Snapchat on iOS now makes it easier to find new places on the map

Snapchat will today roll out a brand new iOS feature that builds on its ever-popular Snap Map location-sharing feature, which allows users to keep on top of their friends’ whereabouts.

Snapchat, which has over 250 million users globally, will now have a new “My Places” feature to let its user base explore and save their favorite spots to dine and visit in the Snapchat application.

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The new feature will surface popular places that you may want to visit — and hopefully haven’t come across before. In the app’s ‘My Places Tray’ on the Snap Map, users will now find three individual tabs: Popular, Favorites and Visited.

As per the name, Visited compiles the places you’ve ‘Checked into’ on the Snap Map; Favorites lets you save spots or highlight places you may like to visit; otherwise, Popular suggests places based on where you are and what you’ve tagged in the past. 

All of these newly established tabs are in aid of you finding new places to enjoy based on your traveling habits. The new feature echoes Google's recent tool, which lets users pull their travel stats from Google Maps.

In comments to The Verge, Snapchat said it wants the ‘Popular’ tab to be a discovery hub for its users, giving them an easy in-app way to stumble upon new places to enjoy. The new algorithm will factor in a mix of users’ in-app habits from things like their current location, friends’ map activity and preferred places to visit. The algorithm will then scoop these data points into a curated recommendation, which Snapchat believes will “set Snap Map apart as a highly personalized discovery platform.”

‘My Places’ can be easily accessed by swiping to the Snap Map inside of the Snapchat app and then tapping the ‘Places’ button at the bottom of the screen. The feature is rolling out starting today, and you can head to the App Store to grab the latest Snapchat version.