When instant messaging services and photo sharing networks were becoming
popular every day, another potential concept, adding to the realm of
social networking went viral with the name
Snapchat.
This app became quite a rage among teens for lesser known reasons, and
to feed the selfie-obsessed generation. Its unique feature during its
release was photos you that share get deleted from the phone after the
timer set by the sender ends.
Now many other apps have created similar clones where
instant messengers have also added the selfdestructing photo feature in
their services. You might have seen people in coffee shops sending
photos or what they call snaps to their friends making crazy faces using
the app. If you are among them, here are a few tips and tricks, to
fulfil your quest of becoming a Pro Snapchatter.
Add Colour Filters
Snapchat lets you add filters to your images in an easier way by only
swiping to your left after you have taken a snap. You will have three
options which include Sepia, Saturated and Black & White. Before you
can use these filters, you have to enable them at
Settings > Manage > Filters.
Using Fun Filters
Along with colour filters, Snapchat lets you put many fun filters to
your snaps. With Geolocation, you can add your location to your snaps
with good looking art. The Time filter lets you add the time you took
the snap. You can also add the current temperature with the Temperature
filter and toggle between Fahrenheit and Celsius with a tap.
Alongwith the original snap, the three filters are shown above
which include Sepia, Saturation and Black & White.
Also, with the Speed filter, you can add the speed at which you’re
travelling while taking the snap, though it’s still buggy. All these
filters can be found by further swiping through the colour filters. They
can be activated by
Settings > Manage > Filters.
Add large font captions
To put emphasis to your text on your snaps, you can have larger
captions. All you need to do is while typing, you have to tap the ‘T’ on
the top right corner. This feature would also cause your emojis to
become huge, bringing more creativity to your snaps.To enable large font
captions, go to
Settings > Manage > Special Text.
Special text increases text size
Replay a missed snap
While you’re viewing your received snaps, some distraction may lead to
missing out on watching the snap that was sent or maybe the time set was
too less. To tackle such a pain, Snapchat lets you replay a snap. But
you can only replay snaps once in every 24 hours and from the last
person who sent you a snap. You can enable this feature in
Settings > Manage > Replay.
Increase the number of your best friends
In the My Friends page you can catch up on the latest stories shared by
your friends. When you tap on a contact, a drop down shows you his/ her
best friends, the ones with whom they exchange the most snaps. You can
also find your best friends by tapping on your name in the My Friends
page. By default it shows you three names which can be changed to five
or seven in
Settings > Manage > # of Best Friends.
Download and save snaps to your phone
When you open a snap, it gets deleted from your phone after the timer
goes out. To save snaps the most common thing people do is take a
screenshot, but they get reported to the owner of the snap, ending up in
an embarrassing conversation later. In Android (Rooted users only),
developers brought KeepChat, which can be installed from the
Xposed Framework here.
For iOS users, you can download SnapKeep from the App Store and head
out to saving those snaps. Both the apps claim that no screenshots are
reported.
Different options under Manage
Send images from gallery
Snapchat involves clicking and sharing photos on the go, but it would
have been great if we could share other amazing photos in our gallery.
With another app inside the Xposed Framework called SnapShare, you will
find the Snapchat app present in your list when you tap on share to any
image from your gallery. Snap Upload can be found in the App Store for
iOS users.
Type longer captions
When you are adding text to your snap, space becomes an issue quite a
few times becoming a hurdle to humourous captions. Once again for
Android rooted users, Xposed Framework jumps in. The Snapchat Full
Caption module can be found inside the framework which breaks you free
from adding limited text to your snaps.
Your friends and their stories
Remove from best friends list
Snapchat adds your best friends according to the number of snaps you
send and receive. Removing names isn't directly allowed by Snapchat and
the way around it would be to block the contact you want to remove,
which will remove them from your best friends list. Then you can unblock
them (only if you want to) and they won’t be present in your best
friends list anymore.
Using secret colours in iOS
The color palettes in iOS and Android are different. By default, the
white and black colors aren't present in the color palette on iOS
devices. To get the White color, all you need to do is tap your crayon,
hold down on the palette and drag your finger to the upper left corner
without lifting your finger. To get the Black color, do the same and
drag your finger to the bottom. Another feature unlocks the gradient in
the palette, where you can hold your finger on a color and drag to your
left and right to adjust the shade of the color. After selecting your
color, you can drag down to get a darker shade of the same.
Use secret colors in Android
The color palette features mentioned above are only present for iOS and
not for Android. But Android also has some exclusive features in its
color palette. The white and black colors are present by default.
Color crayon palette in Android
Long pressing the palette reveals more color swatches which you can
choose. By holding down your finger and dragging it across you can
select different colors but they come from a locked palette and not like
the gradient in iOS. You can select translucent shades of different
colors for highlighting and darkening purposes in Android exclusively.
All you need to do is select the color by long pressing the palette.
Using front flash
Most of your snaps involve your front camera, and without a flash at the
front, it is a challenge in low light areas. Snapchat has a feature
where the screen flashes white when you click a photo. This feature can
be enabled at
Settings > Manage > Front-Facing Flash.
Toggle between front and rear camera
Changing from your front camera to your rear camera makes you reach out
to the top right corner of your screen. But an easier way is to double
tap on your screen to toggle between both the cameras.
Tap to focus before taking snap
View stories quicker
Viewing through each snap uploaded by a friend to a story can be tiring
where you have to wait until the timer ends. To speed things up, all you
need to do is keep on tapping the snaps while holding down your finger,
until you finish browsing through all the snaps uploaded to the story.