Facebook Readies an iPad App, Finally | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Readies an iPad App, Finally

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

26 pointsprofitbaron18 comments

I wonder why it took them so long to release this. Given how picky they are with who they hire, and the sheer number of engineers they got, why did it take them over a year to come up with such an essential product - a Facebook app for the most popular tablet device?

I'm also going to say that their iPhone app leaves a lot to be desired. Many features are missing, like inability to edit/delete posts, picture abilities and so on. On the non-mobile side, their API is infamously bad. Without wanting to sound negative about them, I do wonder why they hire so many "top software engineers" and what they have those guys working on.

FB's first iPhone app was even more horrible and it took them a really long time to release the current incarnation. It took so long that I remember pondering the opportunity to create my own version of a FB app. That was before we all wised up to the fact that no one should develop FB assets unless being paid large sums of money on a contract basis.

The facebook app for android is going through this kind of process. While it is quite decent, I prefer a third party one that exists. The only real disadvantage is that it requires a facebook application to get peoples data. So anybody who blocked friend's apps from viewing information won't show up. It also means I can't disable the social plugin, so I get those stupid "comment with facebook" popups on sites.

Why is a native Facebook application essential on a device that has a serviceable web browser and a netbook-sized screen?

Because many people like myself think the iPhone app is a superior user experience to the desktop Facebook website and the mobile website.

This is a reason, but is it a good enough reason to divert resources from other areas for?

This is a reason, but is it a good enough reason to divert resources from other areas for?

Considering that Facebook's most important end goal is to make users stay on their website, an optimized and pleasant-to-use app for the iPad and other tablets is a very good reason to divert resources.

Yes. When I got an iPad 2 a week ago, I was very surprised Facebook didn't have an app. It's amateur.

Their existing web interface is touch-unfriendly in a few ways, most notably when it comes to modal popovers with scrollable lists such as a page's fan list.

Last time I checked, chat was also disabled when accessing the web-interface on a tablet. Chat's been my most used Facebook feature for the last few months.

I don't know how common an example I am, but I absolutely hate interacting with Facebook on their website (even on my laptop).

I pretty much only use it via the iPhone application, so I welcome an iPad app (assuming it's laid out similarly).

To post pictures -- which is a major activity on FB. I couldn't figure out how to do it in Safari -- if there's a way, it's not obvious.

safari does not allow file uploads. you can't share your photos if you're on an ipad using FB in the browser.

I've been using Flipboard to get my Facebook fix on my ipad and I've now come to prefer the Flipboard view of FB more than the native view. Much better presentation of external content and I still get the status updates, but without all the other junk that often floods my newsfeed.

Facebook planning to release an iPad app makes the New York Times. Times have changed...

Although it is on a New York Times blog, not on the main site...

It's on NYT's tech blog.

Friend, they have. We live in the future now.

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