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Snapchat uses Apple's big day as a diversion to hide some dramatic news

Snapchat uses Apple's big day as a diversion to hide some dramatic news

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Snapchat announced today that it had settled out of court with Reggie Brown, the Snapchat founders' fraternity brother who claimed to have invented the app's trademark disappearing messages. While Snapchat wouldn't disclose exactly how large the settlement was, Brown's lawyers previously stated to Forbes that they were hoping for one third of the company — which now equates to more than a billion dollars in value. Here's the wording of the official statement, which admits Brown's invention of Snapchat's ephemeral messaging idea:

"Reggie Brown originally came up with the idea of creating an application for sending disappearing picture messages while he was a student at Stanford University. He then collaborated with Spiegel and Murphy on the development of Snapchat during its early and most formative days."

Snapchat published its release at precisely 1:00 PM ET — the same moment Apple started broadcasting its biggest event of the year. It's pretty common practice to bury bad or dramatic news on "Apple Day." Brown and Snapchat's legal battle has been brewing for years, but now stands in the shadow of a very large iPhone 6 Plus with 128 GB of storage.