Facebook just uncover its latest standalone app : Slingshot . It’sa tidy sum like Snapchat , except worse . I detest to say it , but even Pokewas more fun than this .
Do n’t get me wrong . Slingshot is a pretty app , with an original turn of events . Like Snapchat , it permit you send your friend a photo or video ( plus whatever print - ups you add on top ) and after that friend bet at the exposure or video , it will self destruct . Unlike Snapchat , however , Slingshot will only rent you see your friend ’s content if you institutionalise them a message first .
This just adds to the overall confusion that frequent Slingshot . The app walk you through unnumerable tutorials that are try so hard to be fun and capricious , but even after five instant of being educated on how Slingshot work , it ’s still takes a thwarting amount of time to in reality visualize out the workflow . Everything about the app is counterintuitive , from the way that you connect with your friends to the agency that you set about — and I chose that discussion specifically — to open up their message .
The real confusion sets in once you begin trade snaps shot ( ? ) with your acquaintance . send out a message is n’t so bad . The appear - and - feel is sort of satiny , if not a turn distraught with cute sounds and kitschy vivification , but Facebook ’s twist on the Snapchat model is frustrating to no final stage . Once you charge a shot to a friend , you ’re belike snuff it to be reasonably eager to get word what they have to say . Too defective ! You ’re not allowed to see their response to your first crack until you beam them a second guesswork in return . And when they send you a 2nd reply , you have to send off a third scene to see how they react to the 2nd shot . Et cetera . Et cetera . Et cetera , until you buy the farm or decide to play 2048 instead .
From there things get a little intrusive . The app is very streamlined , so that all of the focal point is on consider pictures and sending them to supporter . It ’s actually too streamlined , because it took me more than a mates of minutes to find our profile and configurations . Once I did , the Facebook data grab set about .
Like many social apps , you have the option to add either your Facebook contacts and your Facebook protagonist ( or both ) . If you do , Slingshot mechanically take out inall of the contactsin your phone and/or all of your Facebook protagonist . All of them , include that ex you ’ve been trying to obviate . Slingshot will also mechanically sum sync the contacts in your sound as you sum new mass . you may opt out of this feature for succeeding autosyncing , but that requires finding a small orange substitution that ’s buried under a couple of menus . And yet , even when you bend it off , Slingshot default to adding citizenry to your net in a elbow room that ’s , well , confusing .
When you first sign up , you could add your Facebook friends and contacts , but you ca n’t add one by one . you’re able to only sum all of them . You also ca n’t exactly seek for a friend by their drug user name . you may seek for a username , but Slingshot then mechanically adds them — unless they do n’t have an account , in which typesetter’s case Slingshot will tell you they do n’t have an account . In other word , there ’s no such thing as a friend request in Slingshot . Slingshot want everybody to be your champion .
For an transitory message app , Slingshot also does n’t seem very concerned with your privacy . Whereas Snapchat will have you lie with if somebody ’s screenshotting your snaps , Slingshotdoes not . You ’d guess there would be some variety of data economic consumption insurance policy that addresses this sort of thing , but when you actually discover the data use policy in your options , the page is blank . This is for sure some hemipterous insect that did n’t get deposit before Slingshot hit the App Store , but it ’s irritating nevertheless . ( The data apply insurance policy is , however , easy accessible on the app ’s website . )
http://www.sling.me/theprivacy
So how is it really different from Snapchat , other than being less utilitarian and more confusing ? It ’s not really . Slingshot adds a couple humble features , like the power to message all of your champion at once . But it also lacks a lot of the versatility that Snapchat users have come to bask . Snapchat let you have more control over who can send you subject matter and view your story . Snapchat also let you only send off and receive message from friends without getting suck into some Facebook - powered vortex of mayhem .
If you ’re in the securities industry for an ephemeral messaging app , stick with Snapchat . If you ’re in the mode to embark upon some sort of Facebook - powered social experimentation , then Slingshot survive for you to try . Somesayit helps if you think of each guess as a condition update that arrive at your friends work for some big pay off . I say that more friction never makes for a just societal experience . Especially if it ’s one that already survive without it .
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