A month ago, it was spotted that WhatsApp was testing a new camera interface in its app which looked oddly similar to what Snapchat offers. WhatsApp and other companies with messaging apps have noticed how Snapchat’s implementation has made it so popular and ended up imitating the same functionality in their camera user interfaces.
Well WhatsApp has made that test official where you can now use the new camera interface we had the opportunity to see a while back. “With WhatsApp’s new camera features, you can now write or draw on photos and videos, as well as add emoji to express yourself,’ the company said in a blogpost.
Just like how you use the Snap interface, after taking a photo or video, you can add a text, big emojis or doodles. These text captions or doodles can be typed or written in a variety of colours and specifically on texts, you can magnify them (by doing a pinch to zoom gesture) or drag them around the interface. The zooming feature also applies for videos where you only need to slide your finger up and down. They have also added another handy gesture where you only need to quickly double tap the screen in the camera UI to switch between the selfie and primary cameras. Finally, they’ve added a “front-facing flash” which is the same implementation of what we saw with Apple for their iOS devices where the screen will light up and act as a flash.
This comes at a time when Messenger has also been reported testing a similar feature for Messenger and shows how Snapchat has managed to influence these huge platforms in adopting an emoji-sticker-doodle like camera interface.This feature is currently being rolled out to Android phones first and to iPhones later on.
