Facebook Releases Rewritten and Much Faster iPhone App

[r-m]

Strange but it seems a lot slower on my iPhone. A picture of text took quite a while to render so readable.

I think that's an intended feature for slow connectios.
My newsfeed loaded pretty damn fast, then the pictures people posted started to appear first a low quality, then popped to decent quality.
That was on my 3G data connection which is a bit hit n miss at getting started sometimes.

Wifi, it was instant load, clear images.

 

[msheredy]

Woohooo

Now I can be more efficient at being less efficient!

 

[840quadra]

About time.

Since their business model is to make money on us, they better have a fast application to ensure the hook is still inserted deeply into our short attention span.

I had stopped using Facebook completely on iOS because their application was dog slow, and the web version didn't allow me to upload photos, or videos.

 

[faroZ06]

Stay in school. You haven't learned tact.

I haven't learned tact?

"tact":
noun
adroitness and sensitivity in dealing with others or with difficult issues : the inspector broke the news to me with tact and consideration.

 

[foiden]

I can see some improvements. It does handle things a little better, though it did break one thing. If you shared a document (like an rtf file) the new Facebook App wont display it, but the old version will. Still, I think it's because that's part of a up-n-coming feature that wasn't ready in time for this release.

 

[faroZ06]

About time.
I had stopped using Facebook completely on iOS because their application was dog slow, and the web version didn't allow me to upload photos, or videos.

What if you fake your user agent? I got fed up with mobile sites and faked mine as Google Chrome for Windows.

 

[PackFan]

Still no way to 'Share' posts and stories...

C'mon Facebook - isn't that the very basis of 'social' networking?

 

[imthenachoman]

Now everyone will browse Facebook on their iToys all day.

No wonder Americans are getting fatter and stupider.

I get what you're trying to say but you can't blame technology for it. Technology didn't create the problem. If it wasn't for technology we'd find some other reason to get fatter and stupider. Just my humble opinion.

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I wish they'd do this with Android now. Their Android app REALLY sucks!!! It's absolutely terrible, it's constantly "loading" even over 4G.

I think they updated the Android version too.

 

[iBreatheApple]

Does anyone else feel like they're holding a bigger iPhone when inside the new app? I know it's a weird question, but…

 

[imthenachoman]

You can save to camera roll just fine. Prior poster is incompetent.

Really? Is there a benefit to resorting to name calling?

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How is there still no share button?? How? Hoooowwww??

That and how come I can't @ tag people in comments. I don't understand that one.

 

[shandyman]

Some people may not want people to be able to DL their photos. I wonder if it's a permission setting.?

Did you not read subsequent posts? The guy was wrong. You still can save them.

 

[tbrinkma]

OED disagrees. "Stupider" is correct. stupid, stupider, stupidest.

Image

If it wasn't, it'd be stupid, more stupid, most stupid. Do you really think the sentence, "That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard" is correct?

Yes. But that's just because *both* are actually correct.

 

[imthenachoman]

He also said he hated the idea of an AppStore and that the iPhone would never need native apps and that HTML5 'webapps' were enough.

Whats your point?

He got it wrong, obviously. We all make mistakes...

I don't.

 

[icemanjc]

Still sucks.

 

[imthenachoman]

It's faster/smoother, I'll give them that. But what about features?

Still can't share.
Still can't tag people in-line in post (using @...)
Still can't tag pages
Still can't choose a thumbnail or edit the preview text when posting a link
Still can't change your cover photo
Still can't schedule posts (like you can on the website). I do this often with the page I manage.

I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting (that I'll remember the next time I go and try to use them).

Schedule your posts?

 

[milo]

It still is a statistical fact that the USA are getting fatter and stupider.

Statistically, isn't virtually every country in the world getting fatter and more stupid? That makes whining about the USA pretty pointless. Not to mention that facebook isn't just available in the USA - country is irrelevant, just looks like someone went OT for the sake of a rant.

(I'm British BTW)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-301419/Fat-Britain-Tackling-obesity-epidemic.html

Big fat pot, meet big fat kettle.

 

[MacDav]

Everyone is happy now. Life is good... Right?

 

[imthenachoman]

Hmmmm...I thought the iPhone and most things mac were designed by a Brit and the chips are designed by a British company! Anyway I don't know why these posts descend into anti-American or anti-European abuse. There is NO need for it.
The Facebook app is faster. The previous version was unusable.

I'm with you. I wish every post didn't tangent into some pissing contest.

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*yawn* facebook.




Ha, if they charged a buck, it wouldn't save their failing stock price.

I beg to differ. I don't think most people realize how addicted they are too it and 99 cents is, well just 99 cents.

I think they will start selling a pro version of the app. What it will do I do not know but I have a feeling.

 

[modemthug]

All they did was speed up the animations

Just because they sped up the animations doesn't mean it's "faster" like they promised.

 

[imthenachoman]

Not sure why I never fully read that letter from Steve, but I'm glad you posted and reminded me of it. Of course it's old and we know just how quickly Flash has been abandoned since Apple's decision not to support it on iDevices, but I still enjoyed reading it. Thanks... and glad to see an updated Facebook app. I've been eagerly waiting ever since I heard a team of ex-Appleites were working on it.

The article needs a TL;DR. Heh.

 

[shandyman]

can't think of one thing I use online or a tech toy as it was said that is British.....

The Internet was invented by a Brit...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

Foot in mouth now?

 

[imthenachoman]

Erm??? He made a comment, one that was true but I had forgotten about, and it made me laugh. Wow, laughing and comedy makes you dumb and stupid eh? What was that about Americans being thick again? (I'm British BTW). If I made a comment like yours I would have deleted it after reading it again.



It remains to be seen how easy it is to ignore the integration that you don't enable out of choice. It's just because I don't trust Facebook.

But do you trust Apple?

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Am I the only one who doesn't understand why they couldn't get it to work well using HTML5 for the layout? I've done some work building web apps that masquerade as native apps and my guess is they just had a rat's nest of code going on.

As long as I start from scratch without using some template or library I've been able to use CSS3, JS, and HTML5 to do things way more visually impressive (than the old FB app) without the iPhone or iPad dropping a frame. To be fair, they have to deal with thousands of times more db queries, etc., but this isn't directly tied to scrolling responsiveness, crashes, and lock-ups.

[EDIT] Not my own work, but here's an example of a modern web app that's more responsive than the old FB app: http://pattern.dk/sun/ [/EDIT]

I think it has to do with how much data is transferred. With the HTML5 one everytime you clicked somewhere it (probably) had to send all the CSS, HTML and JS. And even if they used AJAX to just get JSON/XML data or something then JS is still slow, right? Where as with a native app they could probably just pull the XML/JSON data they need...

I mean I don't know from an official capacity, just my thoughts.

 

[DJJAZZYJET]

Not great, but hey, i'll take any improvement over the last apps they released.

 

[imthenachoman]

<b>THIS!!</b>why no ability to share somebody's else shared item? easy on desktop...impossible on mobile.

Never say impossible. You can go to the desktop site on your mobile phone. I do that if I need to share something.

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I guess this is it? Seems like some sort of sponsored links? Never saw them in the old app.

Image

They had those in the HTML version.

Also, I need an update on Steven's status update. Did the offer go through or did something happen? I.Must.Know.

 

[shulerg]

I can't think of one thing I use online or a tech toy as it was said that is British.....

World Wide Web, as the fellow above said. Btw, Twitter and Facebook are pretty low bars as far as inventing things goes.