Snapchat frowns upon user’s taking screenshots of snaps and retaliates by alerting the other party with an icon in their inbox.
However, Apple’s just-released developer iOS 11 has been found to include a feature that lets Snapchatters record photos and videos without the sender knowing.
Called ‘Screen Recording’, the new function enables users to capture anything on the screen and automatically saves the content as a video to their camera roll.
Snapchat hit the scene in 2011 and instantly attracting teens and young adults to the platform.
Users were enticed by the concept of sharing photos and videos that would ‘self-destruct’ in seconds after being opened by the recipient.
When the app was first released, users were required to hold down on the screen in order to view the message, which the firm did to deter people from taking screenshots.
However, the function was removed in 2015, allowing Snapchatters to use both hands to capture an image or video and save it in their camera roll.
And although there are no set rules against screenshots, Snapchat does let the sender know if the recipient recorded their message – which has stopped many from doing so.
Now, Apple is making it even easier for users to take a screenshot without anyone knowing, Mic reported, with a function called Screen Recording.
Screen Recording will be located in the Control Center of iOS 11, which is said to include a range of new functions.
Under the More Controls section, find Screen Recording and tap on the little ‘+’ next to it.
Then bring up the Control Center by swiping up on the display, tap on the red Record button and you can capture anything shown on the screen – including Snaps.
Xavier Harding with Mic tested had recently test the feature in Snapchat, which he found that while recording, opening the iOS Camera app will stop the reordering – but ‘not so with Snapchat’.
‘I was able to tap the Screen Recording shortcut in Control Center and clips like this – without notifying Alexis,’ he explained.
‘You can even capture videos from Snapchat that are sent to you.’
Because the feature is still in beta, Snapchat could develop and update that would either stop the recording, as the camera app does, or another way of notifying users when their Snap was captured.
And the team has until September to do so.
