Snapchat is quietly rolling out a brand new “Footsteps” characteristic to all iOS customers this week, the corporate confirmed to TechCrunch on Monday. The brand new characteristic, which was beforehand solely accessible to Snapchat+ subscribers, makes use of Snap Map to allow you to see how a lot of the world you’ve explored and monitor the place you’ve traveled to.
The primary time you utilize Footsteps, your first steps can be based mostly on Snaps in your Reminiscences, which signifies that your previous journeys nonetheless rely. After that, Snapchat gained’t use any extra Reminiscences so as to add to your Footsteps, and can as an alternative monitor your travels utilizing location information.
Snapchat can solely populate your Footsteps for those who don’t have Ghost Mode on, which is a setting that stops Snapchat from displaying your location to your mates.
The brand new characteristic comes as Snapchat continues to compete with Instagram and TikTok. By constructing out its Snap Map product, the corporate is strengthening one among its key variations from its rivals, each of which don’t provide an identical characteristic (which may change, as Instagram has confirmed it’s growing a “Friends Map” characteristic).
With this new characteristic, Snap Map will let you know what number of nations you could have traveled to, and the way a lot of an space you could have explored. As an illustration, the app may show that you’ve explored 30.4% of your metropolis. Or, for those who traveled to a brand new nation over the summer time, the app may let you know that you just explored 5% of Paris.
These percentages are based mostly on the completely different locations the place you took and saved Snaps. It’s value noting that the odds will solely be correct for those who’re an avid consumer of the app and sometimes save Snaps as a result of they’re based mostly in your saved Reminiscences.
Going ahead, the Map will use location information to indicate you precise Footsteps on the Map based mostly on the place you journey to.
Your Footsteps are solely seen to you, and you’ll flip the characteristic off or clear your Footsteps information by going into your Profile and tapping the “Settings” button. Subsequent, you should scroll right down to the “Account Actions” part and faucet “Map.” Then, toggle off “Save new Footsteps as my location updates on the map” to show off Footsteps. To clear your Footsteps information, faucet “Clear Footsteps History.”
The characteristic is considerably just like Google Maps’ “Timeline” characteristic that tracks journeys you’ve taken and locations you’ve been based mostly in your Location Historical past.
Snapchat sees the brand new characteristic as a technique to monitor your travels and likewise share your adventures with your mates with a customized sticker that showcases your travels.
A spokesperson for the corporate instructed TechCrunch that the corporate plans to roll out the characteristic to Android customers quickly.
