Snapchat will shortly let its millions of daily users share their location with friends using a new feature called Snap Map. From the default camera view, you touch with two fingers to zoom out and see the map. Friends who have choose into sharing their location through Snap Map will come out in Bitmoji form. You can share with select friends, all friends, or with no one if you pick “Ghost Mode.”
Snapchat is very fast to note that your location is only updated when you open the app — so there shouldn’t be any background tracking to worry about. In fact, if you don’t open the app for several hours, your Bitmoji will terminate from the map rather than reflect a long-since-changed location. The Snap Map also display where some snaps being shared to the cooperative “Our Story” Initiate from. And the heat zones on the map mean areas where a lot of those snaps are being taken.
Snap Map should be rolled out to all users soon via an update to the mobile app on Android and iOS. Other recent additions to Snapchat include “limitless” snaps, looping videos, creative tools admit a magic eraser, and augmented reality world lenses. The Snapchat is continuously building out new features in an effort to maintain a strong position in its eternal rivalry with Instagram, which has successfully duplicate much of Snapchat’s appeal with Stories, and Facebook, which has set up much less success.