Facebook Bringing 'Chat Heads' to iPhone

Facebook today announced an update to its iOS apps that brings some of the functionality found within Facebook Home to iOS devices, but don't expect to see your home screen taken over by your Facebook news feed just yet.

Among the updates coming to the iPhone and iPad is Chat Heads, a feature rolled out with Facebook Home that allows for multi-tasking while chatting.

"Now you can keep chatting even when you're doing other stuff on Facebook, like checking your News Feed. Tap chat heads to reply, drag them around, or flick them down to close," Facebook said.

Chat Heads will be rolling out to the iPhone and iPad Facebook app over the next few weeks, as will "Stickers," which look like Pokémon-esque emoji for messages (below). "Tap the smiley to add stickers to your messages and get more stickers in the Sticker Store," Facebook said.

Also on the iPad, Facebook is rolling out some of the news feed changes it announced in March to Apple's tablet. Facebook promised "brighter, more beautiful stories." That update is expected later today.

Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer and Cory Ondrejka, head of mobile engineering at Facebook, were at the D:Dive Into Mobile conference today, where they touched on Facebook's transition to mobile, as well as Facebook Home.

Earlier today, there were reports that Facebook was working to bring "a version" of Facebook Home to iOS and Windows Phone. Bloomberg quoted Adam Mosseri, director of product at Facebook, who said the firm had spoken to Apple and Microsoft about extending the Facebook experience beyond the confines of a Facebook app. At this point, however, it's just a conversation and no deals have been inked, Bloomberg said.

When asked if Facebook had approached Apple about bringing something like Chat Heads to the iOS home screen, Ondrejka declined to comment directly, saying only that Apple is "a great partner and we're always looking at ways to make products better."

Ondrejka, meanwhile, said the first update for Facebook Home is expected in the second week of May, though he declined to say what the update will include. Facebook is also still working on the tablet version of Facebook Home and "might have to make some tweaks" before it's ready for primetime.

"We think it's going to work really well, but we wanted to make sure we had time to make it great," Ondrejka said of Facebook Home on tablets.

Starting today, Facebook Home will also start rolling out internationally. Facebook "had a few days" to watch the U.S. rollout closely since its April 12 launch, so "now we're opening up to the rest of the world."

Ondrejka and Schroepfer, meanwhile, denied that Facebook was turning its back on the desktop ("Hundreds of millions still use the Web," Schroepfer said), but acknowledged that mobile is the future of the social network.

"We're a technology company focused on mobile," Ondrejka said.

For more, see PCMag's hands on with Facebook Home and our review of the HTC First (slideshow above), which comes pre-loaded with Facebook Home.

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 2 p.m. Eastern after Facebook clarified that Chat Heads is coming to iPad and iPhone.