Snapchat takes major decision on its flying drone
Pixy was launched at the end of April during Snap’s annual partner summit.
Snap Inc, the parent company of social messaging and photo sharing app - Snapchat, will wrap up the subsequent development of its Pixy flying selfie, Wall Street journal reported. Although introduced as a limited quantity product, this decision of closure comes just about four months after the launch. The product will be available with the current version.
What is a Pixy flying selfie?
This Pixy, currently available only in the USA and France, is a mini drone that lifts off and gets back in the user’s hand. The Snapchat app on our phone receives footage and photos wirelessly through this drone, which can be then posted to the app.
Its weight, including battery, is 101 grams and dimension is 131.7 mm x 106 mm x 17.6 mm. It is compatible with iPhone 7 or later running iOS 14 or above and select Android phones running 8.0 version or above. Its replaceable lithium-ion battery gives 5-8 flights when fully charged and by using the default flight modes.
The price of this pocket-sized drone starts at $250 (Rs. 20,000 approximately). It was announced at the end of April during Snap’s annual partner summit.
Reasons for the shutdown
Snap Inc revenue rests a lot on advertisements, but soaring costs and other economic burdens have made companies cut down the marketing expenditure. This gave digital marketing dependent company a major jolt. Snap Inc has posted its weakest-ever quarterly sales growth in July this year.
The recent update of Apple privacy policy requiring apps to ask users if they want to be tracked has hit Snap’s ads business. They can’t provide targeted advertisements because the blockage of tracking lacks precise data.
“Our advertising business was disrupted by changes to iOS and tracking that were broadly rolled out by Apple in June and July. While we anticipated some degree of business disruption, the new Apple provided measurement solution did not scale as we had expected, making it more difficult for our advertising partners to measure and manage their ad campaigns for iOS,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said as reported by WSJ.
This decision of Snap is another step in cutting down its costs and prioritising the major business. In a bid to manage resources, last month it said that it will slow down its hiring of new employees. WSJ reported CEO Spiegel telling staffers in a recent Q&A session that for re-prioritization of company resources, the Pixy project was getting scrapped.
