Snapchat is designed to send photos that are viewable for only a set amount of time until they're supposed to disappear for good.
Be it sexting or an ugly face, there are all sorts of pictures people might not want archived on someone else's phone. But once you send a photo on Snapchat, the receiver can work around that by using screenshot functions to preserve it.
Sure, Snapchat notifies you when someone takes a screenshot of your photo, but a new free app has a built-in preventive feature to combat screenshots.
Yovo, which launched on Wednesday for iOS, operates like Snapchat and other temporary picture-sharing apps, allowing users to send photos with text notes that are only viewable for a brief period before they disappear. Although Yovo doesn't exactly disable screenshots, it uses a clever trick to scramble them.
If you turn on the "D-fence" mode, the app places a moving filter that flickers at a fast pace over the picture. When someone tries to take a screenshot of the picture, it becomes obscured by a virtual fence. Check out the demo video below to see how it works.
It's an optical phenomenon that Scott Richardson, one of the app's developers, compares to driving past a fence. If you're driving near a fence at a certain speed, you can see what's beyond it but when you stop, that image is obscured, he told Mashable
"We felt that, if anyone can take a screen-capture, things aren't always that secure," Richardson said.
Yovo isn't perfect. Richardson said the flicker is noticeable before a screenshot is taken, but the goal is to make the frame rate so quick that it's nearly imperceptible. The initial version can't share video, either.
Although it was designed with privacy in mind, Yovo is still a social tool. It's possible to share photos on Facebook, Twitter or through email, too. Images can last from one second up to an entire day, depending on your preference. There's also the option to blur portions of images.
While it's only available for iOS now, Yovo is planning an Android launch soon, the company notes on its