Microsoft has been in talks with Snapchat for a Windows Phone app foroverooo over a year, and now it seems those talks may soon pay off.
According to a Twitter response from Snapchat"s Support account, seen below, the company has "plans" to make a Windows Phone app available sometime in the future.
@raphaeu There are plans to make it available in the future, we"ll give deets when that"s close. Hope this helps! :)
— Snapchat Support (@snapchatsupport) May 16, 2015
For those of you not familiar, Snapchat is an app that allows you to take a picture or video, caption it, and send it to a friend. That friend only has a set amount of time toview it before the image or video gets deleted. The app has previously only been available for iOS and Android and on Windows Phone through several third-party applications.
The third-party apps were short lived, however. Several months ago, Snapchat shutdown all third-party apps, citing security concerns. This resulted in many users petitioning for an official app, so much that Snapchat reportedly had to remove the support page where you could request the app for different platforms due to the flood of posts.
After the removal of unauthorized Snapchat apps from the store, Rudy Huyn, developer of the popular third-party app 6snap, even offered up his code to Snapchat so that the company could more easily create an official one (it is currently unknown whether this app is a product of that offer). Microsoft itself even went as far as to create several similar competitors to it in an attempt to quench Windows Phones users thirst (see WindUp and Sykpe Qik).
Hey @Snapchat, I can give you access to #6snap source code, check it if u want but don"t let"s #windowsphone users without solution #beSmart
— Rudy Huyn (@RudyHuyn) January 8, 2015
Just a couple weeks ago third party apps for Snapchat"s new Discover platform were also removed from the Windows Store, most likely by Snapchat"s request. Rudy Huyn even received a letter from Snapchat"s legal team regarding his follow-up app, 6discover.
As you can see, Windows Phone and Snapchat have had a long and very interesting relationship. It has long been thought that Windows Phone would never get a Snapchat app. Snapchat"s CEO even took to Twitter suggesting that Windows Phone"s market share wasn"t large enough to develop for.
Taking into account Snapchat"s history with Windows Phone, we are still taking this news with a pinch of salt as there has been no official announcement from Snapchat or the usual Windows Phone leadership. There are currently no details as to when the app is expected to be available and if it will be a Universal Windows App built for Windows 10. Regardless, it would be very exciting to finally see another high profile app come to the Windows Phone platform.