Facebook Updates iOS App With Halloween Themed Reactions and Live Filters

Thursday October 27, 2016 7:33 AM PDT by Mitchel Broussard
Continuing in the tradition of changing Reactions to suit a theme or holiday, Facebook today has begun rolling out a Halloween version of the six Reaction buttons. Replacing Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry are a skeleton's hand, candy heart, witch, ghost, Frankenstein's monster, and a pumpkin.

facebook-halloween
Some Reactions, including Like, change into their festive versions after being tapped

Using its acquisition of MSQRD, Facebook is also introducing Halloween-themed live filter masks into its live video streaming feature. The limited-time masks are said to include a skull, an evil queen, a pumpkin, and a witch.

After you start broadcasting from the "Live" button on top of the feed in the Facebook app, you can find the masks in the magic wand menu in the top left corner of the screen. The company said that a selection of masks will continue to be available after Halloween, "so you can be creative in your Live videos any time."

facebook-halloween-2
The update is expected to stick around through Halloween, although Facebook didn't specifically confirm how long it would last. Reactions will be rolling out to people "in a select set of countries," while masks are available only to iOS users in the United States, United Kingdom, and New Zealand.

Tag: Facebook
11 comments


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Zorn
28 months ago
Wow! How super kewl and useful! Meanwhile in the real world, the Facebook app still looks like sloppy mud on the iPad Pro one year later. Glad they have their priorities straight.
Rating: 3 Votes
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rockarollr
28 months ago
Who gives a damn? How about they get their priorities straight and fix their app so it looks right on the 12.9" iPad Pro? You would think that might be just a bit more important.

Way to prioritize and delegate your resources properly there, Zuckerberg! o_O
Rating: 3 Votes
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Kobayagi
28 months ago
Finally(!!) Now, my life = complete
Rating: 2 Votes
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acegreen
28 months ago

What kills me is that as I understand it, developers don't even need to do anything super special anymore. Basically they just tick a box to have the app respect size classes and it ensures the app looks proper on any iDevice.


Oh yea show me how thats done please. Haha what should kill you is your naivety in believing that this is in fact true. First off, even with an app built from scratch support size classes the proper way involves maybe layout changes, rather than simply leaving the constraints as they are. For example a list of things could be split into 2 columns to take advantage of the new space etc. Otherwise it would just be a bigger version of the 9.7". Device based layout and design might be necessary and takes up resources. So even with a brand new app, its not as simple as just supporting the size class.

The more critical point here is the fact that Facebook is a legacy app, built well before size classes were introduced. Although I'm sure they implemented many of the new tools like size classes and AutoLayout, they are still constrained in some areas by the older code base.

Updating all that is definitely worth it in terms of reducing technical debt and legacy code. But on the other hand the iPad Pro accounts probably for 1% of their user base. Halloween skins will reach 99% of their user base, attracting them to the app in and during the Halloween period. And we all know halloween is a big holiday, where people shop, eat and leisure. All these activities are super important to Facebook and its marketing partners.

#priorities
Rating: 2 Votes
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kingpushup
28 months ago
Mines not showing these kewl monsters. No update waiting in App Store neither :/
Rating: 1 Votes
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Zorn
28 months ago

Oh yea show me how thats done please. Haha what should kill you is your naivety in believing that this is in fact true. First off, even with an app built from scratch support size classes the proper way involves maybe layout changes, rather than simply leaving the constraints as they are. For example a list of things could be split into 2 columns to take advantage of the new space etc. Otherwise it would just be a bigger version of the 9.7". Device based layout and design might be necessary and takes up resources. So even with a brand new app, its not as simple as just supporting the size class.

The more critical point here is the fact that Facebook is a legacy app, built well before size classes were introduced. Although I'm sure they implemented many of the new tools like size classes and AutoLayout, they are still constrained in some areas by the older code base.

Updating all that is definitely worth it in terms of reducing technical debt and legacy code. But on the other hand the iPad Pro accounts probably for 1% of their user base. Halloween skins will reach 99% of their user base, attracting them to the app in and during the Halloween period. And we all know halloween is a big holiday, where people shop, eat and leisure. All these activities are super important to Facebook and its marketing partners.

#priorities


Fair enough, I'll stand correct since I'm not a developer. Still though, I think Facebook more than has the resources to update for this, even if it's not a huge segment of their user base. It makes the app look completely unprofessional, especially for a service that comes built into iOS (Facebook login is in the settings, and there's one button download of the app). If I were Apple, I would tell them they stand to risk losing their "most favored nation" status within the OS if they can't properly update their app. This isn't a tiny indy dev that can't bother with a flagship device.
Rating: 1 Votes
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ArtOfWarfare
28 months ago
Tiny bit of shine to the heart makes it a candy heart... okay, fine, I'll buy that, but I'm pretty certain the like button wasn't changed at all. What makes it a skeleton now?
Rating: 1 Votes
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