Snapchat has announced a series of new features for the platform at its Snap Partner Summit event earlier this week. The new features are mainly focused on improving the overall navigation and accessibility in the app, along with some cool additions like voice commands to pick lenses, original shows, and more.
Action Bar
Snapchat is adding a new Action Bar at the bottom to help you quickly navigate between different features in the app. The app only supports swipe gestures for navigation right now. Below is how the new action bar looks, well, in action.
Places
The company is integrating Places – a feature that adds popular spots and businesses to Snap Map. It has been rumored to be in the works for some time now. According to Snapchat, Place listings will show you Snaps from that location along with the address, working hours, and reviews sourced from TripAdvisor and Foursquare. You can order food from within the app through Postmates, Grubhub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats if you’re in the US.
Topics
Snapchat is making it easier for users to explore Snaps based on certain categories with Topics. The feature is similar to hashtags but it uses a sticker instead.
New Scan Partners
Snapchat’s Scan feature lets you press and hold the camera to use relevant Lenses based on what it sees in the viewfinder. The company says it can now identify 90 percent of plants and trees with its partnership with PlantSnap. It can recognize almost 400 breeds as well. Hence, the next time you see an unfamiliar plant, you can just scan it vis Snapchat for more details. The company will also add a nutrition scanner that rates the quality of ingredients in packaged foods later this year.
Voice Scan
Snapchat is also adding a new feature that lets you use voice commands to pick Lenses. The feature is powered by SoundHound. For instance, you can simply say “Hey Snapchat, make my hair pink” and it will automatically apply a pink hair filter right away.
While this feature is cool, I feel there would be a lot of trial and error, as well as a learning curve to know what command will activate a certain lens.
Snap Originals
Alongside all of these amazing features, the company has announced its new Snap Originals shows. It includes unscripted shows namely Coach Kev, Fake Up, Move It, docuseries – Road Trippin’, First Person, Queen of Stylez, Life By The Horns, and scripted shows -Frogtown, Action Royale, and Total Badass Wrestling.
So, which feature on the list excites you the most? Let us know in the comments below.
