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Snapchat confirms four APIs, allowing use of Bitmoji avatar in other apps and more

It was reported last month that Snapchat was working on a number of APIs to allow integrations with third-party apps, known as Snap Kit, and the company has now confirmed this – with four of them now available.

Conscious of how Facebook ran into trouble granting data access to third-party apps, however, it is promising tight controls …

All of the features previously reported have been confirmed, notes Recode.

A Snap login API that will let people use their Snapchat username to create accounts on other apps, and what amounts to a Snap camera API, which will let people share things from other apps directly to their Snapchat Story.

Another API will let you use your Bitmoji avatar inside other apps, like Tinder‘s messaging feature, and the last API will let developers use public snaps (user photos and videos) to create themed Stories on a third-party app or website.

Snap VP of Product Jacob Andreou emphasized the privacy protections.

Snap’s login API, for example, only gives developers access to a person’s Snapchat username. It does not give them other demographic information like age or location, and “we definitely are not planning on ever making the full friends list available to developers.”

Snap also plans to manually review all API partners. “Any future third-party Snap Kit app integration submitted to us will need to go through a review and approval process to make sure we know how their integration will work.”

A recent update allowed you to delete sent messages, and the second-generation Spectacles are now being sold on Amazon (as we cautioned earlier, be careful not to order the first-gen ones by mistake).


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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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