Snapchat Now Lets You Record And Play Music At The Same Time

Snapchat has been experimenting for some time with ways to better integrate music into its application, and today it’s continuing those efforts with the launch of a new music feature that allows users to share snaps with friends which include music or other audio playing on their phone. That means your favorite tracks on Spotify, or your most recent iTunes download, for example, can now play in the background of snaps you share with others or post to your Story in the Snapchat app.

The feature has just rolled out to iOS with the release of Snapchat version 9.2.0, but has yet to appear in the Android version hosted now on Google Play.

It also comes shortly after Snapchat shut off sharing from the music video app Mindie, which let users pick a song as a soundtrack, then shoot an accompanying personal video that could then be shared to other social networks. Snapchat cited its security policy as the reason for cutting off access from Mindie at the time of its removal earlier this month, and even reset the passwords of those who had given Mindie their credentials.

The feature gives Snapchat a leg up over over competing video apps like Vine, for example. The inability to record video while playing music has been the bane of many Viners and amateur videographers for some time. The iPhone’s default video camera, Vine, and other apps will pause music as soon as you start recording.

While seemingly a minor addition, support for snaps that include music playing from users’ own phones could pave the way for Snapchat’s grander plans in the music space further down the road. The company has, so far, shown a keen interest in making music a deeper part of the Snapchat experience – and that’s something that also likely resonates with the younger demographic that uses the app most often.

In the past, Snapchat has experimented with promoting music by featuring artists like Goldroom, Vance Joy and Strange Talk in its promos, which, in some cases, allowed users to tap through to the iTunes store to buy the track when the video promo ended. And in emails leaked via the Sony hack, it was unveiled that Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel had been actively discussing ways to make Snapchat a better tool for promoting artists, and even toyed with the ideal of running its own label. More recently, it’s been rumored that the company is looking to buy Taylor Swift’s label, Big Machine, according to the New York Post.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/gSeNjuSvrK0/

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