Facebook’s mobile app is getting some Snapchat-esque features

While adding filters can be nice, Snapchat allows users to give their photos a more personal touch with some basic editing and overlaying features. While you can do pretty much the same thing on Facebook through the company’s Stickered for Messenger app, you have to download the app separately in order to do so. That’s about to change for iOS users, however, as some Facebook users have reported seeing Snapchat-like photo customization features in the app. 

Face it. Your photos aren’t all that interesting. But Facebook’s going to help you jazz them up with its shiny new photo uploader, which just began testing on iOS. It lets you add overlaid text in any color, instantly preview filters that you swipe across your photos, or paste Facebook’s stickers on top. Facebook offered more standard filters before and had tested photo stickers, but now they live with the fresh text option in the new enhancements tray. If putting text, swipeable filters, and re-sizable emoji on photos sounds familiar, it might be because that’s exactly what Snapchat does. Since Facebook’s failed acquisition bid, it’s watched Snapchat grow and grow. Its attempts to clone Snapchat as a whole, Poke and Slingshot, have failed. Meanwhile, Japanese messaging app Line has gotten big on the back of stickers. So Facebook’s simply trying to bake the best of everything else into its own. We’ve requested comment from Facebook about how many users have this new interface and how it will be rolled out. We’ll update with its response. Facebook for Android has text and sticker overlays, but lacks filters beyond an auto-enhance feature.