Snapchat For Android, iPhone Gets Longer: 24-Hour Stories Rolling Out Now

Snapchat is not just for "temporary" images and clips anymore. The messaging service where users send photos and video clips meant to be viewable for a 10 seconds or less has introduced a new status feature called Stories, rolling out now in an update across mobile devices.

Rather than having to send Stories out to individual Snapchat friends, the new feature is viewable by all friends for 24 hours after a post. Stories are a series of short videos cobbled together, similar to how Twitter's Vine works.

Snapchat Stories is also reminiscent of Facebook news-feed updates, with a twist. Snapchat has thus far found its niche outside of the public broadcast nature of other social networks, more like a picture message than a cavalcade of tweets and status updates.

The fleeting nature of a Snapchat has caused the service to become notorious for sexting, the practice of sending sexually suggestive messages. Poor software-coding choices on Android offered recipients easy access to a folder containing received Snapchat images and videos, which allows users to save and store messages sent under a pretense of being only temporarily accessible.

Snapchat’s main feature -- the 10-second limit for viewing a message -- is also defeated by a phone user’s ability to take instant screen captures, or screenshots, of their device. Snapchat also allows users to write text and doodle on top of picture messages.

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