Your Facebook app's notifications tab is getting more useful
Notifications in the Facebook app has always been a simple, linear list of activity you're involved in. It's where you get notified about comments on your status updates, group activity, reminders about birthdays, and so on.
With a new update that becomes available starting Monday, the notifications tab in Facebook is evolving into what looks more like a dashboard of stuff on Facebook you may be interested in, like the weather forecast and news that's popular in your area.
By also letting you fine tune the kinds of notifications you see, Facebook is making the notifications tab more of a destination in its app for all kinds of information.
"Every day, people use their notifications to keep up-to-date with their friends and family," said Facebook product manager Keith Peiris in a post announcing the changes. "We've heard feedback that people wanted to add important information that they can easily see, all in one place."
The new design, which starts rolling out on Monday for users of the iPhone and Android Facebook app, allows you to see friends' big life events, like birthdays and weddings. It also pulls in sports scores and TV show schedules based on pages you've liked.
If you enable the Facebook app's ability to track your location, you can see the weather conditions in your area along with local news headlines, movie show times, and places to eat.
"With this update, your current notification settings will not change, and you can adjust those any time in your Settings," noted Facebook's Peiris. "You can also customize the info you see by tapping the arrow to the right of each card, or Add More Cards at the bottom of the tab."
Facebook's update looks a lot like Google Now, the search giant's virtual assistant that displays personalized "cards" for the weather forecast, sports scores, the user's flight itinerary, and more.
Monday's Facebook announcement is the latest in a series of recent changes that have been in the app, including the introduction of 360-degree video and a redesign of how profiles look on the iPhone.
