Snap is increasingly intent on turning the smartphone into a tool with which to investigate the world. A vision that the US company that owns the Snapchat app – which today has about 600 million active users per month – has been pursuing for some time, but which in recent years has been taking on more defined contours thanks to the support of two essential allies, the camera and augmented reality, which in tandem increasingly actively intertwine the new AR experiences conveyed by the platform to the daily life of users (sometimes with the help of devices accessories that amplify its immersiveness, such as the Spectacles 4 that we tried a few weeks ago).
The opportunity to reiterate this, rattling off a long series of novelties and functions that will be perfected or released shortly, was the Snap Partner Summit 2022, which also this year took place in digital mode. Here are some of the main innovations presented at the event.
The camera remains the pivot of Snapchat’s activity, so much so that it has given the parent company the wording of “camera company”. At the Summit, the company announced Lens Cloud, a series of free back-end services that will expand the range of possibilities for developers to use, including new storage and localization options and a multi-user mode.
Improvements are also in sight for Lens Studio, the desktop app launched in 2017 that allows “creatives” to develop Snapchat lenses (graphic filters that are intertwined with the surrounding environment to be published on the social network such as photos, selfies or short videos).
Soon, Lens Studio will incorporate the Ray Tracing rendering technique for an even more realistic rendering of augmented reality elements. The Camera Kit evolution also continues, the solution that allows you to integrate Snap’s AR platform into third-party applications, with which Samsung, for example, has “incorporated” the Lenses directly into the original Galaxy A Series camera.
Also planned are new monetization possibilities for creators, who will be able to make their activity on the social network profitable thanks to Snap Ads, advertising, and new revenue share possibilities, but also new content creation options, with the introduction of a new editing tool called Director Mode that includes, among other things, the Dual Camera function with which you can use the front and rear cameras simultaneously to capture a 360-degree perspective.
The frontiers of augmented reality are endless and for Snapchat, they include among the privileged application areas also shopping and live concerts.
Since the beginning of 2021, over 250 million users have used AR lenses for shopping (for a total of 5 billion times), making Snapchat one of the most active platforms in this regard. The innovations introduced in the coming weeks focus on new technologies that will improve the way fashion brands will show products to consumers through augmented reality.
An example is Snap 3D Asset Manager, which will give fashion houses the ability to optimize 3D models for any product within their catalog, but also a new lens optimized thanks to Artificial Intelligence with which users can try on different outfits without necessarily having to change clothes. Finally, a new section called Dress Up will land on Snapchat that will collect in one place the best AR content related to fashion.
For fans of live music, new augmented reality features are also coming to Snapchat that will “enrich” some of the main international music festivals, such as the Lollapalooza in Chicago and the Wireless Festival in London, born from the new multi-year partnership with Live Nation.