Snapchat changes specs to look past the iPhone generation

The app wants to distance itself from its rivals' troubles, but needs more of their revenues

Don't suggest to executives at Snap, parent of the Snapchat app, that they work for a social network, or that they're in the social media space. "It's a communications platform, not a social network," says Claire Valoti, international vice-president of Snap.

You might think that an app where you create media - photos with captions and effects - and then send that to a selection of friends and acquaintances (where it self-deletes) sounds like social media. But Snapchat wants to distance itself from rivals such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, which this year were the focus of so much negative attention for their effects on democracies, cyberbullying, or invasion of privacy.

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