Facebook rolls out new features for iPhone, iPad users

Facebook is rolling out two new features for its users on Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. While the first feature automatically generates slideshows out of images and videos, the second is an addition to the company’s Facebook Events feature that lets users access hand-picked Events, including the ones that are not on Facebook.
With the new Slideshow feature, Facebook now let users view images or video posted by someone more easily by automatically merging all of them into a slideshow that’s easier to watch, reports the Tech Crunch website. The feature is supposed to save time and effort spent on clicking each image inside an album to view them.
For Facebook to create an automated slideshow, users would need to upload five or more photos or videos in 24 hours. The slideshow can later be customised by adding more images, replacing them, or removing them. Users would also be able to choose the theme and slide transitions. There are 10 themes available at the moment including Nostalgic, Playful, Night Out, Birthday, Epic, Thankful, Tropical, Bollywood and Amped. For those unaware, Slideshow originally came as a part of the Facebook’s Moment companion app launched in June 2015.
The particular Facebook Slideshow feature will be rolled out to iOS users across the world starting this week and is likely to expand to other platforms in future.
Facebook seems to be trying hard to engage users from outside its own website as well. The social media giant would now suggest users events picked from 10 major cities in the US.
According to a report in Techcrunch, Facebook iOS users in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C will see a ‘Featured Events’ section above the events tab. This feature should not be confused with the ‘Suggested’ events feature as the latter is based on your friend’s interest and RSVPs. The new Featured Events are hand-picked by a separate team altogether.
“You can think about it like a weekend or weekly digest of cool stuff that you can do in your city,” Faceboook Events product manager Aditya Koolwal told TechCrunch. Koolwal further added that users can also choose to recieve push notification for events.
The events curation team “will not include events primarily focused on politics or worship,” said Koolwal. After the Facebook trending news controversy, the company is taking extra caution on how curators would select events.
Facebook might also sell sponsored spots in the ‘Featured Events’ section in future. Users will also be able to select specific event categories such as Music, Food, The Weekend and more.