Snapchat’s is taking its Lenses to the next level by introducing the World Lenses feature. One of Snapchat’s features is Lenses, in which the camera on your phone will be able to detect your face and introduce all kinds of fun and wacky filters, like turning yourself into a dog, cat, or swapping faces with a friend, and so on.
Unlike the current Lenses that seem to be focused more on your face, World Lenses will focus on everything else around you and is basically a showcase of what augmented reality technology can do. Now you can add effects to your current surroundings, like making it snow or making a cloud puke rainbows. There are a variety of options to choose from, some of which will change things more than others. There’s a horror theme that turns everything dark, and lets you illuminate that digital world with a flashlight on your display. There is an Election Day filter, snow, hearts, and floating glitter.
Also, Snapchatters will now be able to rewind a snap. Users can tap on the left side of their screen to go back or rewind. There’s also an option on the left side of the screen to go back to the beginning of a Story. You had to initially browse through all the Stories you’ve watched to re-watch or share them.
At the moment there are apparently only 7 filters available, including an election one for those in the US. However we expect that with Lenses, Snapchat will eventually introduce more over time. In any case it does seem like a fun feature, so if you do use Snapchat, you should be able to check it out by updating the app to the latest version and firing it up.