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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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As noted by TechCrunch, some users of Facebook's app for iOS have noticed the social network's new "App Center" tab showing up in the navigation menu within the app. The feature is designed as a one-stop destination for app discovery on a variety of platforms, with recommendations based on Facebook's editors' selections and personalized by drawing from the usage of each person's friends.
Similar to the interfaces that the company showed off in early May when it announced the App Center plans, you can see a left-hand navigation feature within Facebook's feature-heavy iOS app. Apps with unread notifications appear in the top section. If you click through, you see the App Center (and you'll note that the logo in the screenshot also matches what Facebook has previously released).
facebook_app_center_ios_1.jpg



Within the app center, a "Social Picks" tab offers apps based on what the user's friends have used, while a "Top Apps" tab contains picks from Facebook's editors as determined by quality and popularity. The listings include iOS, Android, HTML5, and desktop apps, with users able to click directly through to the App Store or other marketplaces to download apps.

facebook_app_center_ios_2.jpg



The Next Web argues that the addition of App Center will be a major boost for Apple, helping quality apps to surface from among Facebook's hundreds of millions of users and those top apps to be easily accessible to other users.
By launching this App Center, Facebook is actually doing Apple a gigantic favor in two regards. First, it will become a serious point of distribution for Apple developers, secondarily it will be a great avenue to talk Facebook developers into building iOS apps if they haven't so far. [...]

Facebook's App Center won't be clouded by anything other than actual data and usage. Imagine that, apps will actually bubble up to the top based on how often people engage with them.
After several years of what has appeared to be a tenuous relationship between Apple and Facebook, it certainly appears that the two companies are now moving to work more closely together. At the D10 conference late last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at Facebook integration and perhaps other announcements in that vein, urging users to "stay tuned".
For us, we want to provide customers simple and elegant ways to do the things they want to do. Facebook has hundreds of millions of customers. So, anyone that has an iPhone or iPad, we want them to have the best experience with Facebook on those platforms. So stay tuned.
Just a few days after Cook's comments, it was reported that Apple will indeed show off Facebook integration in iOS 6 at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference, making it much easier for users to post photos, status updates, and other content to the social network from within iOS.

With Facebook also feeding back into the App Store through its own App Center on iOS, it certainly seems that the companies are moving quickly to solidify their relationship for their mutual benefit and to the benefit of the millions of users who rely on both Apple devices and Facebook's social network.

Article Link: Facebook's App Center Begins Appearing in iOS App
 

MasterHowl

macrumors 65816
Oct 3, 2010
1,052
161
North of England
They need to get the basic functions working (posting things, commenting, looking at photographs) before they add new features! C'mon Facebook...
 

slapple

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2008
466
21
So this App Center features "Facebook apps" or "iPhone apps"? There's a difference.
 

ThunderSkunk

macrumors 68040
Dec 31, 2007
3,785
3,991
Milwaukee Area
Facebook Total Integration.

Perhaps... just perhaps, and I know this is going out on a limb here, but what if, I dunno, I don't want to be inundated with notifications about what every other person I've ever met or heard of is doing at any given moment, and don't feel the need to broadcast my every move to everyone in the world?

This self-promotion culture of do-nothing busybodies is crossing over from obnoxious to revolting.
 

nutmac

macrumors 603
Mar 30, 2004
6,044
7,288
My biggest gripe with apps for Facebook is that I have little clue as to what they are going to do with my account.

For instance, marketplace app Oodle posts every little details of what I do on my timeline for everyone to see (e.g., items that I just viewed).

And if I can collect $1 every time my Facebook friends post "I just achieved level 51 on Farmville or other embarrassing games", I'd be as rich as Mark Zuckerberg.
 

urbanj

macrumors regular
Nov 3, 2008
116
0
Am I the only one that absolutely hates apps within Facebook?

I go as far typing in whatever I see in my feed into Google to bypass the crap like article links or that SocialCam thing.
 

topmounter

macrumors 68030
Jun 18, 2009
2,601
970
FEMA Region VIII
My biggest gripe with apps for Facebook is that I have little clue as to what they are going to do with my account.

For instance, marketplace app Oodle posts every little details of what I do on my timeline for everyone to see (e.g., items that I just viewed).

And if I can collect $1 every time my Facebook friends post "I just achieved level 51 on Farmville or other embarrassing games", I'd be as rich as Mark Zuckerberg.

I nuked all my Facebook Apps a long time ago. "Hide all by..." is my primary activity when logged into Facebook.
 

scrappledog

macrumors member
Oct 21, 2008
85
0
I really, really don't want Facebook as part of iOS. Not even happy Apple is going this route when it is just as easy to make it downloadable content. Please allow me to opt out in every way possible, or better yet delete any Facebook related components from my phone.

Thanks.

No use for Facebook whatsoever.
 

fisha

macrumors regular
Mar 10, 2006
174
12
...moving quickly to solidify their relationship for their mutual benefit and to the benefit of the millions of users who rely on both Apple devices and Facebook's social network.

has the author actually used the facebook app recently.

Facebook has lost its way imho. too diverse to the point its lost focus on doing the simple things well. Cant be bothered with anything of it other than keeping in contact with friends when I need to.
 

panerista

macrumors G5
Oct 20, 2011
12,679
10,516
Austin, TX
Facebook Total Integration.

Perhaps... just perhaps, and I know this is going out on a limb here, but what if, I dunno, I don't want to be inundated with notifications about what every other person I've ever met or heard of is doing at any given moment, and don't feel the need to broadcast my every move to everyone in the world?

This self-promotion culture of do-nothing busybodies is crossing over from obnoxious to revolting.

My fear now is that these Facebook apps can now access information from your phone. I have nothing to hide on my Facebook page, but my phone is a lot more personal. Maybe I did this, but I can't recall ever permitting Facebook to do this.
 

mazz0

macrumors 68040
Mar 23, 2011
3,117
3,564
Leeds, UK
I don't think this is indicative of a closer relationship between Apple and Facebook. Anyone can link directly to apps in the app-store, and I bet they'll do this for Android at some point too if they haven't already.

If anything this is a threat to Apple - it gets people used to thinking of Facebook as the place to go for apps, not Apple, and people's phones will be more about being tied to their Facebook account than their Apple ID. In time perhaps HTML apps will succeed native ones, and then people will be able to switch platform (perhaps to a Facebook phone) without worrying about the apps they've invested in on the old platform.

Of course, while Facebook continue to make rubbish apps I don't think Apple have much to worry about, but that could change...
 

jonnysods

macrumors G3
Sep 20, 2006
8,405
6,854
There & Back Again
Facebook on the iPhone suuuuuuuuuucks. It's so buggy, it keeps telling me I have new messages when I don't, sometimes it doesn't post photos, it's unresponsive, it needs some patches rather than new features.

I know, first world problems.
 

ndpitch

macrumors 6502
Jun 9, 2010
278
24
I dunno about everyone else, but the Facebook app on my iPhone 4 is nearly unusable. It is deathly slow, the alerts don't go away when you click on them, and other various bugs. I rarely use it. I don't think we need to be adding additional stuff. If anything, take things away and make it more simple.

Facebook is starting to balloon into a mess. Multiple apps for different things? Camera, messenger, main app. What's next? I don't want to go to 4 different places to use Facebook. I think they're starting to lose focus. Bring it all together in one app that's small, efficient, and streamlined.
 

WeegieMac

Guest
Jan 29, 2008
3,274
1
Glasgow, UK
This is why the app is nothing more than a buggy web app.

It's so they can toss out these updates and bypass the apple approval process. By updating the web code and making the app nothing more than a web app portal, they are in control of the updates.
 

arkhanjel

macrumors regular
Nov 3, 2003
185
193
Nooooooo!

They need to get their normal app working flawlessly before they add in all the junk that makes things worse. With all the bugs in the app now we'll be tapping to go one place and end up in those stupid apps just like we do now with it sending us to the nearby section.
 
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