On Thursday, the social media app known as Snapchat released its latest update, according to Mashable. The update adds text messaging and video chatting to its photo and video sharing features. The update focuses on allowing users to have full conversations instead of sending just one picture or video.
“Until today, we felt that Snapchat was missing an important part of conversation: presence,” the company wrote in a blog post. “There’s nothing like knowing you have the full attention of your friend while you’re chatting.”
The updated app is available on Android and iOS. The apps buttons and icons have been redesigned and the interface has also been updated. The menus had clutter removed and the font has been changed to a more subtle one.
The biggest changes to the app is that of text messaging. The previous version of the app would allow users to write a 45-character comment to a picture. Now, users can have full conversations when using the app.
Live video chatting is also available with the newest version of the app. This feature can only be used when two people are in the app and in the same conversation.
The CEO of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel, said in an interview with The Verge, “For Snapchat, the closer we can get to ‘I want to talk to you’ — that emotion of wanting to see you and then seeing you — the better and better our product and our view of the world will be.”