It wasn’t that long ago when creating 360-degree photos that you could share with others online required special camera kit, and you had to post them on websites that supported the feature. It’s since got much easier, and as of the latest update to the iOS Facebook app, you don’t need anything more than your iPhone and the stock camera app.

Simply take a panorama with your phone […] and then post it on Facebook as you would a normal photo. From there, we’ll convert it to an immersive 360 photo that people can explore, similar to how people experience 360 videos on Facebook … 

360-degree photos posted to Facebook can be identified by the compass icon overlayed on the right-hand side. When viewing on your iPhone, just turn yourself and the phone to look around; on the web, click-and-drag.

You don’t need to do anything special to upload them. Once you have the panorama on your iPhone, just tap Photo in the Facebook app as normal and select the panoramic image – Facebook will do the rest.

Facebook often does ‘silent’ updates to the iOS app, where no update is shown but functionality is added in the background, so most people will have the feature by now.