Too late, Twitter: Facebook adds photo filters to its new iOS app

Facebook just rolled out an update to its iOS app, and quite a few things have changed in version 5.1. You can now send your friends Facebook Gifts from your iDevice (if you’re in the US), chat to your friends just by swiping left… and overlay some artistic filters over your photos. Yep, it seems Facebook has integrated some of the features of its Instagram-style Camera app into its native iOS app, including a number of filters with names like “Copper”, “Cream” and classic “B+W”.

Interestingly, the update comes just days after the New York Times reported that Twitter was working on photographic filters for its own mobile apps. Facebook’s Camera app, which launched back in May, is almost an Instagram clone which allows users to crop and edit their photos before uploading them to the social network.

As TechCrunch notes, you can add filters by selecting an image in the upload screen, then tapping the magic wand icon that appears. The new updates have also streamlined photo sharing through a multi-upload option (which the Android app has had for a while), which makes it easier to post batches of images to your Facebook timeline.

Some of the other features include the ability to buy Facebook Gifts from your iDevice — previously, only Android and web users had this option, which is still in beta testing in the US and allows you to send real life gifts to your friends. Facebook Chat is also easier to use, and can now be accessed from anywhere in the app by swiping left to see which of your friends are online, and organised so that your favourite friends always appear at the top of your chat list.