When someone shares a song on QQ Music to Moments, groups, or sends it to you point-to-point, you can watch the MV if you click on it, and you can also see how many people are listening at the same time. It seems that lonely people gather in the same song to find companions.

Zhang Xiaolong was also not satisfied with the WeChat business card on his personal page. He felt it was lifeless. It would be better if it could be animated, with a video or dynamic expression. At the very least, he could say a sentence or post a picture to show whether he was busy, drinking coffee, or on a business trip.

So, we saw the implementation of these features in WeChat 8.0. In fact, it gives users more choices. At least, you don’t have to use a black picture with "on vacation" or "on a business trip" or write these nonsense in your personal signature.

However, some netizens do not buy it, thinking that this is following the same old path that QQ took in the past.

There is also the ability to explode the text on the image, which is something that Luo Yonghao played with back then, so I won’t go into details. But it is really useful.

Of course, Zhang Xiaolong also gave more content and meaning to the drop-down page on the WeChat homepage. It is no longer just the WeChat mini-program of the past. This time it also includes live broadcasts that you have watched, music that you have listened to, and articles that you have not finished reading.

At this point, everyone should have been able to feel that Zhang Xiaolong’s biggest change this year is: he wants to make every function move, make it more lively and cute, make it more functional, and more elegant.

But are these really what netizens want? I spent nearly an hour tinkering with this update to understand it (mainly for writing this article), and the only thing that made me feel excited was the bomb.

With the update of WeChat 8.0, #微信黄脸用动了# successfully became a hot search. Obviously, the emoticons are what everyone pays the most attention to in this update. Even so, Weibo netizens do not seem to buy it. For example, a netizen posted a picture and commented: "That's it?" The picture says "The size of the file sent cannot be greater than 200M" and "The file will expire." Some netizens complained that WeChat Moments can only send 9 pictures at a time. Some netizens also said "This is too weird, so boring", "Don't post to Moments, compressed image quality is better than anything else", "The length of videos in Moments is longer, Moments supports animated pictures + original pictures, can you update it to be more useful?"...

This also reminds me of the WeChat Night two days ago. Huxiu published several articles about Zhang Xiaolong’s speech and the 2021 WeChat Open Class. It seems that no one in the comments has put Zhang Xiaolong on the altar anymore. The comments are all -

"The next decade? Is it time for Zhang Xiaolong to retire?"

"'One day I asked my fellow developer to make a function for me, where I throw a bomb and the other person's screen will crack. Of course, it should be an animated crack, but it should be very realistic', please don't!! Isn't this the funny expression on the QQ chat interface from more than ten years ago? Is this a renaissance???"

…

This is a far cry from the positive reviews and followers Zhang Xiaolong received two years ago when he complained that “100 million people teach me how to make products every day.” Perhaps, as one netizen said, “WeChat is like Zhang Xiaolong’s body shape, getting fatter and out of shape.”

One point that must be emphasized here is that Zhang Xiaolong is thinner than before, but WeChat is really getting fatter and fatter.

Regarding the WeChat 8.0 update, do you think it is what you want? I dare not complain, for fear that Zhang Xiaolong will complain that I teach him how to make products.