Snapchat is a free photo and video-sharing app used globally. Snapchat supports both iOS and Android phones. Snapchat markets itself as the most fun way to share a moment with friends and family. Snapchat allows users to add captions to their photos or videos and express themselves further with Filters, Lenses, and Bitmojis. A primary feature of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are only available for a short time before they become inaccessible to the recipients.
App Features and Capabilities
Snap pictures and videos
Snapchat opens right to the camera. You can tap to take a photo, or press and hold for video.
You can add a Lens or Filter to your photo. New Lenses and Filters are added regularly that allow you to change the way you look and even play games with your face!
You can even create your own Filters to add to photos and videos — or try out Lenses made by the Snapchat community!
Chat with friends
Snapchat also has live messaging that allows you to stay in touch with friends and family.
Snapchat supports video chatting with up to 16 friends at once. You can even use Filters and Lenses during your video calls.
You can also express yourself with Friendmojis — exclusive Bitmojis made just for you and a friend.
Discover people, stories and news
In Snapchat, you can add “Stories” which are essentially snaps that are visible to all your friends. You can follow your friends and watch their Stories to see their day unfold.
Snapchat is very popular amongst top publishers and creators who post a lot of exclusive content to Snapchat.
Content in Snapchat is made exclusively for viewing on phones. You can watch breaking news, original Shows, and community Stories on Snapchat.
Snap Map
You can see where your friends are hanging out if they’ve shared their location with you.
You can share your location with your best friends, or go off the grid with Ghost Mode. Ghost mode stops sharing your location with all your friends.
Snap map also allows you to discover live Stories from the community nearby, or across the world! You can roam the map to discover new stories, content and easter eggs!
Memories
Memories is Snapchat’s personal archive of your stories. You can look back on Snaps you’ve saved with free cloud storage.
You can also edit and send old moments from your Memories to friends, or save them to your Camera Roll.
Furthermore, you can create Stories from your favorite memories to share with friends and family.
Friendship Profiles
Every friendship in Snapchat has its own special profile to see the moments you’ve saved together.
You can even discover new things you have in common with Charms. See how long you’ve been friends, your astrological compatibility, your Bitmojis’ fashion sense, and more!
Friendship Profiles are just between you and a friend, so you can bond over what makes your friendship special.
Pros
Timed photos, videos, and texts. In Snapchat, any photo or video you snap to a friend can only be seen for a set period of time. The period of time can be chosen before you send the snap. The recipient can only rewatch the snap once more.
Free photo and video sharing. In Snapchat you can share snaps with your friends at NO cost. You can send photos and videos to anyone, anywhere in the world.
Filters and Lenses. You can add lenses and filters to your snap that change the way you look or add interactable AR elements to your snap. The puppy ears filter and the cooling glasses are some of the popular ones in Snapchat. Snapchat adds exclusive new filters regularly to add an element of fun and surprise to your snaps.
Free video calls. Snapchat allows you to video call up to 16 people at once for free anywhere in the world. You can even add filters and lenses while video calling and modify your look in real-time. Snapchat even has games that you can play during a video call with your friends.
Voice Notes. Snapchat also supports sending voice messages to your friends. Voice notes also disappear on exiting the chat.
Saving chats. You can hold on a message in the chat with your friend to permanently save the message in the chat. You can even save notes and shared images.
Screenshot notification. If your snap has been screenshotted by the recipient, Snapchat notifies you in the application.
Group chats. You can create groups in Snapchat too. Sending a snap to a group would send it to all the people present in that group. You can even video call a whole group of people.
Memories. Snapchat allows you to save the stories you share with people and stores it for you in free-of-charge cloud storage. You can save as many stories as you want.
Locked storage. You can lock specific stories and memories in Snapchat’s locked folder in memories. This is to prevent prying eyes from seeing something that you don’t want them to.
Account Privacy. Snapchat assures that all your content is encrypted and stored securely to prevent prying eyes.
Easy contact sharing. Snapchat creates a unique SnapCode for every user. You can merely scan a SnapCode in the Snapchat app to follow that specific person or add the user as a friend.
Song detection. You can hold on the viewfinder while a song is playing and Snapchat will automatically listen and try to identify the song for you. You can then go to your music app of choice to listen to the song.
Snap Map. With Snap Map, you can check out the spots where your friends are hanging out. You can even discover public stories from a community nearby or anywhere in the world.
Exclusive content. You can view exclusive content from content creators worldwide via Snapchat. Some creators monetize Snapchat content with SnapCash that allows users to pay a subscription fee to view their snaps and stories.
SnapStreaks. In Snapchat, if you send snaps daily to your friends, you start a streak. Streaks are a fun way to maintain connections with people. Streaks are broken only if you don’t snap each other for 24 hours.
Cons
Advertisements. Snapchat regularly displays advertisements while scrolling through multiple stories.
Massive data consumption. Snapchat uses a lot of internet bandwidth to transmit photos and videos. It can easily eat up your whole data allowance if you are on a limited data plan. It is highly recommended to switch off background data usage for Snapchat.
No location privacy. Snapchat transmits your location to all your friends via Snap Map. This is turned on by default. You need to turn it off manually if you do not want your location to be publicized.
Content Censorship. Snapchat does not allow inappropriate content on its platform. But this is mainly based on user reports. So any user can flag you for inappropriate content and your account will get banned.
Group Call limit. Snapchat limits group calls to a maximum of 16 people. So large conferences cannot be held on Snapchat.
No file sharing. You cannot share files other than photos or videos on Snapchat. This makes it inconvenient as a messaging application.
Photo and Video Compression. Snapchat heavily compresses your photos and videos reducing their quality. Snapchat is not ideal for sharing high-quality photographs.
Large memory consumption. Snapchat eats up a lot of storage and RAM on your phone to keep the constant stream of videos and photos running. It is not usable on low-end devices.
No PC access. Snapchat does not support Windows or Mac. You cannot view your stories or send snaps via a PC. There is no website or desktop app.
Other Information to Know If your data plan is limited, data charges would apply if you send photos or videos on Snapchat. Viewing stories and memories also use the internet and will consume data. Contact your service provider for more information on your plan and any further limitations.
Snapchat runs in the background to keep you up to date with messages, snaps, and stories. Furthermore, it uses your location for Snap Map. This can affect your battery life significantly.
