When you browse Facebook do you find yourself scrolling past the memes and funny jokes to get to the serious stuff of births, marriages and announcements? If so, you’re in luck: Facebook is busy testing a new “Highlights” feed that focuses on on major life events and cuts out the more banal day-to-day status updates. Facebook already does a decent job of picking out your best moments so the underlying technology is already in place.
Facebook said there were just big fixes in its 7.0 iOS update it released yesterday, but actually there’s a big new feature it’s testing called Highlights. Inside the People tab you’ll see Highlights including friends’ Life Events and people you’ve interacted with recently. If you’re bored of News Feed and want to know what do next, Highlights could lead the way. Or you might just never use it. Also released yesterday was a 3.2 update to Facebook Messenger featuring a new integration with the core app for all users, despite the update’s What’s New listing just bug fixes. If you shortcut from Facebook to Messenger by tapping its icon in the tab bar, you’ll see a “Touch To Return To Facebook” notification bar at top that lets you instantly switch back. As Facebook moves towards more of an app suite strategy with companions like Messenger, allowing for seamless switching back and forth will be important.