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Introducing the new Snapchat

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Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are overstating the delay involved in taking a photo and having it process inside Android. Whether or not you're taking a screenshot of the viewfinder or properly processing the photo, the moment you press the shutter button is the exact moment that Android captures what the camera sees. The processing that goes inside may take a second or so (if you're using the camera API) but it's fairly negligible in…

Using the stock camera app on my unmodified LG G6, this is just not true. There's about a second of lag between pressing the button, and actually capturing photons. Trying to capture my son in a specific pose is basically impossible. Maybe I'll download an app that screenshots a live video, rather than using the camera API, or whatever it's doing.

Try the Google Camera app that's in the store.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#112

Android's Camera API has existed for _literally years_ to take high-quality photos and these guys are still just taking a screenshot of the viewfinder and calling it a day. It's been like this forever and Snap has refused to fix this. I have yet to come across any other app on Android that utilizes the camera this way. The photos are complete garbage. And here they are, trying to add more 'features' into an app where…

As a near daily snapchat user, and someone who has developed an Android app that use's the camera, I prefer it this way. I'm not using SnapChat to take super high quality pictures, but to share moments quickly. The WYSIWYG works well for that, and a lot of Android devices are super slow to take pictures. Dealing with Camera 1 vs Camera 2 Android APIs, and device specific issues is a mess, I don't blame them for takin…

Why not implement both and have the screencap method for devices with device specific issues or at leat have an option to use both.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#113
post #36
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that under the hood there are modes the camera can operate in - lower-res "video" mode and a high-res "still" mode. When you're looking at the viewfinder it's kind of a video - so it'll be lower res and presumably will skip some corrections involved when a still is taken. Edit: oops I thought this was in reply to a comment where someone complained that the photo was taken from a screenshot of the viewfinder i…

Where are you getting this from? Unless I missed something all they're doing is moving around the menus a bit.

I think they replied to the wrong person, the story here is that the menus have changed.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#115

Evan of Snapchat talks about “performing for your friends” as a strange “side effect” of Snapchat. But the instinct to perform is native to the Snapchat medium. I think this is a problem. I went to a concert a few weeks ago. The people beside me would stand still for 10 minutes and then someone would pull out Snapchat. The whole group would turn around, flash a smile and start dancing for the camera. 9 seconds later,…

I don’t know, isn’t this the same as all social media? I remember reading something along the lines that playing golf is posted on Facebook twice as much as doing the dishes, yet people spend 5x more time doing the dishes. And if we step back from social media, what about regular pictures? They’re supposed to take candid moments of the real world, but even if we’re having a bad day, we smile and act happy for picture…

> playing golf is posted on Facebook twice as much as doing the dishes, yet people spend 5x more time doing the dishes

By that metric traditional newspapers are much worse - the ratio of stories on golf versus on dishwashing is much greater than 5x.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#116
Good move. It seems like a pro-consumer move that is also, and for that reason, a savvy business move. Snap and Instagram as far as I can tell are are largely used by young people who don't like the noise, visibility, and clutter of Facebook. So this is an effective way for them to further distinguish themselves.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#117
post #35

Teenagers, and for that matter, everyone yearns for smaller private spaces where they can share whatever they want with their closest friends — without any reservations of judgement from their parents, grandmas or uncles. I used to love Instagram, until Facebook decided to make it Facebook v2 by making my entire "friend" list follow me there as well. That means that until I invest a lot of time hiding my story from e…

This is a great post to read in comparison with iambateman's [0]. You prefer Snapchat because it is a space where you are safe to be yourself, without worrying about parents/uncles/etc seeing you. But iambateman's point is that making videos for our friends is a performative event, and thus drives one to (a) be different from your actual self (more funny/interesting/alive) or, at the very least, to (b) act as you see yourself reflected in their eyes - to be that version of yourself that they expect to see. To go all philosophy 101 on it, this is more-or-less the basic question of existentialism, with Snapchat acting as a multiplier for temptations to inauthenticity.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15807728

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I love to hate on Snapchat, there's probably no reason to use the Camera API for high quality pictures given Snapchat's use case. And if your nudes were going to be leaked would you rather they were blurred or high-res?

as a social network whose main feature is taking photos, why wouldn't you want that to be in the best quality possible?

The main feature is absolutely not taking photos. Snapchat's product fit is high volume low effort communication. In fact, I'd say the low quality pics is almost a feature, because most of the times people put stickers or one of those dynamic face manipulation 'sunglasses' or 'crown' on the picture, and those (inherently low res) would look ridiculous if they were put on very high res images.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#119
post #2

> The new Friends page to the left of the camera... > The new Discover page to the right of the camera... This reads like the manual to an early-90s text adventure.

I only heard him say "Never swipe to the page on the right".

Discover is kind of cool because you can watch random strangers' snapchats in your area, but yeah maybe I look at it once a week at most

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#120
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only do I think its true of all social media, I think it's less true of Snapchat because the medium has less of a memory. What social media do people think is more candid?

there's nothing candid about snapchat. Candid is heartfelt. Not something that disappears in 20 seconds.

The operative word there was more. I also disagree that something that disappears can't be heartfelt but to each their own.
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