Good news for people who don't yet have a smartphone, now they don't have to be left out of the immensely popular photo and video sharing application craze that's swept the world, Snapchat. A new app called "Snapped" is currently in beta testing phases that will allow all of the functions of Snapchat to be done using the webcam on your Mac computer.
According to Mashable, users can log in to their Snapchat account and use it to send photos to your friends and view images they send to you, all without the use of a smartphone or tablet.
The app is the product of ThnkDev, a small development shop run by two students from the University of California in San Diego. It runs on OS X 10.9 Mavericks and will be available in the Apple App Store in the very near future.
To use the new app, simply log into Snapchat using your username and password. Choose the desired amount of time for your snap, select the recipients and you're free to send a snapped image from your laptop or desktop's webcam. By default, your front-facing camera will take photos but you can also upload an image from your harddrive, something that the smartphone application version of Snapchat cannot yet do.
The app also seeks to provide access to your friends list, sent messages and inbox items. You can use it to send messages as well as read unread messages directly from the Mac version of the App.
While this sounds like a good way to use Snapchat, it's important to note that the Snapped app is not governed by any official Snapchat rules. For example, photos can be saved without the sender knowing. You can opt to not mark snaps as read. This means that if a friend sends you a snap, you can continue to look at the photo over and over again and the sender will have no idea that you've even seen it once.
For now, you can add texts and filters to snaps sent from Snapped. Text snaps will be a part of an upcoming update soon according to Josh Cohen, one of ThnkDev's cofounders.
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