Snapchat's location sharing was criticized after its always-on coordinate broadcast on Snap Map proved rather too intrusive for some users.
Now, the company has reimagined location sharing as it wants to let you send your ongoing real-time location to friends, as more private, closed up feature and ephemeral messaging that is Snapchat’s best shot at staying relevant.
While the idea of location broadcasting have kept some users from exploring the Snap Map, owing to some privacy concerns, but this new feature will perhaps give them enough reason to try it out.
As location shared will only go live for eight hours after you last open the app. At any time, however you can cancel someone’s access from the Snap Map, which you’ll need to go through the location consent flow first, if you’ve never enabled it.
Albeit, it works only with bi-directional friends, you can’t ask for the spot of your favorite Snap star if they're not following you, and you can turn off getting requests if people are spamming you.
Essentially, the location sharing is now built on the privacy people want from Snapchat, rather than the little freaky idea of giving an open access of all your contacts to know your whereabouts on the Snap Map.
Instagram, the Facebook owned platform has been ruthlessly cloning Snapchat's best features, like Stories and Discover, but Snap Map represent one of the app’s best differentiator.
No comments