The Facebook photos app project, which is meant to be secret, appears to be a combination between three popular apps in the App Store: Path, which lets you share photos and short videos with up to 50 people; Instagram, which is a social photo sharing app (with photo filters and effects included); and Color, which pools photos from people around you, based on your GPS coordinates.
There’s also a camera button and what appears to be a photo notifications icon on the bottom right, and a menu item bottom left. This interface is more photo-centric than Facebook’s current photos interface in the official iPhone app, which only displays small thumbnails and album information at a glance.
Overall, the presumed secret Facebook photo app is said to be a stand-alone app, which could carry the name of Hovertown or WithPeople. Another possibility would be that this interface will be integrated into the current official Facebook app, replacing the old Photos menu, and the functionality could be integrated into the main site as well.
So far, Facebook says it has around 100 million users using its official mobile apps to update their status, so improved functionality for photos could indeed deter many users from other social photo sharing apps. However, if the initial indications are accurate, Facebook’s app does not have any editing features available like Instagram, or location-based pooling, as with Color, so it wouldn’t pose a big threat to Instagram, Color or Path — yet.
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