Video calling. You thought you understood how it worked. It’s Skype. It’s FaceTime. It’s your friend requesting to see you in real time. (Probably when you don’t want them to.) You thought you understood how it looked too. Your friend’s face, fullscreen, front and center. Your face, smaller, off in the corner. (You look over there when you want to adjust your hair.) That’s video calling. Right?

Wrong. Just when you thought you had it all figured out—just when you got comfortable with video calling—it’s changing. That’s right. That FaceTime thing? Old news.

Snapchat has an update. Anotha one. This one transforms the chat feature from a nice-to-have into something much more substantive and familiar. It’s got video calling. It’s got audio calling too. It even has stickers. But let me be clear, this update does not make Snapchat just another messaging app. It is still, very much so, uniquely Snapchat. Allow me to explain.

FaceTime or Snapchat? We’ll never know.

Uniquely Familiar

You see, there are lots of messaging apps out there. So many that it’s almost like there’s a template now for these sort of things. Because popular messaging apps all implement the same features: texting, video calling, stickers. But Snapchat continues to impress me in the ways it adds small, entertaining, irregularities to conventional communication methods. Snapchat’s implementation of these template features go beyond expectation. They are seemingly familiar but undoubtedly unique.

Take the implementation of video calling. It caught most users off guard when it was announced inside Snapchat in 2014. Because it was different. Video calling was only enabled when two friends were present in a text chat at the same time. And it only lasted as long as you pressed your finger on the screen. And your face was framed inside a small circle that followed your finger as it moved. It was different, but it wasn’t unintuitive. After using it once I found it quite natural. It was video calling the Snapchat way.

Cheers.

Yesterday’s update added new features and built upon this approach. The update introduced stickers, but send multiple and they appear side by side, like words in a sentence. The stickers are even designed to build on each other. Send “up all night” followed by “dreaming of you” to really send the message. The update also introduced audio calling, but hold the call button to leave a short audio note. Multiple also appear side by side. Do the same with video. It’s just fun.

Keeping Things Interesting

Snapchat is always introducing more features like these. As soon as the service starts to get old, something new is introduced. In 2013 the introduction of the My Story feature kept things interesting. It added complexity just when users were starting to get bored. And if you haven’t heard, we millennials get bored. Hell, we don’t even follow the news unless it’s brought to us on Facebook as a 2-minute video.

The My Story feature quickly became an essential part of Snapchat. And as soon as stories started to feel normal, Snapchat was updated. Again. This time with a chat feature. And then we got Snapcash and then Geofilters and then Lenses. Yesterday we got yet another update. You get the idea.

It’s just fun, OK?

Snapchat has come a long way. When it first launched (and designers were too busy calling it ugly to realize its potential) the app was did one thing: sent photos that expired. This one feature was simple and fun to use. It was entertaining. I remember eating lunch at Square in 2013, the 16-year-old-me snapchatting back and forth with the other interns. “Hey Jack, what if Square partnered with this app to send money?” I said. Just kidding. I never said that.

The original Snapchat was just fun. And it was easy. You didn’t really need a reason for sending a Snap. Snapchatting stupid photos of myself was harmless. They would just disappear. I think of it like this: if calling someone was equivalent to ordering an entree, and texting someone was like ordering an appetizer, snapchatting was like having a snack. And you’re lying if you say you don’t snack.

Snapchat is a lot like these Doritos.

Snapchat was a refreshing departure from other apps and services that took messaging so seriously. And that still holds true today. In fact, that’s sort of Snapchat’s thing.

So bring on the next feature. I don’t care if its a new way to send GIFs or new way to call Ubers. As long as it’s a little different and a blast to use, they’re doing something right.

Now back to helping my grandma set up FaceTime.