Apple Live Photos now available on Facebook
Live Photos at their best add to the atmosphere of the main, 12-megapixel still photograph
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Your support makes all the difference.Have you tried Live Photos on the iPhone 6s (or 6s Plus)? If you have, you’ll know they are a cool way to enhance a still photo with extra frames of action and a little audio to boot. And from today, there is a new way to see them.
Live Photos at their best add to the atmosphere of the main, 12-megapixel still photograph. They do this by recording moments from the 1.5 seconds either side of the photo being taken.
So a beachside still is improved with lapping water and the gentle slurp of a cocktail, say. Or a portrait of father and daughter can be boosted when you see a cheeky grin exchanged between the two just after the shutter clicked.
The downside to Live Photos is that if you don’t have the latest iPhone, it is less easy to see the extra elements, which is a shame after you’ve gone to all that trouble to take it.
Now, though, Facebook users can view Live Photos through the iOS app, on iPhones and iPads that aren’t the latest models. Providing your iPhone or iPad has the latest operating software, iOS 9, on board, you can now view the Live Photo through the Facebook app. Press and hold on the photo to see and hear it spring into life.
Live Photos are similar to the excellent but underused Zoe enhanced photos pioneered on the HTC One M7 smartphone. The differences here include the fact that Apple is intensely supportive of its new developments. Integrating them with Facebook is proof of that. It will mean that lots of people are going to stumble across them accidentally as their thumb rests on a Live Photo in their timeline.
In turn, this will lead to iPhone 6s users taking more of Live Photos, and uploading them to Facebook.
A good Live Photo requires an additional thought process to that of a regular photo. After all, though they definitely best thought of as still images rather than low frame-rate video, extra care is needed to shoot them well.
There’s already been one big improvement to the software. It now knows that when you lower your iPhone after pressing the shutter button, that’s probably not the bit of the Live Photo that you want front and centre.
When they work well, Live Photos with their images-come-to-life feel can have a touch of Harry Potter-like magic about them. Facebook compatibility will make them more accessible and better noticed.
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