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Facebook for iOS gets emoticons

The social network now encourages show-and-tell status updates on mobile.

Jennifer Van Grove Former Senior Writer / News
Jennifer Van Grove covered the social beat for CNET. She loves Boo the dog, CrossFit, and eating vegan. Her jokes are often in poor taste, but her articles are not.
Jennifer Van Grove
Screenshot/Jennifer Van Grove/CNET

Facebook added a collection of emoticons to the latest version of its application for iOS devices.

In version 6.2, released Tuesday, Facebook users on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch can add emoji-style icons to their status updates for show-and-tell social networking.

The status icons were added to Facebook's Web site earlier this year. The iOS edition replicates the desktop release, which means people can click the smiley face in the status update box to bring up a menu that sorts expressive graphics into categories including feeling, watching, reading, and eating. The mood and activity images are accompanied by text descriptions such as "feeling wonderful," "drinking tea," or "watching Kill Bill" to convey your exact meaning.

The feature also ties in with Facebook sections, which are the newly released application activity sections featured on your Timeline. So say, for instance, that you update your status with a status icon and post that you're "reading 'The Great Gatsby,'" the book is added to the "Books" section of your profile.

Status icons are only available in the English version of Facebook's iOS application. The new version also lets users change the privacy settings on the posts they've shared, a security feature that was also just added to Facebook's Android application.