Image credits: discord
Discord launched a major revamp of its mobile app on Tuesday, bringing messaging to the forefront and adding a number of small improvements that users have requested.
Inspired by user feedback, the redesigned app tailors the mobile Discord experience for on-the-go use compared to the popular desktop app, and adds a suite of social features that are like Discord’s Swiss Army knife. We’re making changes to better organize functionality.
“[In 2015] Our focus is on building great products for people who play games on PC, and mobile serves as a companion app when AFK,” said Francesco Polizzi, Discord Group Product Manager, about the changes. I wrote about it in a post explaining it. “Over time, the amount of things you can do with Discord has increased exponentially.”
Changes rolling out this week will eliminate Discord’s old navigation buttons and replace them with a new set of tabs that will direct mobile users to servers, messages, notifications, and their profiles. The company experimented with a more horizontal dock-like design, but ultimately organized its servers into a vertical left column, similar to previous mobile versions and the desktop app. Because some people belong to so many servers and prefer to switch between them, Discord has chosen to maintain a classic layout to allow you to see as many servers as possible at once.
Messages has its own section of the app, bringing together your DMs and group DMs in one place. This is already a big improvement from how the app was previously laid out, and the new layout also adds a status area at the top that lets you see what your friends are doing in real time, so you can engage with them. Masu. With the option to favorite specific DMs or group DM threads, the messaging portion of the app behaves more like Messages on your iPhone, with your most frequently used contacts clustered at the top for ease of use.
Clicking on a channel or message thread will display information more clearly, collecting media, links, files, and members into a cleaner, larger design. Search has also been significantly overhauled, allowing you to return results for messages, attachments, pinned messages, and files through a universal search bar. Overall, many of Discord’s new improvements mirror other message-centric apps, especially Apple’s own apps, and align with the trend of users actually using apps on the go. We’re optimizing your experience.
Other improvements focus on making the app more visually vibrant, including a revamped profile page that highlights some of Discord’s recent focus on custom profiles. Additionally, photo and video sharing looks better, supports larger file sizes, and video and voice calls get an all-new mobile-friendly UI. As a bonus, Discord finally has a proper night mode (a “midnight” theme) that should start much faster while using a quarter of your data.