Facebook 4.0 for iOS drops with iPad support, unicorns still questionable

Facebook has, at long last, updated their iOS app, and guess what, it finally supports the iPad. Congratulations iPad owners, your patience has paid off. You can now enjoy photo uploads, chat and all the other exciting things Facebook has to offer on your iPad using an app that sucks marginally less than that third party app you’ve grown to love.

The iPhone app has also been refreshed significantly, which is fantastic. I’d grown quite weary of its iOS 5 crashiness with this last update. Not only has that disappeared, but the new interface is identical to that of the iPad.

The interface changes to the main Facebook site carry over in this iteration of the app. The focus around the news feed as an actual news ticker is prevalent. The slide-out navigation on the left panel is brilliant, completely replacing the previous home screen functionality from the earlier version. With all the functionality of Facebook’s beloved and ever-changing sidebar, you can quickly access all your Pages, Groups and Apps. Even better, if you have an app like Words with Friends, HeyTell or Foursquare installed on your device, and interact with it via Facebook, it will pop a link into your navigation bar for that app. Also, if a news feed story related to this app is tapped, it will fast-switch directly to that app, so you can watch your friends beat you at Words that much faster.

Speed is drastically improved app-wide, and there are some nice interface changes to the photo viewer for likes and comments. Facebook is slowly moving towards making every feature of their website available on their mobile apps and unifying the interface across all platforms. In layman’s terms, it’s severely legit.

But why are you still here reading this nonsense? Hit up the App Store and update your install, and experience the coolness for yourself!

Source: Facebook

I'm a full-time web developer, part-time hacker and a closet Apple Fanboy. I switched from Windows about 5 years ago, and I only look back when distant relatives need tech support. If I don't have an Apple product on my person, you can safely assume the world will shortly come to an end.