While Facebook may be focusing heavily on video at the moment which includes the Live Video tab that was announced by the social network earlier this year, they have been steadily making changes and other improvements to their mobile app where they can as well. Improvements span across a few different areas of the app experience but the most noticeable to those who have already received the change will likely be the Live Video tab. This is slowly beginning to roll out to users it seems, giving them a place to see a page completely dedicated to live video that’s uninterrupted by content from the news feed.
Beyond Live Video which many users are already aware is coming whether they have the tab available in their own app or not, Facebook also seems to be testing some other tweaks with the app too. Minor UI improvements can be seen in the form a new transparent status bar that shows up when you’re viewing a user profile which used to match the blue color scheme of the rest of the app. Users are also noticing Facebook implementing a new popup panel that appears when you go to share something within the app, with the ability to change the share location and who the post is shared with, and pretty much the whole package you’d see if you were sharing a post with people through the website like adding locations and tagging other users.
There is also a new bottom bar appearing that acts as a sort of secondary navigation around the app, with different tabs available to sift through, each listed with a different category name like news feed, selfies, scenes, friendship, education, thoughts, and parenting. There are also more categories, each of which can be toggled on or off using the switcher toggles from the settings page, which can be accessed by tapping on the settings button that sits at the end of the row of tabs. Along with the tab categories listed above, there’s also tabs for celebrations, animals & pets, work & money, games, TV & movies and possibly others. When and if Facebook rolls out the new bottom tab to all users is unclear at this point, but if it’s a feature that stays it’s likely rolling out slowly just like the Live Video tab.
