Snapchat Is Changing the Way You Watch Snaps and Add Friends
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Loading... - J. Oliveira
- 06 Jul 2020
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Snapchat is changing its own game yet again. With an update rolling out today for iOS and Android, you are no longer required to hold a finger down to view snaps and Stories. Watching is now triggered by a single tap on the snap or Story to make it begin playing — you can still skip through by tapping a finger on the screen. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel strongly hinted at this change in May at the Code Conference, stating that, “It’s just kind of annoying to hold your finger there for so long.”
From inception, snaps have always been viewed by placing a finger on the screen and holding it there; lifting it up would immediately stop the playback. Now if you want to stop watching a Story, you can drag your finger down anywhere on the screen and it’ll close. This action has more or less become a common method of dismissing media in apps — think photos on Twitter, Facebook videos, and Snapchat’s own Discover. Watching snaps without holding a finger down feels more natural, but definitely removes some of the magic that originally made the app feel special.
Aside from this core change, Snapchat is adding two new ways to add friends. The first is an “add nearby” feature, which allows you to add people that are — you guessed it — nearby. A new option in the Add Friends menu, called Add Nearby, generates a list of everyone in the vicinity who are also in that menu. Adding friends is done by tapping their username inside this menu. Your Snapchat username will only show up in the Add Nearby menu if you are in fact inside that menu within the app — it isn’t constantly scanning / broadcasting your location.
The second new way to add friends: you can use images of Snapchat QR codes in your camera roll to add friends. For most of Snapchat’s life, adding friends was done manually, i.e. by typing in a username. In January of this year, Snapchat introduced Snapcodes — or as we like to call them, BooR codes (pronounced “boo-arr”) — which, when scanned with the Snapchat camera, seamlessly adds that person as a friend. Now, say you’re browsing Twitter or Instagram on mobile and you see a BooR code you’d like to add; screenshot it, open Snapchat, and choose “add by Snapcode.”
Snapchat is also adding one more fun change in this update: it’s letting you customize your BooR code right inside the app. Tapping the ghost on the QR code will open the front camera and snap a burst of five shots — think of a photo booth. Now, when you pull your info page down to share your QR code with a friend, an animation of your delightful face will be on loop. It doesn’t really serve a functional purpose aside from being a fun way to add flavor to your BooR code without using a computer. Sadly, you cannot export it as a GIF or video file. You can export the first frame as a still image, however.
Today’s Snapchat update brings fundamental changes to the way snaps are consumed. This will come as a surprise to many — part of what originally made Snapchat special was its utilization of tap-and-hold. Holding a finger down to watch snaps comes with a strong sense of active engagement. Now that it’s going away, it remains to be seen what’ll happen — will people pay less attention to snaps now that a finger doesn’t have to be on the screen? Will people watch longer stories now that they can do so hands-free? If one thing’s for sure though, it’s that we finally get to watch snaps without obstruction. And Evan is right — it is kind of annoying to hold your thumb down.
