Snapchat, the ephemeral photo sharing service has announced a major update for its iOS app.

The update will bring a new text messaging feature called “Chat,” and a video chat feature called “Here.”

You can now swipe right on a friend’s name in your Snapchat inbox to start chatting. The messages seen by you and your friend are cleared when you leave the chat screen.

I really like the way they’ve implemented the video chat feature. You can start the live video chat with your friend by tapping and holding on the blue photo button. You can also switch between the front facing and rear facing camera using swipe up and swipe down gesture respectively.

http://youtu.be/Z9h30NcVy4E

The update hasn’t hit the App Store yet. We’ll let you know as soon as it is available.

Update:

Snapchat 7.0.0 with the “Chat” text messaging and “Here” is finally available in the App Store. You can download the update for free using this direct iTunes link if the Snapchat app did not get updated automatically.