Facebook has begun gradually rolling out support for Live Photos in their app. Starting today, some users will be able to view the new animated photo format, introduced alongside the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, the format offers a peek at what happened immediately before, and immediately after, a snapshot was taken.
One catch: because Live Photos are still fairly new, Facebook isn’t pushing support out to everyone at once. While some people will see them start popping up in their feeds as early as this morning, many won’t see them until the new year.
Uploading a Live Photo is done using the same method as is used to upload a normal photo, however there will be an added option to select to upload a normal image or a Live Photo image during the upload procedure. Users will see Live Photos in their feed, branded with a set of concentric circles. Users can press those photos to play the animation. If the user lifts their thumb, it goes back to its static form.
While uploading a photo from your camera roll that happens to be Live Photo-enabled, a “LIVE” box appears in the bottom right; tap that, and it’ll upload as a Live Photo. Don’t tap it, and only the still goes up.
You’ll have to tap that box manually with each Live Photo, and with good reason: once enabled on your iPhone, Live Photos are created with little to no thought on your part. It’s easy to forget the feature is even on. Add in the fact that Live Photos include 1.5 seconds of video and audio from before/after the instant you hit that shutter button, and it’s easy to imagine a scenario where you unwittingly capture something you… maybe don’t want to make public. By making it opt-in with each photo, there’s less of a chance you’ll accidentally upload stuff you forgot was even there.
Currently, only the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus can take live photos, but all iOS devices running iOS 9 can view Live Photos in the Facebook app. Facebook is not the first social network to offer support for Live Photos, as Tumblr began offering support earlier this month.
