Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in …
Read More »Snapchat Launches Spotlight
After taking on TikTok with music-powered features last month, Snapchat this morning is officially launching a dedicated place within its app where users can watch short, entertaining videos in a vertically scrollable, TikTok-like feed. This new feature, called Spotlight, will showcase the community’s creative efforts, including the videos now …
Read More »Snapchat Big August
The continual uncertainty around TikTok’s future may have provided a big boost to Snapchat in August. Or maybe it was just the Disney eyes filter that went viral. In any event, preliminary estimates from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower indicate that Snapchat’s mobile app across both iOS and Android …
Read More »Snapchat’s big redesign, featuring universal search and more, just hit iOS
Snapchat’s major redesign, which introduces a universal search bar to the top of the app, among other features, has today hit iOS. The refreshed user interface was first announced earlier this month, but was only available to Android users at the time with a promise that it would reach iPhone users “soon.” The …
Read More »Snapchat introduces Groups with up to 16 people, plus new creative tools
Snapchat has added some new features, including Groups, a new group chat that lets up to 16 friends share conversation and media. Group chats self-delete after 24 hours by default, and Snaps sent within a group can be opened only once, and replayed only once, by each member of the …
Read More »Snapchat has reportedly filed confidentially for its massive IPO
Snapchat appears to be moving forward in its plans to go public early next year with the company filing confidentially for its IPO, according to a report from Reuters. In recent years, companies have begun filing confidentially for their initial public offerings well ahead of revealing their financial guts in …
Read More »Yep, Snapchat still sucks at security – new anti-spam measure cracked in less than 30 minutes
Image: Screenshot from TechCrunch It’s been a bad few weeks for Snapchat after many people called into questioned how secure users were on the service – especially given how dismissive they were to an exploit which lead to 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers leaked, and a sudden increase in spam. However, …
Read More »Prescription Lenses Are Now Available For Snapchat Spectacles
Snap Inc recently launched their new Snapchat Spectacles and now one company has started to make prescription lenses for the spectacles. Rochester Optical previously made prescription lenses for the Google Glass, Microsoft HoloLends and other devices and now they are offering them for the Snapchat Spectacles. Snapchat’s Spectacles feature rounded …
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