Facebook iPad App Review

When the Facebook F8 conference came a few weeks ago there were two announcements that experts were sure would be announced. The first was a partnership between Facebook and some sort of music streaming service, the second was a Facebook iPad app.  The Facebook + Spotify partnership happened…the Facebook iPad app did not.

But fear not Facebook iPad users, the Facebook iPad app has landed in the app store and we’ve had a chance to try it out.

I’ve been one of those that has simply used the Facebook website in lieu of one of the third party apps (Friendly) or using the iPhone app on my iPad. I found that I could get by using the website, but it always felt really clunky. After using the website for any extended period of time it becomes apparent that the design was never meant to be used with a touch screen interface.

The official app takes care of that clunky feeling right off that bat, it’s easy to navigate and utilizes the swiping motions of the iPad well. The buttons used to navigate the app are bigger than their website counterpart, making it easier for those with bigger fingers (a.k.a. me) to jump around without accidental taps.

One of the best uses of the iPad is as a photo viewer, and this is where the Facebook app shines. When you view photos, the app arranges them just like the stock iPad Photo app. Inside an album, users can swipe between photos and pinch and zoom to their hearts content. Combine this with the option to use an Apple TV and Airplay to view photos and videos on your HDTV and it becomes one of the best ways to view & display your photos.

The App also allow you to take photos and video directly in the app, tag and post them. I can’t imagine that many people will use the iPad camera that much for still photos, as it still ranks as one of the worst cameras i’ve ever encountered in a device, but I could see using the video option.

There’s also game integration and location based services. You’ll get notifications about any games that you’re playing, and tapping them will take you to either the game’s full app if you have it installed (i.e. Words with Friends) or to an HTML 5 version of the game. With Location based services, you can bring up a map that will display your friends’ most recent check-in locations.

I do have minor annoyances about the app. First being, there’s no way to add or remove the designation of “Top Story” to items in your news feed. This was one of the most talked about changes to the Facebook news feed. It relies on people’s ability to ‘teach’ Facebook what news feed items are important to users and which aren’t. The fact that this much waited for app doesn’t integrate this feature is strange. Also, I want to be able to edit what pages, apps, groups, etc. are shown in the sidebar. Facebook decides based on use, but sometimes they get it wrong and it gets annoying.

At the end of the day, these minor flaws don’t keep the official Facebook iPad app from being a huge upgrade from using the web page or a third party app. If you’re an iPad & Facebook user, this it what you’ve been waiting for. The Official Facebook app is available in the iTunes App Store right now.