What is Snapchat?
Snapchat is a mobile app for Android and iOS devices. Colloquially, the app is often called Snap by its users.Meanwhile, Snapchat’s developer is a public company also called Snap, confusingly. The company itself claims to be a camera company. (As such, it creates other products, including hardware, like Snapchat Spectacles.) Whichever you choose to call it, Snap is headed by co-founder Evan Spiegel. One of the core concepts of the mobile app is that any picture, video, or message - aka snap - you send by default is made available to the receiver for only a short time before it becomes inaccessible. This temporary or ephemeral nature of the app was originally designed to encourage a more natural flow of interaction. Snapchat changed the way we communicate online. With Snapchat, you can quickly send a photo of yourself with a rainbow-puking AR lens applied to a friend, and after they open it, it'll disappear forever. Technically, they can screenshot it if they want, and reply with their own photo or video response, which they can also broadcast to their story for friends and followers to see. There are so many uses for this app. It’s hard not to see its value and why it's unique.
Snapchatter: It’s not as common anymore, but it means a user of Snapchat.
Snap: When you take a photo or video, or receive a photo or video, it is known as a “snap”. So, when someone asks you to snap them, they are asking you to send them a photo or video through Snapchat, or even a message through the app’s chat function. The Snapchat app itself is also colloquially referred to as “Snap”, as is the app’s developer/public company.
Snapback: This term was more popular when Snapchat launched, but it’s faded since. Nevertheless, if you’ve heard it, just know that it simply means a reply to a snap. So, if you Snapback, you’re just replying to a private one-on-one snap that you’ve received.
Story: You can link snaps together and broadcast them as you capture them. They’ll appear to your followers as a “story” reel. They can tap through your story and watch every snap to experience your entire day. A reel can only be played back for 24 hours, after which, it disappears for good, though you can always save your entire story, or an individual snap from your story, to the Memory section - aka private storage - of your Snapchat to keep forever.
Snapcode: A Snapcode is a scannable code that makes adding new friends even easier. For instance, a friend can simply flash their Snapchat camera at your Snapcode, which will immediately add you, without you having to manually look up their handle and tap the “add” button. Your Snapcode, which is similar to a QR code, can be located on the Profile screen. You can access it by tapping the ghost icon or your Bitmoji in the corner of the Camera screen.
Snapstreak: Some of your friends or the people you follow might have different emoji next to their Snapchat names in the Chat section of your Snapchat. That means they’re on a streak, or Snapstreak, with you. In other words, you and that friend or friends have snapped each other (not including chat messaging) within 24 hours for more than one consecutive day.
Filter: You can jazz up your snap by adding a fun overlay with a filter. After you take a snap, swipe right or left on the preview screen to add coloured filters, the current time, local weather, speed overlays, or geofilters to your photo or video.
Chat: This is a messaging feature within Snapchat that lets you directly chat with other users. You can access the Chat section by swiping from left to right on the Camera screen. From here, you can also send Bitmoji stickers, start a live video call, send money, share snaps, and more
Memories: Since launch, Snapchat has added several features that allow you to screenshot or save snaps. The latest example is Memories. It not only gives you another way to store snaps in Snapchat’s cloud but also introduces a section for accessing media locally stored on your device. When you take a snap, you’ll see an option to save it to your Memories where you can organise, edit, search, lock, and share the snap after the fact.
How does Snapchat work?
Here’s where this app guide gets really tricky. Snapchat updates so often that it’s a waste of time to write a lengthy step-by-step instruction manual on how to operate the app, as Snapchat might look and work completely differently in just a few days, so we’ll instead focus on popular, key features and how they work on a general basis, but more importantly, the main screens you’ll see when navigating Snapchat. From the moment you open Snapchat, you will see a view of whatever your device’s camera can see. This is the Camera screen. Now, how it looks and what options it shows may change over time, but generally, you will see a capture button at the bottom, with buttons to access your Memories screen, Filters, Snap Map, Chat screen, Scanner, Stories, and Spotlight. At the top, you might also see options to access your Profile screen, Search screen, and maybe even turn on the flash or switch your camera view to front-facing. Anyway, primarily, from this screen, you can capture snaps.
To do so, tap or hold down the capture button, for a photo or video, respectively, and then you'll see options to save it to Memories/your camera roll, add it to your story, or send it to a friend or a group of friends. But before you share it with anyone, be sure to decorate the snap with text, a doodle, a sticker, a link, etc. You can even adjust the time it can be viewed from a few seconds to unlimited.
