Snapchat isn’t a fan of third-party apps for its service, and recently it’s begun clamping down on people that use third-party Snapchat apps as well as the apps themselves. Perhaps Snapchat’s biggest move yet against those unofficial apps came this past weekend.
6snap is a popular third-party Snapchat app for Windows Phone, but this weekend the app was yanked from the Windows Store. Developer Rudy Huyn noticed the change and pointed out that all other third-party Snapchat apps for Windows Phone had disappeared as well. The problem? There’s no official Snapchat app for Windows Phone, so now Windows Phone users have no access to the service.
It’s no surprise that Snapchat has had third-party apps pulled from Windows Phone. After all, the company has a support page that explicitly says that using a third-party app is against its Terms of Use and that it’ll lock your account if you do use one.
So now we have to wonder if Snapchat will launch an official app for Windows Phone. Microsoft has been pushing major app developers to bring their apps to Windows Phone, and so far we’ve seen heavy hitters like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Flipboard hit Windows Phone. If Microsoft wants to help Windows Phone’s odds at staying in the mobile fight, it needs to get a Snapchat in there or get one of the third-party apps official access to Snapchat’s service.