Snapchat has released an update which will enable Spectacles owners to share their content in more formats.
Now you can export photos & videos captured on Spectacles in Circle, Square, or Widescreen format. Find the perfect fit for any platform pic.twitter.com/4Xu8AidHJp
— Spectacles (@Spectacles) July 17, 2018
The new options will expand the content potential of Spectacles - now, rather than being wholly tied to Snapchat itself, users will be able to add Spectacles-originated content to other platforms, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
The update was first spotted in testing by TechCrunch back in May, but is now being officially rolled out to all users of both Spectacles Version 1 and 2.
In some ways, it may seem odd that Snapchat would be gifting their content to other platforms in this way, but for one, it's not native (which may mean there could be other issues), and second, Snap likely really needs to sell more Spectacles, particularly given the hype around the device has died down a lot since their initial launch.
And even that initial launch hype didn't add up to much - last November, reports showed that Snap lost almost $40 million on unsold Spectacles, with hundreds of thousands of pairs sitting in warehouses. Snap even noted that the product wouldn’t “annualize”, which most took as a corporate-speak eulogy for the device.
Given this, and the apparent lack of a renewed wave of interest following the launch of Spectacles V2 in April, it makes sense for Snap to explore these alternate format options. I mean, if people have purchased Spectacles, they're already Snap users. Providing more options is just an added bonus to any usage stats they can get out of Spectacles use.
If you own a pair of Spectacles, you can check out the new formats now. If you don't, it may be worth waiting for the reported Spectacles v3, with AR capability. Or for Facebook to inevitably release its own version.