Facebook Launches New iPhone App Dedicated to Posting and Sharing Photos

Logo facebookcameraFacebook today released a new standalone iPhone app dedicated to posting and sharing photos on the 900-million strong social network. Facebook Camera aims to make using photos on Facebook "faster and easier", according to a press release.

The app, much like the Facebook Messenger app launched last year, is designed to streamline a single Facebook feature that users are constantly interacting with, rather than using the clunkier Facebook iOS app. Photos are such a large part of Facebook that the company recently spent $1 billion to purchase photo sharing service Instagram.

Facebook built the app to make it much easier for mobile users to share multiple photos to the network -- something that is cumbersome in the standard Facebook app. Facebook Camera, made by a dedicated Photos team, streamlines browsing photos that friends have posted, a task which is all many users want to use Facebook for. From All Things D:

Facebook seems to have learned a heck of a lot from Instagram. Photos in Facebook Camera are full-bleed, spanning the entire width of the iPhone’s screen (which was probably tested when Facebook tweaked the photo experience for mobile last week). You’re able to comment and like photos directly from the stream. And of course, there are filters (albeit ones with names nowhere near as fun as Toaster or Valencia).

More than this, it’s very lightweight. The app moves much faster than browsing photos within Facebook’s proper app. And by introducing a separate camera app, it’s another way of bypassing the cumbersome, clicky process of adding pictures via the main Facebook app.


Instagram and Facebook Camera may seem like competitors -- and within Facebook they will be, sort of. Ellis Hamburger reports for The Verge:

The Facebook Camera team has been working on the app for months, and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly kept his desire to purchase Instagram close to the vest, as if he almost impulse-bought it. Had the Instagram deal never occurred, Facebook Camera wouldn't really be much of an Instagram competitor anyway, lacking any mobile-only social circles and hashtagged sharing around specific topics. "Enhancing the Facebook photos experience on mobile is long overdue," Facebook's Derick Mains told me. "We really had to step up our game, and we're committed to building Instagram independently."

Facebook Camera is available free on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Top Rated Comments

davie18 Avatar
171 months ago
3 facebook apps now? Is that really needed? Why not just make one very good app instead?

Pretty soon I'm going to have to have a folder just called 'facebook'.
Score: 81 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Small White Car Avatar
171 months ago
So is this Facebook's admission that they CAN'T fix their app? They're just gonna replace it one piece at a time?
Score: 44 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mortalias Avatar
171 months ago
Wonderful! Another Facebook app to get frustrated with!
Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AppleGuesser Avatar
171 months ago
Let's all be thankful for that. ;)

I second that. Anyone else feel Facebook is over-hyped, over-bloated and primed for collapse soon? :D
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Winni Avatar
171 months ago


It never fails to amaze me that apparently nobody understands that Facebook's users are the actual product that Zuckerberg's company sells to its real customers...

More than 900 million wonderfully detailed and freely given profiles that can be sold to advertisers. No wonder Mark has become so rich so quickly.

The next time somebody complains that the government is spying on you, try deleting your Facebook profile first.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
840quadra Avatar
171 months ago
Perhaps the company could focus on making the native Facebook application a bit more reliable / faster, before making more potentially system crashing applications.

As it stands, the mobile website version of Facebook is more responsive on all my iDevices than is the dedicated application.

I will stick with my native camera application, Camera Awesome, or other similar apps, and posting my edited photos up using other methods.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)