I think this will be big, specifically the video aspect. Removes the biggest problems with video chat (Skype, hangouts etc.) feeling 'weird'. My immediate thoughts:<p>A) Don't feel like you're getting roped into a long conversation (you have to hold down on the screen, so of course it will be short!)<p>B) Doesn't feel like you are bothering people by calling them without knowing if they are free to videochat (they are clearly using snapchat at that moment so they're probably not too busy)<p>C) No need to have something specific to talk about; can just say hi quickly and see what your friends are up to.<p>D) As a bonus, if you are messaging with someone in the text interface and get to a point in the conversation where you need to communicate something complex, just use the video chat feature for 20 secs. and then go back to the more async g-chat style text messaging.
I wonder if we need an update to jwz's famous quote [0]:<p>"Every program attempts to expand until it implements user-to-user messaging. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones that can."<p>[0]: <a href="http://www.jwz.org/hacks/" rel="nofollow">http://www.jwz.org/hacks/</a>
Dragging your video bubble from the top of the screen to the bottom causing a switch to the front facing camera seems like a really clever design decision.
I'm pretty torn on this. In my main circle of Snapchat friends, we use the app to make creative messages for each other that can't be seen again. It's really special because it feels like we're all hanging out again back in college: we're funny, spontaneous, a little bit inappropriate, and outsiders just won't get the jokes.<p>My own want for the update was to focus more on allowing us to express ourselves: give us easier and better tools to enable us to make messages more fun for each other. The feature could have been allowing users to record drawing strokes over a video or picture (sort of how Draw Something images presented themselves to the guesser) to give us another dimension to play with, time.<p>Instead the app just moved toward the mainstream app features, which are all mostly the same.
This is a great. I find that half my snapchats are boring photos of my face, lunch, or coffee mug, just so I can put a caption over them. No more!<p>It also seems like a full on attack against Facebook messenger.
Really cool design, I love the dragging of the bubble to choose a camera.<p>This is starting to move away from the original value prop of Snapchat. If you can save chat bits, what's the difference in using any messaging service. Also, who usually is taking selfies or is using text message to talk to someone when they want to video chat? During most hours when you're on the go, you send asynchronous media since it's easier to create and digest that content from both parties. This feature won't add to the success that they've seen from their core product, just cause a nice little bump in traffic - not a game changer.
Snapchat has an advantage in adding new features like this in that their user base is one of the trendiest groups out there. They are young, hyper-social, and early adopters who have very high affinity for the service. I believe Snapchat can get them to use new features like this, where others like the bigger, slower, and less cool Facebook, would not get the same type of adoption.
I'm not sure why, but it delights me to imagine Snapchat demolishing FB in the messaging wars, particularly after FB spent $19B on Whatsapp.<p>I think these are some pretty awesome new features. I just got the update via Android, but my friends don't seem to have it yet. I'm excited to try it out, but I don't think I'll ever get completely away from Hangouts, since I use Drive/Gmail to run my startup.
I like this. It'll give me a lot more reason to use Snapchat. Currently I've sent only a few snaps but I use Facebook Messenger all the time. If my friends started using this I would become more active on Snapchat.
As a user I always found it annoying that I couldn't answer to a snapchat in the app itself (without taking a picture and writing something in it). I always had to go to snapchat or fb messenger to answer.
There is no send button next to the chat. seriously? I type something and try hitting that button and it goes into video mode. And I also had the app crashing multiple time on iPhone 5s today.
What's their differentiator now?<p>Of course current users might say "great, another feature i want!", but, wont this just muddy their market position?
It's not a coincidence that they are coming out with new features right before CyberDust is about to become big(they are coming to Android this month). I will switch to CyberDust as soon it comes to Android not just because it's better than snapchat functionally, but because it doesn't reveal the people you talk to most to the whole world. I know a lot of people that don't have snapchat specifically for this reason.
Not a fan. Almost everyone I know has stopped using Snapchat. Its servers are god-awful - don't work 50% of the time here and people have got tired of seeing friends' sushi pictures & selfies 24/7.<p>Also, choosing not to support Windows Phone (and apparantly not even recording WP users' requests) is a really stupid move in my opinion.<p>Furthermore, I see no reason why Snapchat should be preferred over Facebook Messenger. If you want to share a moment with a friend, you might as well share it for more than 10 seconds. Messenger always works reliably for me. Snapchat doesn't. Case closed.
On Android the Snapchat apps keep crushing.<p>I know I have a fancy red phone nobody uses (I think it's called NEXUS 5 from a company named Goodle or Google, I can't remember).<p>So, before putting new stuff in the app, please fix it!