In 2018, Snapchat‘s company Snap introduced its filter desktop application that people can use to spice up their Zoom meetings—the Snap Camera. It took off during the pandemic, but now in 2023, it doesn’t surprise us to hear that the app will be shutting down on 25 January.
I tried it out when it was first launched. Basically, Snap Camera lets you put on filters that were popular on Snapchat—like turning yourself into a Disney Princess. It also only worked on Zoom—not Google Meet.
The application also doesn’t need to be on when you launch Zoom the next time. And if you hadn’t changed filters from last time, the same filter would show up on your next Zoom meeting. If you didn’t know how to set it off, you’d be stuck with a silly filter on for a potentially serious work meeting—like what happened below.
“We have some news to share: Snap Camera will no longer be available as of January 25, 2023,” wrote Snap on its application.
The company, however, points out that you can still access a wide array of Snapchat filters on the web version of the app. But that’s not quite the same as being able to accidentally show up to your next meeting as a potato.
In 2022, Snap laid off 20% of its employees, and canceled projects like its Pixy drone after four months. The drone was supposed to help film footage that syncs back to the Snapchat app.
