Like the old-school Polaroid, the white frames on images uploaded to Snapchat Stories are designed to signify that the images aren’t as fresh as those in-app snaps. But, Snapchat is now doing away with those white borders in an update that is rolling out on iOS beginning Thursday, January 25. The change comes alongside options to save text in one-on-one conversations, and, for group chats, the ability to see a friend’s location on the Snap Map.
When uploading a photo from the Camera Roll to Stories, Snapchat added a white border, an automatic edit designed to let other users know the image wasn’t snapped using Snapchat’s camera. With the latest update, that white border disappears. Instead, like images shared from Snapchat Memories, uploads appear with a Camera Roll designation at the top instead of that white frame. While the white border is gone, Snapchat still favors that vertical format and automatically rotates images into that portrait orientation, without a tool to rotate them back.
The disappearance of those white borders comes along with new options for saving messages. Tapping and holding a message will now bring up additional options for saving, Snapchat says. The feature isn’t entirely new, but the options were previously only for group chats but have now migrated to individual conversations.
The third part of the update incorporates the Snap Map into a group chat. Inside the chat, the Map will show friends that are in the group. Like the regular Snap Map, the tool only works if those friends have the location sharing turned on.
The update is already rolling out on iOS, but hasn’t yet hit Google Play.
The removal of those white borders comes just two days after Snapchat shared that Stories can soon be shared outside of the app on the web. As part of the redesign that still hasn’t seen a global rollout, the tool will be available for Official Stories, Our Stories, and Search Stories. Pressing and holding on the Story brings up a share option, which creates a web-ready link.
Snapchat is slowly rolling out a redesign after disappointing stock results prompted the company to work on making the platform simpler to use in order to attract new users. The update has so far only rolled out in the U.K., Australia, and Canada.
