If you can’t buy them, just copy them. Facebook, which failed to buy Snapchat for $3 billion in 2013, has apparently been reverse engineering a few features of the popular photo app. The social networker previously came up with Slingshot, an app that allows you to mark up a Snapchat-like image with colorful drawings and text before sending them to friends. Now the company has brought more features to the iOS app allowing users to include text, filter and stickers on photos for their profiles, says a report from TechCrunch.
Facebook improves photo editing tools
Facebook photos sometimes aren’t all that interesting, but with its new update, the company has tried to solve this problem, making photos more interesting. With this feature, a user can add overlaid text in any color, paste stickers on top along with an option of instantly previewing filter.
Facebook already offers several standard filters and have tested photo stickers before, but the new feature is a big improvement. In December 2014, Facebook came up with its first dedicated sticker app, and earlier this year introduced the feature to its mobile app, allowing the user to combine stickers with photos. But, this update give users numerous options to upload a photo with stickers (obtained from the sticker store), and apply filters and color text onto the image.
A Facebook executive told The Verge that the new features give “a new place to house photo-editing tools,” which can be accessed by using a new icon in the lower left-hand corner of the selected photo.
Not given up on Snapchat yet
This can be seen as another attempt from Facebook to add Snapchat-like features. Snapchat, which is 2013 defied a Facebook bid, has grown its user base while Facebook’s Snapchat-inspired Poke and Slingshot have largely failed to gain popularity. However, the new update suggests the social networker has not given up its quest to gain users from Snapchat.
As of now, there is no information from Facebook over how this app will roll out, and about how many users will have access to this new interface. Facebook’s Android app has a text feature and sticker overlays, but the filter is only limited to auto-enhance.
Though the new features have already been made available to a majority of the iPhone users, Android users may have to wait a bit longer. In the past, the social networker has launched features to Android and Apple devices at the same time, but this time it looks like the full range of photo-editing features will come later to Android.
