Snapchat announced a new feature – Memories – which observers said significantly changes the nature of the ephemeral messaging app.

Memories is “a new way to save Snaps and Stories on Snapchat”, to create “a personal collection of favourite moments that lives below the camera screen”.

But this marks a shift beyond Snapchat’s original premise, which was the exchange of images which then disappeared. Since then, it has shifted away from this to add more features, which has perhaps inevitably meant it has moved closer to the ground occupied by Instagram and its ilk.

Gizmodo said that previously “Snapchat stories were beautiful in their simplicity”, including images taken as events happened, rather than “polished snaps” uploaded after the event.

Snapchat said that older images uploaded will “appear with a frame around”, in order to differentiate it from new content. Memories are also backed-up by Snapchat.

The update is rolling out “selectively over the next month or so”.