Facebook v8.0 app for iOS brings improved private photo sharing, and more

Facebook, on Tuesday, released the updated version of its Facebook app for iOS. The new update is a renewed effort by the social-networking giant to improve on the niche segment of private sharing. The version released-v8.0 allows users to select specific people who will be able to see the users' photo albums in their feed.

Facebook had already rolled out the feature for individual statuses and photos over the last few months. The new version extends the same feature to entire photo albums as well - Facebook calls it a "A simple way to see and choose a photo album's audience." The option to select the photo albums, according to reports, has a lot of similarities to Snapchat.

The sharing of the photos is set to 'Friends' by default. A tap to the same will reveal a pre-made friends list, or options to create a new custom list. Essentially, every time users wants to share photos, they will have to either use the pre-made list or create a new one. Facebook has been trying to push private sharing, which it calls 'micro sharing' since 2007. It has ever since then met with mixed success on the same. It might also be possible that like Facebook's other endeavours, like Groups and Smart Lists, this feature might take time to be accepted by users or might fly under the radar (like its predecessors) completely.

And Facebook is not the only one to try private sharing as a feature. Path tried using it by letting a user share with their closest friends but that backfired. Snapchat allowed users to select specific people that a user wanted to share information with, and met with success. On the other handInstagram Direct, which is a photo messaging feature didn't take off, and Snapchat's Stories didn't make much headway with the mainstream audiences either.

In addition to the photo-sharing feature, Facebook on the iTunes page says the updated design "makes it easier to post and share on iPad", and also touts other "improvements for reliability and speed." The app doesn't come with any major changes as users may have expected with a major version number change, save the private photo sharing option. It will be interesting to see how it is accepted by users in the future.