Facebook Launches Faster iPhone and iPad Apps

The old Facebook iOS apps get a speed boost with the 5.0 update. Image: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

The biggest user complaint about Facebook’s iOS apps is that they are slow. Painfully slow. Facebook claims it has fixed this problem with the launch of version 5.0 for iPhone and iPad apps.

The updates, which launched on Thursday, don’t look much different from previous versions. The majority of the changes occurred under the hood, where Facebook replaced its old web-based code with native iOS code. According to the company, this makes it possible for the app to launch in half the time. Scrolling through your news feed and opening photos in your feed should also feel twice as fast.

“Now that our mobile services had breadth, we wanted depth,” Facebook software developer Jonathan Dann wrote in a blog post describing the updates. ”So, we rewrote Facebook for iOS from the ground up (I really did open up Xcode and click “New Project”) with a focus on quality and leveraging the advances that have been made in iOS development.”

But does it work in practice?

I downloaded the latest iPhone app and can report that on a five-bar 3G connection I didn’t give up on using the app because of slow performance. (That used to happen often.) This is definitely an improvement, and the app does load noticeably faster and is smoother to scroll through. But it’s no speed demon. On my 3G connection, the app was still slightly sluggish, and was still relatively slow to load images.

Other changes to the Facebook iPhone app include a top banner that will alert you to new “Stories” (or posts); tap the banner and see updates without having to refresh the app. Another useful addition is the ability to see notifications in real time. If somebody comments on or likes a status, you’re able to see that immediately, without having to refresh post. The experience of navigating Facebook through the app is subtly more seamless.

There are a couple of minor visual changes. For example, when you visit a company’s Facebook page, the banner to go from Wall to Info to Photos has moved to the top of the page instead of the bottom. The Facebook mobile team has also ported some of the code it used in the the company’s standalone Camera and Messenger apps into the new iOS apps. That means that posting a photo to your feed or sending a message to a friend are both slightly faster.

With the recent launch of its Camera app and its purchase of Instagram, it’s not hard to imagine that Facebook is working on other mobile applications and further improving its mobile experience across the board.

“We truly believe mobile is the best platform for Facebook, and the new Facebook for iOS is just one of our steps to ensure you have best Facebook experience anytime, anywhere,” Dann wrote.

And Android users, don’t fret. Facebook has also released a new version of its Android app, though the update is smaller.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/facebook-launches-faster-iphone-and-ipad-apps/

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