Path and Instagram are making Facebook look incredibly uninventive at mobile | Hacker News Reader

Path and Instagram are making Facebook look incredibly uninventive at mobile

splatf.com

76 pointsstrandev32 comments

FB's app is the product of a web-based service that's been transported to the mobile platform, while Path and Instagram are native to and created for mobile. While this is obvious, consider all the functionality that FB already had on the web that had to be transported into their web app; a ton of thought had to go into retaining FB's functionality along with the innovation inherently required of anyone who creates a new mobile app. The way they did this - while preserving their functionality and retaining FB's already established feel - itself required took much innovation.

Path and Instagram were created inherently for mobile, and have much simpler functionality models. I'm not saying that this should take away from the remarkable achievements that both have had, nor am I saying that FB's app doesn't need improvements, but perhaps that this is just an unfair knock on FB's mobile app/strategy thus far.

Right. That's a good summary.

My broader question was: As more time shifts toward mobile, will the dominant social network be something created first for mobile, or will it be Facebook?

So far, FB mobile feels like a pretty unimaginative port of their website, and not the sort of thing that was imagined first for mobile.

Will that be enough, will Facebook change things up, or will it be disrupted by something mobile-first?

I think if there's any challenger to Facebook as the dominant social network, it could well be WhatsApp.

They're gathering a very large network of teenage users, completely avoiding the web, and becoming an alternative to both Twitter and email for group messaging.

When you look at what they provide, it's pretty much everything I use from Facebook, without the noise.

I've noticed a lot of penetration of WhatsApp here in the Netherlands. It's quietly exploding.

I find the fb_timeline feature strange to use on my desktop/laptop, but it's possible that some permutation of it could be the superior implementation for Facebook's mobile strategy.

What's frustrating is that Facebook, with what are almost unlimited resources available to them relative to Path and Instagram, hasn't come out with something better. Sure their problem is different and tougher, but with the latest version of their app they are just taking shortcuts. They're trying to put a native wrapper around a web app, which time and time again has been tried and has never once (that I am aware of) come close to matching the UX of the best native apps. Not only that, but their app constantly times out, clicking pictures rarely takes you to the one you want and in general is an exercise in frustration to use. All that would be understandable from a startup, but from a company that snaps up the best developers in the world by the hundreds and that clearly knows the value of mobile, it's mind-boggling.

As the “mobile Internet” becomes the Internet

This sounds like the type of thing you'd hear from someone who thinks the blue 'e' icon is 'The Internet'.

Actually, I am still using the green N. Is there something new I should try?

What's inventive for me is having a social networking app that is usable by most phones worldwide.

Facebook has mobile web app that is accesible even with the most basic feature phone out there.

Path & Instagram only works for Android & IPhone while majority of the phones out there are still feature phones.

But where is the money, feature phones or smartphones?

Money?

None of them (Path, Instagram & Facebook) make money off their mobile apps.

Facebook makes its money off its web site.

Huh? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Facebook's iPhone app was the first to use the slide out menus that don't take you away from the main screen. Path copied this exact approach with its new app.

And the cover idea on profiles. But Facebook's app is still barely usable. For me, profiles take at least 30 seconds to load.

Joe Hewitt's original native app was great. But now that Facebook is moving to using HTML all over the place, it's slow as can be.

Well that's certainly revisionist history. I heard nothing but complaints about the old app too.

I'm not so sure about that. At the time Joe H. wrote the original iPhone Facebook app, it was considered by many of my friends and myself to be a gold standard. It was limited ... sure ... but quite elegant for an initial version. I don't know the details but the App seemed to get buggier as FB started adding more features and changing things. Also, I believe Joe H. moved on to other things at FB. When I complained about how the iPhone app had started to suck, I was told to use touch.facebook.com - at that time, this was a sucky experience and HTML based. None of the subsequent iterations of Facebook's mobile app approached the design eloquence of the original (IMHO). Oh well ...

[FYI: I have no association with FB. I was just a big fan of theirs at that time.]

Path's Android app just plain doesn't work for many of its functions.

Is this what you're talking about?

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/10/sincerity-is-the-sincerest-...

You mean this? (2009)

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/04/review-tweetie/

Faceted navigation - no one's done that before! ... Let's call it a ripoff and get super mad!

I'm not talking about minor UI features. I'm talking about the whole package.

Uninventive? Path and Instagram are just better looking CRUDs in mobile. Come back to me when either of them improves the quality of social interactions by a multiple.

>Come back to me when either of them improves the quality of social interactions by a multiple.

Path is up there. We'll see how it bears out over time, but the interaction is much more tightly thought out. The seem to have reduced a lot of friction with both participating and consuming social media.

"But boy is Facebook’s mobile presence looking bland these days."

TBH if the guy is just judging business and there processes on visual appeal and not product/content/service or any concern for users he's an idiot. What works for one company is no guarantee it will work for another.

He's also failing to comprehend how large the user base is how much they organise and fight change already. The demographics are completely different.

I admit the Facebook iPhone app is a little buggy, though I have to hand it to them, they have made a number of UI elements which now seem to be common place on the App Store.

e.g. IIRC they were one of the first apps to have a grid based menu system (ref: Google+ app, Bump, etc) and (I think) also the first app to have sliding menus (where the main view is slid to the right to reveal the menu hidden underneath the main view).

Totally. No arguing that Facebook wasn't an app pioneer. Joe Hewitt's work was incredible.

But what have they done for us lately?

FB is on a way different level than path and instagram. first off, path and instagram focus on mobile and FB doesn't. If FB was a tiny little startup I think they would be rockin mobile. FB is focusing on what makes them $... the website. Lame to compare a big apple and to raisins.

That's what makes them money now. But I don't think they will disagree that the future is mobile. And that's where they don't seem to be pushing as strong.

Inventiveness and compellingness are orthogonal. Facebook's mobile applications are excellent. They don't feel like a crippled, compromised version of Facebook. They feel like Facebook. Instagram and Path have the opposite problem: their web interfaces are second-class.

Perhaps. But their web interfaces will improve. Both are pretty small companies that will grow.

My main question is: Will something that "feels like Facebook" be what people want on their phones indefinitely? Or will something that feels more like a mobile app/service take over?

Facebook's mobile apps do feel like mobile apps. Sure, Path is prettier, but claiming that it's significantly more usable than mobile Facebook requires some objective substantiation.

Path with rating of 3.2 on Android Market doesn't look too convincing.

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