Many Facebook users have complained in the past about Facebook’s limitations on picture size and many have asked Facebook to upload photos near full resolution. Users will be happy to hear that Facebook announced yesterday that they are slightly increasing the size allowance for photos that are uploaded. On the other hand, they are decreasing the size of profile pictures.

The roll-out of the new features will start today (Wednesday, 20 January) and according to Facebook all users should have access to these features within the next three weeks. The size of the largest photo a user can upload will increase from 604 pixels to 720 pixels and the dimensions of profile pictures will be decreased from 200 pixels by 600 pixels to 180 pixels by 540 pixels. However, even though the size of the images has increased, they will still be too small to print decent quality photos.

What does this mean for developers?

If you developed a Facebook application that queries the photo FQL table or are using photos.get to return information about photos you will need to update your styling to suit these new sizes.

What do you think about these changes?