Have you ever wondered how Snapchat filters are made? I have, and trust me, it isn't easy. The Lens Studio you need to make them is a desktop tool that takes time, skill, and plenty of trial and error to master. I’ve always wished there was a simpler way to cook those fun effects without needing to be a developer or doing it on a laptop.
It's great news that Snapchat has answered that wish with its new standalone Lens Studio mobile app. It’s designed to make Augmented Reality content creation way more accessible. For now, it’s only available on iOS. We Android users have to wait for it, and hopefully there are plans for us to get it.
Create Snapchat filters on your iPhone
I’ve always been a fan of Snapchat filters. They're the main reason I still use the app, and it’s my go-to camera when I’m having a bad skin day or just not feeling confident in my appearance. It's comforting to take a perfect selfie in those moments and suddenly feel ready to post.
The new mobile Lens Studio improves that concept. Now, you have your own mini beauty studio or AR playground and you’re no longer limited to the filters Snapchat gives you. You can actually make your own.
Lens Studio is a lightweight tool that lets anyone create fun effects, also called Lenses, directly from their phone. When you first open it, the app greets you with a playful home screen and Snapchat's familiar yellow theme.
You’ll see Remix Templates, which are ready-made Lenses you can customize with a few taps. For example, you can pick a “Clay Guy” effect that turns your face into a scary mask or a “Cartoon Lifestyle” filter that gives your selfie an animated style.
But if you want more control, tap the big yellow plus button at the bottom. This opens the Add Effect screen where you can experiment with different types of effects. For example, Appearance filters let you do retouching, smoothing skin, whitening teeth, adding makeup, and other facial enhancements.
There are also Filters, Text overlays, Background changes, Morph effects, and AI-based lenses to dramatically change your look or style in seconds. I love that mixing these options is allowed and you're not restricted to one effect at a time. You can combine appearance tweaks with Text or Background and Morph effects to make something truly unique.
Once you start adding effects, you can switch to a live preview mode where your phone camera turns on, and see yourself on screen in real time while adjusting the filters. There’s a full slider for tuning each effect.
When your Lens is ready, the app walks you to the Publish Lens screen where you'll record a short preview video, type in a Lens name, and publish your creation so that they appear on Snapchat for people to use. You can review or edit your published lenses on your profile page.
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Reply Snapchat texts from your Apple Watch
In addition to the Lens Studio app, Snapchat is also bringing a more connected experience to your wrist with the launch of its Apple Watch app. Although you can’t snap, send photos from the watch, and use other core Snapchat features, you can preview messages and quickly reply to them from your watch face.
This capability isn't entirely new. Before, if you had notification mirroring turned on from your iPhone, your Apple Watch could already buzz and show you a Snapchat alert. What has changed is the ability to actually reply from the watch itself.
You can either use the small Apple Watch keyboard, scribble letters with your fingers, use automated suggestions, or dictate a voice message that gets converted to text.
It's worth noting that this development is happening at a time when a lot of big apps have stopped supporting Apple Watch. Instagram, Slack, Uber, Trello, and Amazon have all pulled their watch apps in recent years.
On Pixel Watch and Wear OS watches, you can receive Snapchat notifications just like any app that mirrors phone notifications, but there hasn’t been an official Snapchat app for Wear OS. At least, no version where you could actively open Snapchat and reply like what watchOS has. It's another item added to our wish list.
