Facebook has updated its iOS app to version 4 which is now a universal app with an interface for iPad. The iPad interface is pretty, without a doubt it is much easier to navigate Facebook with this native app compare with web version. If you already have Facebook app installed and is encountering error after the upgrade, simply remove the app and reinstall it from the App Store.
Facebook has released a major update to its iOS app. Version 3.5 adds new feature such as ability to tag friends and places in posts.
Made it easier to share with who you want
- Added the ability to tag friends and places in posts
- Added the ability to share external links from a web view
- Added new design for Profile and Group Walls
- Improved the sharing tool to add privacy controls on posts and match your settings on the web site
Continue the highlight of classic apps, this week we feature Facebook for the iPhone and iPod touch. Being the grand daddy of social network of our time, Facebook app is often one of the first apps iOS users install. There is no native iPad interface for Facebook app.
Lately, Facebook for iOS is playing catchup as some features from Facebook website are not available on the app. Nonetheless this app is the best way for you to connect with your Facebook friends on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Mark Zuckerberg, the guy from The Social Network movie, just confirmed that Facebook is not working on an app for iPad during Facebook’s Mobile Event.
The reason is rather lame: “iPad is not mobile…it’s a computer”. So no native app when a platform is not mobile? What an excuse to give a sub-par user experience on the iPad, as Facebook definitely is not customizing its web app for the tablet touch platform as well, unlike Google who does a great job for GMail for example.
Nevertheless it’s great news for third party iOS developers who now can gain from developing a Facebook app for iPad.
11:28AM Q: So, the iPad has been out for a while — are you building an iPad app?
11:29AM A: (Zuckerberg) The iPad’s not mobile. Next question.
11:29AM Q: I think Apple would disagree.
11:29AM A: (Zuckerberg) It’s a computer. Sorry. (laughter)
11:30AM A: (Erick) The broader question is how do we scale to a tablet form factor without locking ourselves in.
11:30AM A: (Zuckerberg) I don’t want to be rude to Apple — we all love Apple products — but this is a mobile event and we want to stay focused on that. The iPad isn’t mobile in the same way.
Facebook unveiled its location-based service Facebook Places at a launch event last evening. Places allows users to check-in with their current location. Upon check-in, you can see who else is at the location and tag friends who are there:
Check in and your update will appear on the Place page, your friends’ News Feed and your Wall.
Tag the friends you’re with so they can be part of your update.
Appear in “Here Now” to friends and others nearby who are also checked in.
Browse status updates of friends checked in nearby.
After checking in, tap “Here Now” to see who else is checked in where you are.
At the moment, you can check-in using the newly updated version 3.2 of Facebook app on the iphone or point your non-Apple touch screen smartphones at url touch.facebook.com. Facebook plans to add Places to its other mobile apps in future.
Facebook Places has an API and will play nice with existing location players Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt etc.
Tom Scott developed a site he called Evil that displays random Facebook users with their phone numbers using standard Facebook API. The phone numbers are public info on Facebook, although their owners probably thought it is secured.
Phone numbers can be obtained using means such as white pages, but Evil shows that your Facebook info is probably public to the world even though it might not be what you want. And most Facebook users either assume all things private by default or do not setup the privacy settings in Facebook to their liking, or simply do not bother about it.
When you look at the best Twitter clients not from Twitter Inc, the choices are often TweetDeck and Seesmic. And it sure took a while for us to see Seesmic finally made it to iPhone/iPod touch, and the wait is worthwhile. Seesmic is not just a Twitter client, you can use it to manage your Facebook accounts and it has ping.fm integration. And lets hope Google Buzz support, which is available for Seesmic Desktop version, comes to Seesmic iPhone soon.
“I’m trying to make the world a more open place by helping people connect and share.” – CEO Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg
But according to this interesting article from Inc.com, clearly there is double standard if you look that how the CEO is using Facebook himself.
Are we to believe Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t used his own product since April 21st? The alternative means he has a hidden, private account. Nah, can’t be! Zuckerberg reportedly thinks the age of privacy is over.
As of May 18th, his last posting was on April 21st. He hasn’t created a new photo album since 2009. He has over half a million users who like him, but he has no friend on his profile. We think he is just too busy, too busy to even employ a proper PR executive.
Curious to find out what information Facebook is sharing about you through the company’s latest Open Graph API? Courtesy of developer Ka-Ping Yee, you can now visit his site to find out.
The Open Graph API is the latest API released at Facebook’s recent f8 developer conference on April 21. What Yee does is to show you exactly what kind of information about you is exposed by Facebook via the new API. This is also a good tool to check if your privacy settings is working, as many probably are confused on how to choose their Facebook privacy settings with its constant changes and revisions.
Source: Gigaom
You can setup iChat to enable chat with your Facebook friends. Facebook’s chat service is powered by Jabber/XMPP, which is the same open source chat protocol used by Google Chat. This enable iChat which support Jabber to connect to Facebook chat.
First you need to get your Facebook username. You can find out about your Facebook username from Facebook account settings page (Account > Account Settings). Username is not setup when you create a new Facebook account. Visit the account settings page to set your username, which will require verification by Facebook using mobile number.
Open the iChat Preferences and select the Accounts tab. Click the ‘+’ icon to add a new account to iChat.
On the Account Setup dialog, select “Jabber” for account type. Account name is your Facebook username. Password is your Facebook login password. Expand the Server Options and enter “chat.facebook.com” for Server and set the Port to 5222.
That’s it. You should now be able to communicate with your Facebook friends using iChat without opening Facebook in a browser.
