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On the one hand, this seems objectively bonkers, but on the other hand, I can kind of see how it'd make sense. If everybody using Snap uses a phone, and all the

On the one hand, this seems objectively bonkers, but on the other hand, I can kind of see how it'd make sense. If everybody using Snap uses a phone, and all the phones have more or less similar resolutions, and Snap doesn't allow any sort of zooming, then really the pixels on the original screen are exactly what you need, so why bother taking a new, different picture? I'm pretty sure I can answer that question (because using a camera as a camera gets you a better picture, because some other phones that will view your photo will have higher resolution, etc), but I do appreciate a clever hack. I'd love to know the actual reasoning behind this. Maybe there was some weird permissions issue between displaying what the camera sees and "taking photos" that affected some users at some point?

capableweb 5y ago
> I'd love to know the actual reasoning behind this. Maybe there was some weird permissions issue between displaying what the camera sees and "taking photos" that affected some users at some point? My bet is on that it's simply faster to take a screenshot of the viewfinder of the camera than using the camera to take a photo. Open up the camera already has some delay, taking photos introduces more delay before you get the actual bytes to do the processing. Taking a screenshot tends to be instant though, so in order to take photos the fastest, you can take a screenshot of the viewport. Although this wouldn't work for videos, which I'm sure they are using the actual camera to do, instead of taking ~25/30 screenshots per second.
- habibur 5y ago
  And my bet will be that they wanted to keep user's expectation of what he/she is sharing vs what actually is getting shared as close as possible. A simple user believes he is sharing a screen resolution image and there's no hidden details in it.
- badwolf 5y ago
  >videos, which I'm sure they are using the actual camera This is why when you start recording a video on Snapchat, there's a delay before the recording starts, and usually also a short delay before audio recording starts (especially noticeable if you have audio playing from your phone at the same time)

capableweb 5y ago

> I'd love to know the actual reasoning behind this. Maybe there was some weird permissions issue between displaying what the camera sees and "taking photos" that affected some users at some point? My bet is on that it's simply faster to take a screenshot of the viewfinder of the camera than using the camera to take a photo. Open up the camera already has some delay, taking photos introduces more delay before you get the actual bytes to do the processing. Taking a screenshot tends to be instant though, so in order to take photos the fastest, you can take a screenshot of the viewport. Although this wouldn't work for videos, which I'm sure they are using the actual camera to do, instead of taking ~25/30 screenshots per second.

habibur 5y ago
And my bet will be that they wanted to keep user's expectation of what he/she is sharing vs what actually is getting shared as close as possible. A simple user believes he is sharing a screen resolution image and there's no hidden details in it.
badwolf 5y ago
>videos, which I'm sure they are using the actual camera This is why when you start recording a video on Snapchat, there's a delay before the recording starts, and usually also a short delay before audio recording starts (especially noticeable if you have audio playing from your phone at the same time)