As Twitter continues to flirt with the idea of being a paid social media app, many are turning to other apps like Snapchat in search of free content and a free way to connect with friends online. Unfortunately, Snapchat doesn’t make it entirely clear if it’s a free or paid experience — resulting in some confusion for new users.
Snapchat is one of the most popular social media apps today, allowing its users the ability to connect with one another instantly and capture and save precious moments in photos and videos. It’s a great app for those wanting to stay connected, but with the recent launch of Snapchat Plus, users are left scratching their heads, wondering if they can continue using Snapchat for free.
While you can pay for Snapchat, the base experience is still completely free. This means that to chat with people via text, pictures, or videos, users don’t have to pay a fee of any kind. Similarly, users are able to access the rest of Snapchat’s best features — like the Memories page, the Explore tab, and friend emojis — for no charge. Essentially, unless you want a small handful of specific features, you won’t need to pay a dime to use Snapchat.
In fact, most people don’t pay to use it. Snapchat reported that its premium service, Snapchat Plus, has over one million subscribers as of June 2022 — a small fraction of the over 300 million active users that reportedly use the app. Based on those numbers, it’s clear that paying for the app is not necessary in order to enjoy it.
All that said, if you want to, you can pay for Snapchat Plus for $4 per month. As detailed above, Snapchat Plus isn’t required to use the core aspects of Snapchat. Instead, Snapchat Plus offers a handful of additional features that avid Snapchat users can use to improve their experience. Most of it comes in the form of additional customization options: subscribers can customize how long their Stories last, the colors of the app’s UI, what the app icon looks like on their phone, and more.
In addition to extra customization tools, Snapchat Plus also includes some useful new features. Subscribers can pin one friend as their No. 1 BFF, add an emoji friends will see after they view your Snaps, and you can see how many people have rewatched your Story. These aren’t huge features, but they can be nice to have.
One frustrating aspect of Snapchat Plus, however, is that it doesn’t remove ads from the app for subscribers. Although the ads on Snapchat are generally pretty unintrusive, they’re definitely still noticeable — and the fact that they aren’t removed for paying subscribers makes them even more irritating. While that seems to be a common theme among premium social media services now, it doesn’t make it feel any better, especially given how little Snapchat Plus actually offers aside from a handful of cosmetic options and non-essential features.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.
Apple's next cheaper iPhone could get a brand-new processor while keeping its most stubborn display compromise. Digital Chat Station tips the iPhone 18e for a 2027 release with a 2nm A20 chip and a 6.12-inch OLED screen still limited to 60Hz.
The rumored camera setup includes a single 48MP rear camera and a possible 24MP selfie camera. There's new hardware to consider, but buyers hoping Apple would extend that upgrade generosity to smoother scrolling could be disappointed.