Facebook has been steadily borrowing Snapchat’s core features for many months now, and most recently copying Snapchat’s stories feature and debuting it on Instagram. The next WhatsApp update will seen the App borrowing other Snapchat features like image doodling on Android devices, with iOS support coming soon. Whatsapp users will be able to perform Snapchat-style drawing on top of images and videos .
Other features that are in the update will allow users drop emojis and colored text on top of images, front-facing flash support, and a zoom option for video recording. This is not much of a shocker as at some point CEO Mark Zuckerberg, had offered Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel a few billion dollars to acquire his startup.
WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger combined have over a 1 billion monthly active users, far more than Snapchat, and Snapchat still poses a kind of existential threat. The company recently introduced its first hardware, in form of spectacles that an embedded camera for a better Snapchat experience and has seen its self grow more popular among the millennials. This has forced Facebook to also introduce features more popular with younger smartphone owners. The new WhatsApp update is available on the PlayStore .
