When Will Snapchat Have A New Update?

Not much time has passed since Snapchat unveiled its latest update that included a rolling lineup of facial recognition filters, pay-to-play replays, a curated partnership with the NFL, and a set of achievement trophies — and users are already clamoring for more. When will Snapchat have a new update? The consensus in the tech community is... that nobody really knows yet. That's not to say we can't search for clues, though.

It seems like Snapchat has struck some sort of digital gold, as the reactions to the app's software updates are more a mix of excitement and impatience for more newness rather than the visceral fear of change that happens when Facebook tweaks the tiniest line of code. If you were born in the '80s, you might remember the backlash that occurred when Facebook added its newsfeed. People were devastated.

Last year, Forbes estimated that of Snapchat's 50 million users, the median age is 18 years old. That suggests that about half of Snapchat's post-millennial users are a lot more open to changes made to their favorite apps than we millennials were at their age.

So, let's take a page out of our posterity's book, and soldier on in the name of progress! We may not know exactly when Snapchat will release a new update, but here are a few theories.

When will Snapchat have a new update?

Admittedly, no one seems to have an actual answer to this except for the Snapchat gods. However, I do have a theory of my own, based on some calendar synergy. Did anybody notice that Snapchat's 9.15 update was released on Sept. 15? If dates and version numbers are now somehow linked in the minds of the powers that be at Snapchat HQ, maybe Snap addicts will receive version 10.0 of the app sometime during the month of October. Hopefully, we'll get some more lenses for taking barfies (that's a selfie with a barf-filter, obvs) — maybe something with some holiday cheer, like snowflakes, maybe. Who doesn't love a good festive barfie?

Snapchat did include a short-lived creepy dementor-monster-face option in the initial round of lenses it pushed out in version 9.15, so maybe expecting another big update before Halloween isn't wishful thinking.

What will a new update include?

Because nobody knows how long we'll have to wait for the next big overhaul in our Snapchatting capabilities, I asked an expert, user interface designer Tatiana Chilcovsky, what she thinks is up next for the post-selfie-lens world of Snaps. Chilcovsky works at Dom and Tom, an interactive agency that specializes in developing world class mobile apps for iOS and Android. I figured if anyone would have some insight, it would be her.

Chilcovsky believes that group communication is the next big thing for the famously ephemeral social network. Options like group chats and group Snap stories are a long overdue addition to Snapchat's technology. "I've always wanted to be able to animate text or images or drawings with my videos," she says, "like at the last second it says, 'OMG' rather than having the overlay static the entire time."

If Chilcovsky is correct, and Snapchat's next big update includes a quick solution for sending "candid" group photo blasts to the squad, then let's just hope this update comes sooner rather than later — that sounds freaking awesome.

Images: petsoverde/Flickr; Giphy (2)