With AR and VR seemingly at their highest, at least for the time being, what’s next for Snapchat? The answer might come sooner than any of us might expect – today, Snap Inc. just announced its fourth annual Partner Summit, to be held digitally on April 28.
Snap-up
Subtitled ‘Back to Reality’, Snap aims to use the event to showcase its latest features and projects, including its evolving work on augmented reality, digital product showcases, Snap Minis, content upgrades, and more.
Snapchat has announced a range of tools and additions during its previous Partner Summits, including its SnapKit platform (which fuels Snap Minis), novelty in-app functions, improvements to the Snap Cam, and new & advanced Lens types. During last year’s event, we all caught a glimpse of Snap’s AR Spectacles, which are still in development, that marks the next stage of its wearables push. You can check out the trailer here.
Since this big reveal, various AR developers have partnered with Snap to help work on the next iteration of Spectacles. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not we’ll get an update about this from this year’s event. To note, Meta and Apple have also partnered with Snap, eventually leading both to develop their own. Given the size and resource superiority of these companies, one would think that either would easily gain the advantage over Snapchat on this front.
But to those who thought this, woe to you. Despite being much smaller and limited, Snapchat should be the last one you count out when it comes to AR development. While Meta may take the crown in terms of social media saturation and Apple dominates the smartphone industry, Snapchat is arguably still the leading AR innovator. As it continues to evolve its tools, Snapchat has, time and again, proving that it could go the distance with any competitor, which goes to say a lot about its longevity.
AR continues to evolve, and with it, Snapchat’s Spectacles. There’s no doubt that this year’s Partner Summit will be just as, if not more, exciting than the last, with loads of updates and reveals that would thrill just about any user. At the same time, Snapchat is also expanding its Original’s Programming, as well as diving deeper into the development of digital items, via Bitmoji fashion sharing and other tools.
The Wrap
Just as we’ve all entered April, you can expect to hear more about each of these new elements over the next couple of weeks. Sadly, it’s only digital, but it’s also worth tuning into if you want to hear not only what Snap’s currently busy with, but also to get a sense of where things are headed, considering the company’s nous for leading such trends.
You can register for the event here. All sessions will also be made available on Snapchat’s official YouTube channel after the broadcast.
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