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Apple's Live Photos come to Facebook's iOS app

Apple's Live Photos come to Facebook's iOS app

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But only iPhone users can see them

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Apple Live Photo Facebook
Apple Live Photo Facebook

Facebook is adding support for Live Photos taken with the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, following Tumblr's support of the photo format from a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, since support is limited only to iOS users, they will only be viewable in Facebook's iOS app. Android, desktop, and mobile web users will be left out. It will work on iOS devices iOS 9, which means that the iPhone 4S and newer devices can see them.

To post a Live Photo, Facebook users can just upload photos as usual, but as you upload you have to check the lower-right corner of the photo, where it says "Live." Once it's up on Facebook's News Feed, your followers can press on the photo and view the motion — provided they're looking at Facebook on an Apple device running iOS 9 or above.

Facebook isn't rolling it out to every user right away, but instead giving the feature to a small group of users now with a global rollout that won't finish until next year. Facebook has already added support for Apple's 3D Touch on its iOS app icon, with shortcuts to take a photo, upload a photo, or post directly.

App support for 3D Touch features like Live Photos has been coming out in fits and starts since its introduction with the 6S and iOS 9. A lot of apps have added support for quick shortcuts from the home screen, fewer have implemented "Peek and Pop" or other in-app features. That's to be expected – 3D Touch is still basically a new feature that's only available on the latest iPhones. But presumably more 3rd-party app support is coming soon — here's hoping Facebook's other insanely popular app, Instagram, is next on the list.