Facebook’s universal iOS client for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini has just been updated with the useful ability to share your favorite places using the improved Nearby tab. More important than that, you can now record a voice or video message right in the app and send it to your friends. The ability to share audio snippets first appeared in an update to Facebook’s Messenger app on January 3, 2012 so having it now in-app via the official client is a welcome addition…
Also cool is that I can now record and post video clips using Facebook’s iOS app.
From the design standpoint, the improved Nearby feature (it uses an embedded MapKit view) reminds me of Foursquare. Just tap the Nearby tab and the app will pull interesting places, venues and events based on Facebook’s Knowledge Graph.
Image via MacStories.
Creating a recording requires you to touch and hold the circular button (above). Our friend Federico Viticci explains:
Because the file gets sent after the user lifts the finger off the screen, Facebook implemented its own way to cancel the action: you can swipe to the side while holding to cancel a recording in progress.
Doing so will reveal a red “cancel bar” at the top of the screen as confirmation. Recordings can also be played inline on the Facebook website.
Here’s another screenshot.
Release notes note that Facebook 5.4 lets you “share your moments with voice messages and video recordings right in the app”.
• Send voice messages when you have more to say
• Record and share videos right from the app
• Share and connect with your favorite places using the improved Nearby tab
Facebook 5.4 is a free download that natively supports all form-factor iDevices.
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