The company founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown has not done things by halves. To revive interest in the social network preferred by young people, shaken up by TikTok, Snap Inc has completely revised its application, unveiled new Spectacles in augmented reality and launched the Snap OS software platform.
The new Snapchat app
Snap has announced a bunch of major changes to the Snapchat app. There’s a major overhaul of the app, as well as new AI-powered features, including a filter that shows you an older version of yourself.
The application in three tabs
During his event Snap Partner SummitSnap presented the future of its social network.
The new, simplified version of Snapchat reduces the number of sections in the app, going from five to just three tabs:
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- Camera in the center
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- Cat left
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- For you right
This last tab will look a lot like a TikTok feed, with Stories and Spotlight videos that you can scroll through with a simple swipe down.
In short, Snapchat is refocusing on what it does best: communicating, sharing and discovering.
Even more AI
All of this comes with a new AI-powered filter. Available today in Snapchat, this filter gives you a sneak peek at what you’ll look like when you’re older. Creepy, but a lot of fun!
And there’s more. Snap is now bringing AI to Memories. For Snapchat+ subscribers, AI will even act as your personal creative director, adding captions and Lenses to Memories, giving them a whole new twist. Subscribers will also see new AI Snaps to share with their friends.
These AI Snaps rely on a new feature called My Selfie that allows Snapchatters to create and manage their Snap AI identity. After uploading a few selfies, Snapchatters will be able to see themselves in the AI-generated images, or even in Snaps with friends who have also signed up.
Finally, the company assures that My AI is now able to interpret Snaps of parking signs, translate menus into a foreign language or help identify unique plants.
The new Snap Spectacles 2024
A subscription for developers
On the accessories side, here are the new Snap Spectacles 2024, the fifth-generation glasses. Be careful, they are only available to developers, at least initially. Worse, you have to join a paid program at $99/month, with a one-year commitment required. Yes, you now have to pay, like Apple, but twelve times more.
So, you’ll have to shell out $1,188 for the privilege of developing for the new Snap OS platform and trying out the latest Spectacles. The American firm is clearly targeting businesses.
At the end of the contract, Snap gets the glasses back, which seems pretty mean.
A technological gem
On the technology side, Spectacles are the result of ten years of research and development aimed at creating hardware that goes beyond the limits of screens and brings people together in the real world, Snapchat says.
Spectacles pack incredible technology into augmented reality glasses that weigh less than half the weight of a typical VR headset, at just 226 grams. They feature four cameras that power the Snap Spatial Engine and enable seamless hand tracking.
The Optical Engine was designed and developed in-house at Snap, using our proprietary technology to deliver a seamless AR display.
Spectacles’ remarkably small and powerful Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) micro-projectors create vivid, sharp images.
Our waveguides allow you to visualize images created by the LCoS projector, without the need for time-consuming calibrations or custom adjustments. Each advanced waveguide contains billions of nanostructures that move light across your field of view, combining Snap OS with the real world.
The optical engine delivers a 46-degree diagonal field of view with a resolution of 37 pixels per degree – similar to a 100-inch display just 10 feet away. Spectacles automatically adjust their hue based on the brightness of their surroundings, ensuring vibrant visuals, indoors or outdoors, even in bright sunlight.
Spectacles are powered by our dual system-on-chip architecture. Featuring two Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, this infrastructure distributes the workload between the two processors. Our design enables more immersive experiences while reducing power consumption and works in parallel with titanium vapor chambers to improve heat dissipation. Spectacles deliver up to 45 minutes of continuous battery life in standalone mode.
Snap OS
Snap OS brings Spectacles to life with an intuitive interface and features that reflect how people naturally interact with the world. Like Apple’s Vision Pro, Snap says you can easily navigate Snap OS with your hands and voice – and the main menu is always within reach.
The Snap Spatial Engine understands the world around you so Lenses appear realistically in three dimensions. A latency of just 13 milliseconds between movement and display renders Lenses with incredible precision, blending them naturally into your environment.
Lenses are designed to be shared. Snap OS makes it easy for developers to create shared experiences that friends and family can use together. But developers have to be willing to pay that much.
A nice product
Still, the new Spectacles are pretty, and position themselves somewhat ironically as anti-VR. The ad for the press release mocks the idea of wearing a VR headset, as it isolates you from the world. Apple tried to solve this problem with an external display, EyeSight, but with mixed success.
Dive deeper into the things you love, closer to the people you love, with #Shows.
Join the Spectacles Developer Program at pic.twitter.com/uKoPH99E1o
— Spectacles (@Spectacles) September 17, 2024
With its much more comfortable format, the object weighing almost 400 grams less than an Apple Vision Pro, the new glasses can be used anywhere. However, their autonomy limited to “45 minutes maximum” will not allow a full day.
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