The smartphones we carry in our pockets are amazing. One of their best attributes is being the ability to capture the real world in amazing quality, thanks to serious camera technology investments. Photography combined with connectivity means that its easy to share these photos with our friends and family and that’s often through Messenger.
Today the photo quality supported by Messenger (used by 1.3 Billion per month) is increasing to 4K. According to new research by Messenger, more than 90% of Australians send photos in their messages.
Thanks to the wonders of aspect ratios, the exact pixel count supported isn’t the 4K we’re used to with 16:9 TV, instead it supports up to 4,096 x 4,096 pixels per image. This is the highest quality many smartphones support. Messenger indicate the move is a response from user feedback, hearing they want to send and receive high resolution photos in Messenger.
People today don’t just text, they use visual messaging as a new universal language which is just more emotionally engaging and expressive. Whether you’re catching up over moments big and small — like a recent vacation, an amazing meal at a new restaurant, a new member of the family, or the first snow day of the year — sharing photos of our experiences brings our conversations to life.
Today’s update means there’s no longer aggressive optimisations (compression) on images, which means the image you capture will be sent and hopefully displayed as you intended. This does rely on the screen quality at the other end, but that’ll only ever increase over time. More than 17 billion photos are sent through Messenger every month and those photos in conversations will now be richer, sharper, and better than ever.
Messenger claims your photos will also be sent just as quickly before, even at this new, higher resolution. Given the extra file size associated with a full-quality modern smartphone photo, we’ll need to see this to believe it.
To send and share photos at 4K resolution, first update your Messenger app to make sure you have the latest version. Then open a conversation and tap the camera roll icon. Select the photo, tap send, and the person you’re messaging with will receive the high resolution photo.
4K photos in Messenger are rolling out on both iPhone and Android to people in Australia, as well as the US, Canada, France, the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea. In the coming weeks, the roll out will continue to additional countries.
