A few months after Apple birthed Live Photos into existence with the release of the iPhone 6s, Facebook is catching on to the idea. The social network is building the feature right into its iOS app so iPhone 6s and 6s Plus owners can start uploading their animated photos and viewing others. But it’s not all good news, since there are two issues with Facebook’s implementation.
The first is that Live Photos will only be available in the iOS app. While this fortunately includes anyone using iOS 9 (meaning that you can still view Live Photos if you don’t own an iPhone 6s) it doesn’t include Android users, mobile web users or desktop users. That is a large chunk of people who still can’t view Live Photos.
Plus, the feature isn’t even available to everyone yet and won’t be for quite some time. The Verge reports that the rollout has begun for just a small group of Facebook users and won’t reach everyone until next year.
Still, if you find that you have the feature enabled on your account already, the process is pretty simple. If you have an iPhone 6s, all you have to do is upload a photo like you normally would. Then before publishing, you have to manually select each photo and indicate whether you want it to display as a Live Photo on Facebook. Facebook makes you manually enable the Live Photos to prevent any footage from accidentally going public that you didn’t intend. Once up, anyone can press on the photo to see the animation and hear the sound.
Hopefully soon Live Photos will make it onto multiple platforms so Facebook can provide a more consistent experience. For now, the addition to the iOS app and the cautiousness over accidental uploads are both appreciated.
