After getting our unofficial Instagram app for Windows Phone, people’s eyes turned the next big thing in social media: Snapchat (www.snapchat.com). For those who don’t know (and who are over 25), Snapchat is a new messaging service that’s super popular on iOS and Android. It’s trick? Photos you send auto-delete themselves after a set amount of seconds. And yes, it’s coming to Windows Phone--unofficially and officially.

Quick back story

Much like Instagram, Snapchat relies on private APIs that controlled by the developers of the service. In theory, they could open it up to third-party developers, but like Instagram they want to control the experience. Part of that experience is disabling screen-captures of expiring photos—after all, that defeats the whole purpose. Indeed on iOS and Android, if you screen-cap the pic, it will tell the other person that you did. Best VPN providers 2020: Learn about ExpressVPN, NordVPN & more While iOS and Android both have official clients, Windows Phone is on the sidelines, again. But that's all about to change. The Unofficial Version(s)



First look: Swapchat for Windows Phone

We can tell you definitively that there are currently two groups of developers working on Snapchat for Windows Phone. How? Like Instagram, APIs can be cracked and it’s not exactly too hard to do so for such a simple service. One of those in development is Swapchat, made by two developers under SRC Apps. The app is in private beta now and it works, basically, as advertised. You can register, add contacts and yes, send photos (if the other party is on iOS and Android, it will notify you that they screen cap’d the image, but not vice versa). Notifications don't yet work, but we'll chalk that up to being a beta.