Your favourite Snapchat filters are no longer restricted to your mobile phone – Snap just pushed out a new desktop app for Windows and macOS that applies the same effects to your webcam, and you don’t even need to log into Snapchat to use it.
Brighten up your video calls, enhance your YouTube vlogs, or just mess around with the effects – it’s up to you. Snap has also announced a special partnership with Twitch that means the Lenses can be used alongside live video game streams, and can be changed on the fly while you’re playing pretty effortlessly.
“With Snap Camera for desktop, choose from thousands of Lenses, including classics made by Snapchat as well as new designs created daily by the Lens creator community through Lens Studio. This means more streaming and sharing with Lenses,” says Snap.
To get started, download the Snap Camera app on your desktop device. Snap Camera syncs with the camera connected to your computer and works with some of your favourite video-sharing platforms and apps. This means wearing Lenses while recording your next YouTube video, or even while streaming with apps like Skype, Google Hangouts, and OBS. We’ve also developed a custom Snap Camera integration just for streaming on Twitch.
The new app is a rather obvious push to get Snapchat in front of more users – Lenses are no longer unique to Snapchat, but they remain one of the most fun features inside the app. Maybe a few desktop users will start picking up Snapchat on mobile again.
In another move to broaden its appeal beyond vanishing photos and videos, Snapchat has partnered with the Hooked startup to produce a five-chapter, sci-fi mystery thriller set in Silicon Valley called Dark Matter, available through the Snapchat Discover page.
We’ll have to wait and see whether desktop apps, short-form entertainment, and wearable gadgets are enough to help Snapchat fight back against the might of Instagram and Facebook. If you want to use Snapchat Camera.
Lenses are available in a list in the app that you can scroll through, but there are also options to search for lenses by keyword, mark favourites, or assign lenses to shortcuts.
