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Unveiled: Facebook's photo sharing app for iPhone

Facebook has been hard at work on a photo sharing app for the iPhone, according to leaked details and screenshots.
Written by Emil Protalinski, Contributor

Facebook is getting ready to launch a new photo sharing app for the iPhone. TechCrunch, which has obtained roughly 50MB of images and documents outlining the app, calls it "killer" and "amazing."

Internally, the app is either codenamed Hovertown or WithPeople. It appears (Photo Gallery) to be a standalone app for now, but there are signs that it could be eventually integrated into Facebook's main iPhone app as well as the main site. Features include location elements, likes and comments, multipicture mode, filters, multiuser albums, tagging, and so on.

The images of the app suggest that this is still a work in progress. Some mock-ups are older than other ones, some images make it seem as if the service will eventually reside within the existing Facebook iPhone app while others seem to showcase an entirely new app (or a completely redesigned Facebook app). Given how popular Facebook Photos is, a dedicated photo app could make sense, but I'd honestly rather Facebook build the functionality right into its main app.

It's not clear if this app will be built first for iOS, or if there are already other versions for other platforms. Either way, it was likely written in a way that it can be ported easily, and it's clearly been in development for quite a while.

The reason there is so much excitement around this app is because it is built entirely on top of Facebook's massive social graph. In addition to being the world’s largest social network thanks to its 600 million users, Facebook is also the most popular website for uploading photos. As of July 2010, the service had 50 billion uploaded photos. That number is close to 100 billion now.

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