Facebook announces Apple TV app along with iOS app video improvements

Facebook has announced its rumored video-centric app for the Apple TV, alongside several other improvements to viewing videos within the Facebook app for iPhone and iPad. Originally rumored earlier this month to be in development, the new Facebook app is expected to “roll out soon” on the Apple TV App Store, alongside support for several other smart TV platforms and media devices such as Amazon’s Fire TV and Samsung Smart TV. The new app will allow users to watch top videos, videos shared by friends and shared on Pages that they follow, recommended videos, and videos that have been saved to watch later.
In addition, Facebook has announced several improvements to the video experience within the iPhone and iPad Facebook apps, including the ability to automatically play videos with sound when scrolling through the News Feed, rather than requiring a tap to hear audio — sound will fade in and out as users scroll through videos in the News Feed, although the new feature will respect the iPhone’s silent switch and can be disabled entirely in the app’s settings. Facebook has also made improvements to how vertical videos appear on mobile devices, providing larger previews, along with the ability to minimize a currently playing video into a picture-in-picture view so that users can continue scrolling through their news feeds.