Owners of the iPhone and the iPad may have been disappointed to learn that they will not be able to get Facebook Home, but they will, however, be able to use one of its many features soon. Chat Heads will soon become available to all users of iOS through an update of the Facebook App. This will allow users to receive a round picture of a friend's face when they want to talk to you, instead of a plain-old notification.
This new update was announced by Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer and the company's mobile head, Cory Ondrejka, during the D: Dive Into Mobile conference. In addition to the switch to Chat Heads, iOS users will also be able to use stickers in their messaging app, as well as a experience a change in layout to Facebook on iPads similar to the new look for Facebook's news feed, which has added emphasis on pictures rather than text.
It is important to note that Chat Heads will only appear when users are using the Facebook App, and not during any other notifications they receive. This is because the version of Chat Heads that is coming to iOS devices is not, in fact, the real version of the software, but a modified version for Apple. Users wishing for Chat Heads to appear for all notifications will need the full Facebook experience.
While some may be excited for this new update to Facebook for their iPhone or iPad, others may be underwhelmed. After all, many different phones include pictures with notifications, so many Facebook users who download the update may be disappointed in how little has changed.
What do you think? Is this update a must-have for iPhone and iPad users, or is it just another annoyance while using Facebook? And more importantly - are you even interested in a completely Facebook-centric user experience? Let us know in the comments section below.