The extremely popular social network SnapChat announced a major UI change this morning: you no longer have to keep your finger on your screen while viewing your Snaps.
On their blog this morning, Snapchat announced that to view Snaps and Stories, you now simply tap once to make it play.
This change mostly benefits the experience of viewing a very long Snap Story that you watch from a city or an event.
What will everyone do with their finger now that it’s not tied down to the screen? You could pick your nose, scratch one of your other fingers, or simply put the phone down in front of you and use your hands for something else.
Snapchat still lets you skip a Snap by tapping again, as was the case when you had to hold your screen. If you want to exit a long story you now have to swipe down.
SnapChat also announced a few other nice features today:
- A new “Add Nearby” feature lets you quickly add friends who are physically nearby you.
- Snapcodes, those QR-like codes that let friends easily add you, now support selfies to make it more identifiable.
- Finally, SnapChat has added two-factor authentication to put an extra layer of security on your account (celebrities rejoice!).
The new SnapChat update is now available via your mobile device’s app store — just in time for the long weekend here in the United States. We all want to relax over the 4th of July holiday, so SnapChat is doing us a huge favor by letting us look at Snaps without holding our fingers down on our screens. Thanks, guys!