For a while now, Facebook has released subpar applications for the iPhone. Each version seems to be just as broken as the last, and until recently there’s been little improvement.
Luckily, with the newest version that shipped with the long-awaited iPad app, Facebook for iPhone is finally an app worth having on your home screen.Let’s talk about it after the break.
A Blend of Cocoa and HTML
One thing that’s been notable about Facebook’s app from the beginning is its blend of two different programming languages. While the app is, technically, built with Cocoa for the iPhone, a large portion of its content is actually displayed using HTML5. Why would Facebook try to force these two languages together?
Rapid updates. While Facebook probably doesn’t have to have its apps sit for a very long time in the App Store review process, they still have to wait for any changes they implement to the core app (the Cocoa parts) to be approved by Apple. For a company that will want to release updates as soon as possible, using HTML 5 to display content means that they can make changes to the app without waiting for approval.
Luckily, users can benefit from these rapid changes that Facebook can (and has) pushed out over the past few months.
New Interface
The old Facebook app almost felt like an Android app, deviating from standard iOS design strategies. This was felt mostly on the launch screen, where Facebook used to present a bunch of options (News Feed, Messages, Friends, etc.) that required an action before you could actually get to the content that you cared about.
Luckily, the new app launches directly into the News Feed. Since this is probably the main reason that you were launching the app in the first place, this is an improvement that makes a lot of sense from a UI standpoint. Shaving off even that small amount of time between launch and content is important when you’re working with the iPhone.
That isn’t to say that the new app isn’t as functional as the old one; instead, Facebook employs an often-hidden sidebar that can be accessed with a button to the top-left. This sidebar lets you select other items, incorporating most Facebook features like the Calendar, Messages and Notes.
Facebook's new sidebar is functional and gorgeous.
I like this sidebar. By hiding it away Facebook has made it non-intrusive if you’re simply checking on a few updates, but accessible if you want to view something else. This sidebar is seen in many apps and Facebook did a really good job here.
Notifications Improved
By far and away my favorite feature of the new app is the improvement that notifications received. I used to hate getting a new notification on the old iPhone app, as it meant going through a process that took too many steps.
It used to be that notifications lived on the launch screen and had to be brought up and then accessed before they could be marked as read. This meant that if you got a notification, you would have to jump from screen to screen, causing the app to crash fairly often.
Notifications are non-intrusive and hang out at the top of the News Feed.
With the new app notifications live above the News Feed, maintaining a similar position to the website’s layout. Your notifications are accessible with a single tap, and being able to see your unread badge from the News Feed saves a lot of time.
Unfortunately, it still seems like getting to something from a notification is slower than getting to that item through the News Feed. I don’t know if this is because there’s a lot of redirecting going on over at Facebook, but it’s annoying to have something fail to load for a full two minutes when accessed through the notifications popover. This needs to be fixed, fast.
View What You Want to View
Notifications may be my favorite new feature, but the option to change your view of the News Feed may be many others’ favorite addition to the Facebook app.
I try to carefully curate who I add to Facebook, choosing to hover around 50 “friends” instead of adding every single person that I meet. Subscriptions have made this easier to manage, but I still know many people that have 300-plus people on their Facebook. That’s a lot of stuff flying at your face in the News Feed, and it can get overwhelming.
Being able to filter your news feed makes Facebook much more enjoyable.
Now, by tapping the button in the top right corner, you can choose what Facebook will show you. Want to see only status updates (my favorite setting)? Go for it. You can also view Photos, Links, Pages and many more. It’s up to you.
Combined with the new Smart Lists feature that Facebook rolled out, this means that at any time you can find what you’re looking for on Facebook. A welcome addition that helps to make the experience more seamless and less overwhelming.
Sharing Your Way
Speaking of Smart Lists, Facebook makes it easier to share items with a certain group of people from the iPhone app than ever before. From the screen where you can update your status, you’re presented with options to tag friends (something you couldn’t do with older versions of the app), Check-In at a certain spot, share a photo, or change your audience.
Tagging is finally possible from within the iPhone app.
Let’s say that I want to talk about something that happened at work with my boss. Before, anyone that was friends with him and myself might be able to see that update and get me into a heap of trouble. Now, I can choose to share that little snippet with my Close Friends list, insuring that the wrong eyes don’t see the update.
Smart Lists in play, and some of the other options for sharing.
I’ll admit that this might make it easier to keep things from someone for the wrong reason (and there’s an abiding notion that if you can’t share it with everyone you shouldn’t share it) but I see this as a more natural extension of our real social lives. You don’t share the same thing with your grandmother that you do with your girlfriend or your oldest friend from elementary school; different people get different information.
Conclusion
The newest version of the app finally shows that Facebook is competent on a technical level. All of the updates make a lot of sense and greatly improve the usability. Some changes are more useful than others, but each and every one of them is welcome.
As a bonus, beyond providing more functionality, the new Facebook app is much more stable than older versions. I experienced a few hiccups during my testing, but not nearly as many as I was used to. The app is much more responsive, and the only lag I felt almost always came from the Notifications menu, which I hope is fixed soon.
