Snapchat is bringing its users a fresh taste of augmented reality with an update to its free iPhone app. Now, the image messaging app can, through use of the devices’ front and back cameras, let users see the world around them come to life in vivid, imaginative ways on their iPhone screens.
The new “World Lenses”, as Snapchat calls them, mean that an array of weird and wonderful cartoony objects can appear overlaying the real-life world seen by the cameras. The World Lenses include rainbow-vomiting clouds, snow, hearts and floating glitter, MacRumors reports.
For horror fans, there’s another lens that uses a flashlight to make your environment dark or light – and, on an especially topical note, an Election Day filter. Please don’t forget to vote…
This update to the Snapchat app also adds a menu option for syncing with Snapchat’s upcoming $130 sunglasses, Spectacles. It’s still unclear when this one-size-fits-all eyewear, announced in September, will launch, but Spectacles will enable users to record 10 seconds of video at a time.
Owners of Apple devices have especially good reason to be excited by augmented reality. Apple CEO Tim Cook called the technology “profound” in a recent interview with BuzzFeed News – and that’s far from the only hint that Apple is working towards its own augmented reality product.
