Facebook Chat Heads: Appearance in iOS – The Same but not Quite

Facebook Chat Heads is finally making its appearance in iOS. The news was announced today by Mike Schroepfer, Facebook CTO, and Cory Ondrejka, Vice President of Mobile Engineering, who stated that users can expect to find a Facebook app update today and Facebook Chat Heads in only a couple of weeks.
Chat Heads is perhaps the most novel and lauded update of Facebook Home, a collection of applications that were released to change the users’ experience with an interactive Cover Feed which can serve as a replacement of the usual lock screen. Chat Heads consists of circular profile pictures that look like buttons which pop up when the user gets either a Facebook message or a regular text.

In the Android version, the Heads stay on top of any application or screen that is being used for easy, unobtrusive access, and can be swiftly swiped to different parts of the screen. In the iOS version, though, Chat Heads will only work within the application itself due to operating system’s limitations, as asserted by Ondrejka. Other than that, Chat Heads will look and work the same as the Android equivalent.
Android users have had access to Facebook Home since April 12, 2013. On that same day Facebook also released an update for Facebook Messenger to allow user access to Chat Heads independently from the entire Facebook Home combo.