It’s been a long time that Snapchat is around and it has really come way forward ever since. From a simple messaging app to a kind of legit social network, it has gone through a big transformation. On the back of it, Snapchat is probably making efforts to rise from that past image of a sexting platform. And, to a great extent, it has been successful in doing that as well. It is something fun and useful for almost everyone. With its increasing popularity among iPhone users, you might be interesting in finding out how to use snapchat on iPhone. Here we have detailed everything for you, so take a look and enjoy using it right from your hand-held.
Jump To Section
• How To Use Snapchat On iPhone – Getting Started
• Viewing Stories In Snapchat On iPhone
• How To Post Snaps
• How To Chat On iPhone Using Snapchat
How To Use Snapchat On iPhone – Getting Started
Snapchat can quickly turn out to be confusing and you might find it hard to start using it on your iPhone if you haven’t done that before. The UI doesn’t do any favors either. So, let’s delve into what it is all about and how you can use Snapchat.
Normally, the user interfaces tend to be easily understandable due to their logical tree layout. Tap on something and you are taken to the next level. You can follow the same path back up and even choose to go to home level right away to start everything all over again. But that’s not the case with Snapchat.
You can only understand Snapchat when you actually start using it yourself and memorize everything to be an expert user. Once you are able to do that, it will turn into a natural texting experience.
Rather than following the tree structure, snapchat gives you panels that you can swipe between. And these panels are weirdly linked as well.
When you launch the app, you get to see four main panels. The app takes you to Snap screen when you first open it on your iPhone. This is basically a camera view and you can swipe towards left for going to Stories page and view all stories from everyone you have subscribed. Swiping to the right will take you to Chat screen that allows you to see all those conversations that are currently active. Swiping left again from stories page will take you to Discover page that provides you all the featured content coming from brands like CNN, Buzzfeed, and similar others.
You can perform various gestures from within Snapchat app for accomplishing different tasks. Tap usernames for viewing stories and you can swipe on usernames to right for viewing conversations.
Snapchat is probably the least pesky of all social networks available. There aren’t any sponsored videos that autoplayfrom your feed. And, there aren’t any annoying ads either that pop up every now and then.
Viewing Stories In Snapchat On iPhone
The stories screen in your Snapchat app on iPhone is where you spend most of your time. Launching snapchat first takes you to camera view as described earlier and from there you need to swipe left or tap on “Stories” button towards bottom right of the screen to bring Stories screen in focus.
Stories are nothing but a public photos/videos stream appearing in chronological order that are bound to disappear after every 24 hours. Whenever people you are following share some snap to the story, you’ll be able to see it right there. You just have to tap the name of the person and it will load the story for you to view.
All their snaps that they have shared in last 24 hours will be visible and you’ll not have to tap & hold for viewing those snaps. They will just continue to play like a slide and if you intend to skip one then just tap on screen’s right. Similarly, tapping towards the left of screen will take you one snap back.
Story Playlist
It can sometimes get tedious to tap the name of everyone individually for viewing their snaps, especially, when you are following lots of people at a time. So, it is better to create Story Playlists instead.
You can add people to your playlists by simply tapping on their thumbnail. Tap thumbnail of everyone who you want to get snaps from in the playlist. After selecting everyone you intended to, just tap on play button that you can find on screen’s bottom.
Live Content
One feature of snapchat that everyone falls in love with is that it allows you to view snaps coming from events all over the world. If there is some major event taking place – such as Olympics, Super Bowl, you can go to Live section and take a look at snaps collection coming live from the event.
Discover Content
The snapchat app dedicates an entire section to websites, brands and publishers. When in stories view, swipe to left and you will be able to browse Discover section. Tap a particular publication and take a look at the content inside. The content that you’ll be able to find here tends to be more interactive as compared to regular snaps. You can swipe up for reading stories, playing videos and lots more. This section really is a good choice for discovering things and killing time.
How To Post Snaps
It is not that easy to post snaps to snapchat on your iPhone. Whether you know how to use snapchat on iPhone or not, here is how it goes.
As said earlier, snapchat opens in Camera view by default and it’s what you call your Snap screen as well.
In middle of the screen you have Snapchat ghost icon where you can find settings, friends, etc.
Towards top right, you can find a button that lets you to switch between cameras. Double-tapping the screen can also help you do the same. After that you have night mode button and it appears only when you have low light around. Tapping it will make your shots taken in low light appear better.
There’s a big circle towards bottom of this screen which is also your shutter button. You can tap it for capturing photos or simply tap & hold for capturing videos. Right below it is a small circle which is basically your “Memories” page and contains all the snaps that you have saved by now. That’s exactly where you post your photos/videos present on camera roll. Tap it and then tap Camera Roll for revealing everything that is there and make a selection.
Captions
In top bar you can find “T” icon that brings up caption field when you are trying to post a snap. Just enter the caption and tap somewhere empty on screen for dismissing. You can tap“T” icon again for changing styles of your captions.
Filters
You can also try different filters simply by swiping right and left on screen. In the beginning, filters used to be amongst the popular things that lifted snapchat and that’s what they still do. But they have certainly come a long way forward and you can add contextual filters to your posts as well. Depending on the time and place you are in, different filters will appear on your screen.They are called geofiltersand they keep rotating with new ones coming in and old ones going out.
You can also try animation filters that appear atop your snaps. Tapping the screen will show these in small circles that appear at bottom. You can also add several filters to your snaps at a time. After adding a filter, just tap the screen and hold and swipe right/left with another finger to show next filter.
Once you are done with everything, Save button allows you to add the current photo/video to Camera Roll of your iPhone. With Story icon, current snap can be added directly to the story. And if you want to simply send your snap to somebody else, tap on “Send to” button to show a list of your friends and “My Story” option appearing right on top.
How To Chat On iPhone Using Snapchat
Chat screen that you have in the Snapchat app appears to be quite traditional but it is still a lot confusing. Swiping right from camera view will bring Chat screen in focus. The screen features all your conversations just the way you have in WhatsApp or iMessage. However, it works in a complicated way.
If you receive a direct snap/chat from someone, that’s whereyou can see them. Your replies to somebody’s snap will also appear on this screen too.
In Snapchat app, chats instantly disappear unless you opt to save particular messages explicitly one by one. It can be annoying when you enter a chat, check and reply messages and lose it as soon as you get back to the chat.
Chat Screen
Tapping someone’s name from Chat Screen does not do anything. Rather, you should swipe right on a name for getting that chat view.
There are five different icons on top of the keyboard. With the first icon, you can choose photos from camera roll. With second icon, you can initiate voice calls. Then there is shutter button with which you can snap instantly from the same screen. After that there is video button that initiates instant video calls. Lastly, there is emojis icon which allows you to select emojis of your choice.
Also, when looking at others’ snaps in stories, for instance, you can swipe up for chatting and sending message for replying to their snap that you were looking at.
So, that’s how to use Snapchat on iPhone and everything you can do with the app. Try it for yourself and you’ll love the experience.