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Comment by Claudus | Hacker News Reader

I've been "using" the Android Facebook app for over a year, maybe two and it seems to have gotten worse over time, at least in the past year. The "new" version doesn't seem to be any better.

I was at talk trying to check for a message using the app with limited success yesterday, before I finally gave up and used the Android RealVNC app to remote connect to one of my home systems, open a web browser, and connect to Facebook that way.

I'm really unsure what the issue is here. Is it just really hard to make a decent app? Is Facebook not devoting enough resources to development? Is the development team really bad? Do they not know how terrible their app is? Are developers of the needed caliber in too short supply?

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I've been using it for about 2 or 3 years - basically since it's first release. And I actually think the latest app is the best they've done yet. Which isn't really saying much given the latest app still sucks badly.

But around 2 years ago, it was so bad I was running 3rd party Facebook clients on Android - some of which were littered with adverts.

When being subjected to numerous intrusive adverts is less annoying than using the ad-free official app - well, then you know the in house developers clearly need a lesson in mobile development.

Err, why use VNC instead of just using a local browser in desktop mode?

Mostly because the icon was on the same screen, and I'm already logged in on my home system, and I didn't want to type my email / password in again.

Maybe I should do that in the future.

> I've been "using" the Android Facebook app for over a year, maybe two and it's actually gotten worse over time

That sort of seems to be the "Facebook way" with everything, and has been as long as I can remember (since the college-only days)...

It's like they know they have to keep changing and evolving to stay relevant, but they have the faintest clue how, and so barrel ahead blindly at full-steam, constantly praying that nothing goes too wrong...

like a startup(!)

I think they're stuck in the desktop mindset.

Moving to mobile would require a shift in thinking that might be impossible for such a large and entrenched organization.

The teenagers of today, having grown up with smartphones, will likely exit en masse when a usable alternative emerges.

I find the mobile website version is pretty good on android.

Me too, and HaxSync does a very good job at synchronising my Facebook contacts, calendar, etc.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mots.haxsy...

To be fair, as an Android user, whenever I use Google's apps on iOS I think "Dear Google, please learn how to design Android apps that don't suck."

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