Snapchat for Android Launches

Snapchat, the controversial new photo and video application that sends messages that exist 10 seconds or less, is now available on Android.

From the Snapchat blog:

Making Snapchat video for Android has been exciting, but has also had its fair share of challenges. The Android phones that many of us use were never designed with Snapchat in mind, and that can be tough when developing a hardware-based application. The video feeds and playback behavior can differ greatly - often with no guarantees or warnings. Some users will still experience difficulties, and we want to work with you to make Snapchat perfect (email us!), but we hope many of you simply come to love video snaps.

Snapchat's claim to fame, other than its popularity with teens, is that its ephemeral pictures and videos self-destruct in 10 seconds or less (users can set up the time manually) and if the receiver has quick fingers, he or she could take a screenshot of the photo and it's saved forever. Don't worry, though, because Snapchat will notify you of it! We know, not much help with a naughty photo or video because it doesn't make it disappear.

However, there were quickly ways to bypass that notification function with a hack on the iPhone. That means that sending ephemeral photos to friends or other intimates are no longer ephemeral and can be posted on Tumblr blogs across the Internet. We don't know if this is the case with Android, but users should be aware that anything you send on Snapchat could be saved by the receiver despite Snapchat's assurances. 

Snapchat even reiterates this on Google Play, "Even though snaps are deleted from our servers after they are viewed, we cannot prevent the recipient(s) from capturing and saving the message by taking a screenshot or using an image capture device."

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